Collective efficacy and restorative justice as a crime prevention strategy

1. Collective efficacy and restorative justice as a crime prevention strategy Frederick P. Roth, PhD. Department of Sociology and Anthropology Marshall University Huntington, WV

2. Restorative Justice Principles • 1.) Crime is fundamentally about harm. Therefore, justice requires healing or repair of all parties involved. • 2.) Healing or repair cannot be achieved in the absence of input from those most affected by crime. Victims, offenders, and community members must be provided with opportunities for input and participation in the justice process as early and as often as possible. • 3.) Repairing harm requires that the formal justice system relinquish its role and move toward a more facilitative one, based on problem solving and capacity building.

3. Definition of a Restorative Justice Program • “A restorative justice program is a program that provides forums where certain individuals charged with or petitioned for having committed an offense meet with the victim, if appropriate; the victim’s family members or other supportive persons, if appropriate; the offender’s family members or other supportive persons, if appropriate; a law enforcement official or prosecutor when appropriate; other criminal justice professionals when appropriate; and members of the community in order to (1) discuss the impact of the offense on the victim and the community; (2) provide support to the victim and methods for reintegrating the victim into community life; (3) assign an appropriate sanction to the offender; and (4) provide methods for reintegrating the offender into community life.” Source: State of Minnesota, M.S. 611A. 775

4. Current Criminal Justice Process Community interests Offender interests Victim interests

5. Restorative Justice Process Community Victim Offender

6. Victim-Offender Mediation (VOM)

7. Family-Group Conferencing (FGC)

8. Circle Sentencing (CS)

9. Community Reparative Boards (CRB)

10. “The agreement reached by the group was fair to me.” Source: Minnesota Department of Corrections (August 2008). Restorative Justice Program Evaluation, Fiscal Years 2004-2007.

11. “The agreement reached by the group was fair to the offender/victim/all parties.” Source: Minnesota Department of Corrections (August 2008). Restorative Justice Program Evaluation, Fiscal Years 2004-2007.

12. “Overall, how satisfied are you with the outcome of the circle/panel/conference process?” Source: Minnesota Department of Corrections (August 2008). Restorative Justice Program Evaluation, Fiscal Years 2004-2007.

13. “Do you feel that the offender/all parties fulfilled their obligations as stated in the agreement?” Source: Minnesota Department of Corrections (August 2008). Restorative Justice Program Evaluation, Fiscal Years 2004-2007.

14. “Would you recommend this program to other people in your community who have experienced this type of crime/are in your position/are in your community?” Source: Minnesota Department of Corrections (August 2008). Restorative Justice Program Evaluation, Fiscal Years 2004-2007.

15. Re-arrest Rates at 6 and 12 Months Note: A p Value of ≤ indicates that chi-square is statistically significant meaning that the difference between the treatment and control groups was greater than that expected to be produced by chance. * The smaller sample size reflect the fact that at the time of the analysis, Not all of the study group youth had reached the 6- and 12- month followup stages. Source: McGarrell, Edmund F. (2001). Restorative Justice Conferences as an Early Response to Young Offenders. Juvenile Justice Bulletin (August). Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (U.S. Department of Justice)

16. Restorative Justice Process Community Victim Offender

17. Models and Objectives in Restorative Conferencing Key: HI- Highly Important SI- Somewhat Important I- Important NA- Not Applicable Source: Adapted From Bazemore G.(1997). The “community” in community justice. Justice System Journal 19 (2):193-228

18. Collective Efficacy: Defined • “The mutual trust among neighbors combined with the willingness to intervene on behalf of the common good, specifically to supervise children and maintain public order.” Source: Sampson, Robert J., Steven W. Raudenbush and Felton Earls (1997). “Neighborhoods and violent crime: a multilevel study of collective efficacy.” Science 277:1-7

19. Collective Efficacy: A Model 1.) Trust and Cohesion: A community’s collective efficacy exists relative to its specific task of maintaining public order: shared expectations and mutual engagement by residents helps to construct neighborhood social control. 2.) Strong Ties: Connections to multiple and various others constructs strong reciprocal linkages (e.g., friends, relatives, neighbors) 3.) Weak Ties: Multiple, diverse, dense, social networks that communities draw upon for resources and information (e.g., schools, workplace, community organizations) 4.) Organizational Capacity: An institutional component which includes the resource stock of community organizations and their links with other organizations and with residents.

20. Restorative Justice is based on a simple truth: a harm to one is a harm to all.