Restorative Justice Midterm Prep

When was restorative justice developed?

The 1970's

What problems in the Criminal Justice system was restorative justice developed in response to?

- Lack of focus on victims, but rather what to do with offender
- Not properly holding offender accountable
- Taking into account the punishment by itself is not effective

2 Major Criticisms to CJS

1. Rights of victims were neglected
2. Abuses in prisons

Objective to promote modifications in which 3 areas for Rights of victims being neglected

1. Offering more services to victims following a crime
2. Seeking financial restitution for victims for harm done
3. Rights of victims to information and intervention during the criminal justice process

What 2 things did Abuses in prisons do as a criticism of CJS?

- ignited a movement to abolish prisons and consider other responses like offering restitution to victims, establishing local reconciliation programs
- Approach almost coincided with the civil rights movement

What are some of the movements born of this uproar?

- Informal Justice
- Indigenous Justice
- Reparative Justice

Informal Justice

Advocating for a less formal process which considers:
- Public participation
- Access to Law
- De-professionalization
- Less stigma

Indigenous Justice

Traditional Indigenous methods
- Undeniable influence on RJ theories and practices, particularly repairing harm, and processes used such as circles and conferencing

Reparative Justice

Approach where victim is paid back somehow for what they've endured. Studies in in 1970s and 80s question effectiveness

Reparative Justice is based on what reasoning?

- Victim is the person harmed
- Better alternative to prison
- Paying back victim has rehabilitive element
- Straight forward to implement
- May lead to less retribution, public will see offender making things right

Gerald Austin McHugh views on Social Justice

Stressed that the focus on sin and punishment is from medieval religious views, and advocated for other religious values such as forgiveness and reconciliation

Other scholars views on Social Justice

Argued for greater rights for victims, the right treatment of offenders, and the incorporation of feminist principles in the Criminal Justice System

What does Restorative Justice look like? (6 points)

- Focus for individual and communities examining what people needed in order for them to heal from a wrongdoing
- People who were connected through a crime (offender, victim, affected by them) began to meet
- Discussed accountability for the crime, how people have been harmed, and how to repair the harm
- Process endeavored to assist offenders in seeing the harm they caused and supporting them in repairing that harm
- Aims to engage all parties in the process, not only a few professionals
- RJ is based on good old fashioned common sense

UN Definition of Restorative Justice

RJ is a way of responding to criminal behaviour by balancing the needs of the community, the victims, and the offenders. An evolving concept that has given ride to different interpretation in different countries, one around which there is not always a perfect consensus (2006)

What did Theo Gavrielides find through his research with 40 international practitioners and researchers?

There's not a consensus on the exact meaning of Restorative Justice

Howard Zehr

Grandfather of Restorative Justice. Defines RJ in Threes

What are the three assumptions underlying RJ?

1. When people and relationships are harmed, needs are created
2. The needs created by harms lead to obligations
3. The obligation is to heal and put right the harms; this is a just response

What is a Just Response?

- Repairs the harm caused by, and revealed by, wrongdoing (restoration)
- Encourages appropriate responsibility for addressing needs and repairing the harm (accountability)
- Involves those impacted, including the community, in the resolution (engagement)

Three underlying values that provide the foundation for Restorative Justice?

1. Respect
2. Responsibility
3. Relationship

The central questions to Restorative Justice?

1. Who has been hurt
2. What are their needs
3. Who has the obligation to address the needs, to put right the harms, to restore relationships

Three Stakeholder groups that should be considered/involved in a Restorative Justice approach?

1. Those who have been harmed and their families
2. Those who have caused harm and their families
3. The relevant community

What are the three aspirations that guide restorative justice?

The desire to live in right relationship:
- With oneself
- With others
- With creation

Prison Policy paradox

Incarceration rates increasing while crime rates stay the same

What does incarceration do?

Remove people from society for a certain period of time and then replace them after the experience of confinement

How many individuals incarcerated return multiple times?

At least a third

African American Incarceration Rates?

Four times higher than their proportion of the population, and six times higher than whites

General age of first incarceration?

Mid 20s

Education and employment of those incarcerated?

Concentrated Prison Cycling
- Half didn't finish high school
- Almost a third were unemployed when incarcerated
- Most come from bad neighborhoods

What are the five levels of social impacts on public safety assessed?

- Effects on individuals that change the way people act;
- Effects on intimate relationships such as those with families and other loved ones;
- Effects on social relationships that are felt as community-level outcomes;
- Effects on institutions such as labor markets and the political economy;
- Effects on democracy or social justice

The Social Effects of Incarceration are?

1. Individual-Level Effects
2. Effects on Intimate Relationships (Families and Children)
3. Social Relationships (The Community)
4. Institutional Effects (Labor Markets and Political Economy)
5. Democracy (Social Justice)

Individual-Level Effects

Pubic safety means reducing the individuals likelihood of committing a crime

Positive effects of incarceration on Individual-Level

- most commonly understood ways incarceration that reduces the rate of a person's criminality are through incapacitation and rehabilitation

Incapacitation

occurs when a person's incarceration prevents crimes from occurring that the person would have committed

Rehabilitation

occurs when the person is changed by the prison experience so that he no longer commits crime once released from prison

Negative effects of incarceration on Individual-Level

Yes Incapacitation is thought to eliminate the crimes a person would have committed had they been free from confinement but it also eliminates the positive contributions he would have made to his community

Ambivalent effects of incarceration on Individual-Level (4 points)

- Many of the crimes a person behind bars might have been involved in were they free happen anyway, because most crimes, especially crimes related to gangs and drug markets, are committed by groups.
- Crime rates may continue along unaffected by the incarceration of a few people.
- The number of people returning to a neighborhood from prison is a direct predictor of the crime rate in that place.
- Men who have been convicted of crimes and are sent to prison may actually do worse in the community than those who were convicted of similar crimes with similar histories but are not sent to prison

Effects on Intimate Relationships (Families and Children)

public safety can be thought of as the foundation for the formation of meaningful and mutually supportive love relationships, including those required to nurture and socialize children

Positive Effects of incarceration on Intimate Relationships (Families and Children)

In the same way that incarceration may better the crime rate through incapacitation, it also removes many of the impediments to healthy relationships that may result from a person going to prison - ie, if a man abuses his family, the abuse ends once he goes to prison

Negative effects of incarceration on Intimate Relationships (Families and Children) (4 points)

- Children grieve when a parent goes to prison.
- On the average, parental incarceration is not good for kids.
- Children of incarcerated parents are more likely to be depressed, experience greater difficulty in school, and demonstrate a range of behavioral problems.
- It has shown to weaken parent-child bond, and break up families

Ambivalent impacts on Intimate Relationships (Families and Children)

Kids are freed from seeing criminal activities?? We don't know this empirically

Social Relationships Effects (The Community) (3 points)

- Collective Efficacy
- Places that have public safety are places where there is a proliferation of social participation, not isolation, and an ethic of civic involvement
- People who live in the community invest their time in these places and care about maintaining them

collective efficacy

includes a sense of civic interconnectedness and shared destiny (communities)

Positive Effects of incarceration on Social Relationships (The Community) (3 points)

- Assumption that that in places where people go to prison, there will be a greater respect for the law
- One of the underlying ideas of the Weed and Seed program is that once the criminally active people have been removed from a place, investments in those places will help them to flourish (THIS IS WRONG)
- Surprisingly few actually positive consequences for communities with high incarceration rates

What does research show in places where lots of people go to prison?

there is greater fear of crime. Proves Weed and Seed program wrong

Negative Effects of incarceration on Social Relationships (The Community) (4 points)

- High incarceration locales already suffer from weak social capital.
- Cycling men through the prison system does little to improve the level of social capital in neighborhoods.
- The combined effects of financial and emotional investments into maintaining prison ties diminishes the economic base of the family and refocuses attention that might be devoted to other aims.
- High imprisonment rates disturb social networks and use up resources that could otherwise be used to strengthen them

Institutional Effects of incarceration (Labor Markets and Political Economy)

When public safety is strong, political institutions can be vibrant and a foundation exists for an effective economic pattern to emerge

Positive effects of incarceration on Institutional Effects (Labor Markets and Political Economy)

- When crime goes down, social institutions can prosper. People engage in commerce freely, and a level of trust enables people to engage one another.
- When people see the laws being enforced, they may be more likely to see institutions as having credibility.
- EX: Incarceration, by making institutions more credible in the eyes of the public, might reduce crime

Negative effects of incarceration on Institutional Effects (Labor Markets and Political Economy) (4 Points)

- An argument can be made, however, that in impoverished neighborhoods where high incarceration rates concentrate among adult men, institutional credibility suffers.
- People who see their family members and neighbors caught up in the vicious cycle of crime control, law enforcement, and incarceration lose confidence in the law itself. They worry the State does not have their best interests in mind.
- People may feel State is not protecting them, going after their men, resulting in a lower belief in the system.
- Prison lowers earning capability

Ambivalent effects of incarceration on Institutional Effects (Labor Markets and Political Economy)

Many places from where prisoners come, the law is seen like an army more than social support, leading to people perceiving that they are under attack

Democracy (Social Justice) effects of incarceration

Pubic safety is tied to equity, social justice, and human dignity. Being safe means being able to participate freely as a citizen without fear

Positive effects of incarceration on Democracy (Social Justice)

Prisons are necessary, because without them crime would make democratic life impossible

Negative effects of incarceration on Democracy (Social Justice)

Democracy is all about citizen participation but a large number of people who have gone to prison cannot vote

Exclusion of large numbers of African American men, from voting leads to

- greater conservative party victories.
- Felon disenfranchisement laws has been a strategy in some states.

Mass incarceration is

- a mechanism of economic and social inequality
- Incarceration is thus a significant force in "structural racism"

Crime policy

There is a disconnect between prison rates and crime

What does T. Clear tell us about the crime rate and prison rate?

- Crime policy
- Crime is a consequence of imprisonment
- incarceration is not an effective crime control method, its contribution to public safety at every level is problematic

By the time of Confederation, how many penitentiaries did Canada have and what about now?

- There were 3 penitentiaries in Canada.
- Today, 53 Federal Penal Institutions
- Jails have continued to become the primary method of punishing criminals

Where is the Prison Capital of the World

The United States

US prison population just after 2000

2 million

Global prison population 2002

140 per 100,000 citizens

US prison population 2002

700 per 100,000
- which means the U.S. imprisons 1 person in 150

Canadian Prison population 2007

116 per 100,000

Who is disproportionately affected by the US mass imprisonment problem?

Young African American males

What is the incarceration rate for African American males in the US?

1 in 3

What are some contributing factors to the high incarceration rate of African American males in the US?

Economical, political, and professional opportunities

Tough on Crime

- US approach to crime.
- failed to lower the recidivism rate, yet, continues to be a popular approach for politicians

Percent of prisoners that are parole violators in the US

Approximately 40

Best programs to lower recidivism would be

- Vocational training
- Drug rehabilitation
- Education
- Halfway houses

Prisons are growing which is resulting in what?

longer sentences and return of re-offenders

prison populations show a growth in what?

young men of a visible minority, who are low-skilled, and belong to a low socio-economic class

Each year, the U.S. releases how many of their prisoners?

40%
- they have low employment options and
few social services to help them reintegrate in society

How did the NRA influence prison growth in the US?

Used their power to shift focus from gun control to prison building

What action did the NRA take in 1994 regarding prison funding?

Pushed Congress to increase allocation for new prisons from $14 billion to $21 billion

What are some key statistics about the NRA's influence?

Has 3.4 million members and a $150 million budget

How does the US's Mass media and politicians continue to scare the public about crime?

by enhancing the stories and the situation, and then offer a solution, which is: "Get Tough"

What's the truth about the assumption that African Americans commit most crime?

They along with others of low socio-economic status are victims of crime more often

How did the US get to these racist assumptions?

- In the late 1960s, the public became more concerned with crime. This was a long term strategic initiative of the Republican Party.
- Particularly in Nixon's 1968 campaign, there was focus on racial stereotype, out of control violent black men committing crime

How much is spent yearly on Criminal Justice in the US?

150 Billion
- Prison is big business
- The War on crime is making people wealthy
- From building and construction companies, Wall Street banks holding prison bonds and investing in prisons, to a range of companies offering supplies and services to prisons

Continued money going into prisons also means what?

less money for social services, healthcare and education, the lack of which leads to criminal behaviour

African Americans represent how much of the prison population?

Over half

In Canada which group is overrepresented in Prison?

First Nation Communities

Punishment

The deliberate infliction of pain on a person for the sake of attaining revenge

Who is Jean Piaget and what did they stress?

Prominent psychologist of the twentieth century who stressed Revenge is counterproductive and endless. When one person gets revenge, the person on whom revenge was taken shall seek revenge, resulting in an endless vicious cycle

What was said In regards to some of society's most violent individuals?

If punishment did inhibit or prevent violence, then these men would not have become violent in the first place, for they had already experienced the most severe punishments that it is possible to inflict on people without actually killing them

What did punishment lead to?

Prisoners getting out and punishing others and acting violently

The U.S. criminal justice system is based on what?

punishment

What is The U.S. murder rate?

5 to 10 times higher than any other nation

Violence and punishment is

contagious

Prisons stimulate what?

more violence than they prevent

What happened in The quarter century following 1972?

both U.S. imprisonment rates and murder rates increased to the highest levels ever recorded

What happened in 1970 to the late 1990s in the US?

they were constantly increasing their imprisonment rate year after year and experienced an epidemic of criminal violence

What does to murder rates being 5 to 10x higher than other nations tell us about the US?

Imprisonment does not prevent violence

What had changed by the end of the 1990s that might be able to account for beginning emergence from this epidemic of violence for the first time in thirty years?

- Unemployment rate dropped to its lowest level in 30 years
- Median wage and Minimum wage increased for the first time in 30 years
- Rates of relative poverty began to decrease for the first time in 30 years

The more severely children are punished what happens?

the more violent they become - both during childhood itself, and later, in adulthood
- The psychopath was severely rejected by his parents and in many cases brutally beaten (McCord 1956)

Harsh punishment is associated with?

high childhood aggressiveness

Freud said what about children?

"A child which has been very leniently treated can acquire a very strict conscience"

What does violence attempt to replace shame with?

Pride

What is the most important source of anger and aggression?

A violation to a person's self-esteem through insult or humiliation

What happens when people suffer an indignity?

become angry (and possibly violent)

x ---> x ---> x (What do the x's stand for?)

Shame ---> Rage ---> Violence