Principles of Restorative Justice The 4 th Annual Child Placement Conference

1. Principles of Restorative Justice The 4th Annual Child Placement Conference Partnerships for Children and Families: Building Interagency Alliances Presented by: Dee Bell, Project Administrator, Balanced and Restorative Justice Project, Community Justice Institute, Florida Atlantic University, Ft. Lauderdale, FL

2. Offender Community Protection Community Victim Competency Development Accountability Justice System

3. A question? • What is Peace?

4. Another Question? • What is justice?

5. Who committed the act and is it a crime? What laws were broken/what actions must be taken? How will we punish the offender and protect the victim? Current System Questions?

6. Restorative Justice is a process whereby the parties with a stake in a particular offense come together to resolve collectively how to deal with the aftermath of the offense and its implications for the future.” Tony Marshall What is Restorative Justice?

7. Victims- those who were harmed Offenders- those who caused harm Community- the place where the harm was committed We call the parties- the stakeholders Who are the parties?

8. Is not a program. Is a mission or philosophical framework. Is a different way of responding to crimeand/or harm in families, communities and systems especially the criminal justice system. Restorative Justice:

9. Crime is harm. Justice should be healing.

10. Crime Is More Than Lawbreaking • Crime HARMS: • Victims, • Communities, • and Offenders. It also damages relationships.

11. Mutually Exclusive Interests Offender Interests Victim Interests Community Interests

12. Finding Common Ground Offender Victim Community

13. If crime is more than lawbreaking, then: Justice requires that we work to heal victims, communities, and offenders who have been injured by crime. Van Ness Principles

14. If crime is more than lawbreaking, then: Victims, communities and offenders should have opportunities for active involvement in the justice process as early and as fully as possible. Principle 2

15. If crime is more than lawbreaking, then: We must re-think the relative roles and responsibilities of the government and the community. Government is responsible for preserving a just order and the community for establishing a just peace. Principle 3

16. Repairing Harm Stakeholder Involvement Community and Government Role Transformation

17. What is the harm? What needs to be done to repair the harm? Who is responsible for the repair? Zehr’s Questions?

18. What is a “Balance?” Balance is NOT: An equal focus on punishment and treatment.

19. Balancing Stakeholder Needs Restorative Justice Stakeholders Victim and family/support group Offender and family/support group Community Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Systems

20. Principle 1 - REPAIR Justice requires that we work to heal victims, communities, and offenders who have been injured by crime. THREE RJ PRINCIPLES

21. Defining “REPAIR” • Three dimensions: • Fixing What Is Broken/Damaged – Compensating Those Harmed • Reintegration of Victim and Offender with Community • Relationship Building • - Connections made or strengthened between victim/offender/community

22. REPAIR AND VICTIM NEEDS

23. “ Victims frequently want longer time for offenders because we haven’t given them anything else. Or because we don’t ask, we don’t know what they want. So [the system] gives them door Number One or Two, when what they really want is behind Door Number 3 or 4.”~ Mary Achilles

24. REPAIR AND OFFENDER NEEDS

25. Restorative Accountability Definition: The obligation of the offender to “make it right” with victims and victimized communities.

26. Accountability is NOT: • Punishment • Being responsible to the juvenile justice system or juvenile justice professionals

27. Restorative Accountability “How Do We Know It When We See It?” The sanctioning process produces accountability when it ensures that: Offenders take responsibility for the crime and understand the hurt caused to the victim.

28. Restorative Accountability “How Do We Know It When We See It?” Offenders take action to make amends to the victim by restoring the loss. Victims and communities have an active role in the sanctioning process by recommending obligations and by monitoring, mentoring, and supporting compliance.

29. Restorative Accountability “How Do We Know It When We See It?” Communities support offenders who earn it by taking responsibility for completing obligations. All stakeholders and the system place emphasis on the wrong done and the obligation to make it right.

30. REPAIR AND COMMUNITY NEEDS

31. “…communities should not measure the success of any…community based initiative upon what happens to the offender… (Rather, they should measure)…the impact of community based initiatives on victims, strengthening families, building connections within the community, on enforcing community values, on mobilizing community action to make the community safer…” ~ Judge Barry Stuart

32. Reconnecting… Crime weakens relationships Offender Victim Community Victim Community Offender Restorative justice reconnects

33. How Do You Repair The Harm?

34. Asking Different Questions • What is the harm? • What needs to be done to repair the harm? • Who is responsible for this repair?

35. Principle 2 - Involvement Victims, communities and offenders should have opportunities for active involvement in the justice process as early and as fully as possible. THREE RJ PRINCIPLES

36. Restorative Justice Conferencing Models Increasing Stakeholder Decisionmaking Inputs: • Family Group Conferencing • Reparative or Accountability Boards • Sentencing and Peacemaking Circles • Victim Offender Dialogue (Mediation) • Community Conferencing • Merchant Accountability Boards

37. Restorative Justice Theories-in-use Interpersonal Dialogue • Empowering and giving “voice” to victims and other Stakeholders • Gaining information and reassurance • Apology and acknowledgement of harm and wrongdoing • Human connection • Expression of feeling/emotions – process over outcome

38. Principle 3 –Changing Community/ System Roles & Relationships We must re-think the relative role and responsibilities of the government and the community. Government is responsible for preserving order. The community is responsible for establishing peace. THREE RJ PRINCIPLES

39. “Why Community?”

40. “Crime (control and prevention) should never be the sole, or even primary business of the State if real differences are sought in the well being of individuals, families and communities. The structure, procedures, and evidentiary rules of the formal criminal justice process coupled with most justice officials’ lack of knowledge and connection to (the parties) effected by crime, preclude the state from acting alone to achieve transformative changes.” ~ Judge Barry Stuart

41. “Children grow up in communities, not programs. Development is most strongly influence by those with the most intensive, long-term contact with children and youth – family, informal networks, community organizations, churches, synagogues, temple, mosques and schools. Development is not achieved only through services, but also through supports, networks and opportunities.

42. “if you are dealing with people whose relationships have been built on power and abuse, you must actually show them, then give them the experience of, relationships based on respect…[so]…the healing process must involve a healthy group of people, as opposed to single therapists. A single therapist cannot, by definition, do more than talk about healthy relationships.”

43. What IS “Community”? • Geographically defined units (cities, towns) • Families and extended families • Religious congregations • Schools and colleges • Workplace • Union locals • Clubs, lodges, hobby groups • Professional groups • Political groups or parties • Voluntary groups, e.g., youth service organizations • Neighborhoods From: John Gardner, On Leadership

44. “Why is the Community Role Important Now?”

45. (Formal justice system procedures) “deprive people of opportunities to practice skills of apology and forgiveness, or reconciliation, restitution, and reparation . . . The modern state appears to have deprived civil society of opportunities to learn important political and social skills. ~ David Moore

46. Three Objectives: Values Clarification Norm Affirmation Citizens increase skills in repairing harm, informal social control, and social support Defining Community Building

47. Participation denied breeds apathy. Apathy breeds suspicion. Suspicion breeds cynicism. Cynicism prevails.

48. Conversely, Participation builds investment.Investment builds a sense of ownership. A sense of ownership builds a sense of personal responsibility.A sense of personal responsibility for thewell-being of the community prevails.

49. What can we do to build a sense of community and prevent crime from happening in the first place? When a community member violates the trust of another, the peace of the community is broken. What can we do to restore the victim, the community, and the offender’s place in the community? Community Justice Core Questions

50. “Community Justice”… All variants of crime prevention and justice activities that explicitly include the community in their processes and set the enhancement of community quality of like as an explicit goal. Community justice is rooted in the actions that citizens, community organizations, and the criminal justice system can take to control crime and social disorder.