Multicultural Implications of Restorative Justice

1. Multicultural Implications of Restorative Justice Potential pitfalls and dangers. Based on the research by Umbreit & Coates

2. The Office of Victims Advocates • Victims decide whether or not to participate • Both victim and offender must both be treated with respect

3. Victims are granted a choice in: • Location • Timing • Structure of session • A right to stop participating at any stage in the process

4. People from different cultures & world views have different ways of: • Speaking • behaving

5. Natural cultural differences can easily lead to: • Misunderstandings • Destroy the best efforts at conflict resolution • End the hopes of restoring and repairing relationships

6. The key to progress in RJ is: • Increased sensitivity to cross-cultural issues • Dynamics that affect RJ programs

7. Often the cultural background of victim, offender and program staff member are different • Great danger can occur with overgeneralizations

8. Proximity – comfortable with standing closer together: Africans Arabs Black Americans South Americans Indonesians The French Latin Americans

9. Body Movements: • Posture • Smiling • Eye contact • Laughing • Gestures • And many others…..

10. Examples: • Asians may by puzzled or offended by a White person who smiles or grimaces • Whites may conclude that an Asian person has no emotion.

11. Eye contact • American Indians: Disrespectful to look an elder or person of authority in the eye • Blacks make more frequent eye contact when speaking than when listening • Whites tend to make eye contact when listening than when speaking

12. Paralanguage • Hesitations • Inflections • Silences • Volume • Pace of speaking

13. Silence • To American Indian culture it is valued as sacred • Each human must have the opportunity to: • Reflect • To translate into words • Shape the words

14. What silence means to others: • French = agreement • Asian = token of respect or politeness • Whites= time for them to talk

15. Volume • Asians – speak softly • Whites – founder than Asians • Arabs – prefer higher volume

16. Density of language • Blacks – sparse and concise • Asians & American Indians – will use many more words to say the same thing

17. Other defining characteristics that can have an impact • Race • Socioeconomic status • Ethnicity • Gender • Religion • Sexual orientation • Rural vs. urban residence

18. Characteristics of culturally skilled Restorative Justice Practitioners • There are a total of five • All are necessary for RJ

19. #1 • CSRJ is aware and sensitive to his or her cultural heritage • Values and respects differences in culture

20. #2 • CSRJ is aware of their own values and biases

21. #3 • CSRJ is comfortable with the differences that exist • Between themselves and clients • In terms of race & beliefs

22. #4 • CSRJ is sensitive to circumstances that may dictate referral of a minority client to a member of their own race/culture • Or to another CSRJ

23. #5 • CSRJ acknowledges and is aware of their own racist attitudes, beliefs and feelings

24. Other things to remember: • Do not make quick assumptions about others • Look at the world through the eyes of another • Listen to key informants

25. Meaningful mediation requires: • Anticipating possible problems • CSRJ may need to help other participants understand each other’s viewpoints • Communication styles • Prior to mediation session