Developing Restorative Practices in Latin America
With high prison populations, high crime rates, and low confidence in the judicial system, many Latin American countries are looking to restorative justice as a path of justice reform. The growing use of restorative processes is seen both at the policy and grassroots level. Lynette Parker, justice initiatives specialist for the Centre for Justice and Reconciliation at Prison Fellowship International provides this overview of the Latin American context and examples of developments in the region. The paper was originally presented at the ‘Restorative Justice in Emerging Countries’ ancillary session at the 11th United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.
Restorative practices offer new opportunities for governments and communities to address the needs of those affected by crime, while also generating opportunities for positive changes throughout society. For this reason, processes incorporating restorative values have developed in several Latin American countries. Introduced either by governments or civil society organizations, these processes attempt to resolve micro-level issues related to individual crimes, while providing opportunities for macro-level changes to address corruption, access to justice, and generalized violence.
The values of restorative justice-encounter, inclusion, amends, and reintegration- stress healing the harms caused by crime, taking responsibility for one's own actions, and working to create a more positive future for both victim and offender. Encounter allows the victim and offender to share, either directly or indirectly, their stories and to develop a means for repairing harms. Inclusion gives each participant a voice in the proceedings and outcomes. Through amends, offenders attempt to repair the harm caused by their actions. Reintegration enables both victim and offender to become contributing members of society (Van Ness and Strong 2002).
The restorative nature of a program or process is evaluated by measuring the existence of certain characteristics. Because all parties affected by a crime are included, restorative processes are balanced in scope. Voluntary as opposed to coerced participation is sought. With their problem-solving orientation, restorative practices look toward building healthier relationships in the future instead of concentrating on the punitive consequences of a past event. Combined with the values of encounter, inclusion, amends, and reintegration, these characteristics allow participants to discover the whole truth about an incident; who was responsible; how the parties perceive each other; and the impact of the crime on the victim, offender, and community. The degree to which a practice or program incorporates these characteristics and values determines its level of restorativeness.
In the last decade, several Latin American countries have developed processes and programs that have introduced restorative responses to crime to this continent. (As I will mention later, indigenous practices are often restorative in nature, and I do not mean to suggest that restorative justice represents something new in relation to those. But it is only recently that elements of the modern international movement called restorative justice have been introduced.) Among these are encounter processes that include victims and offenders in constructing solutions that emphasize reparations and that redefine the roles of state and community in addressing the needs of both victims and offenders.
For the entire text, see the attachment below.
Lynette Parker
July 2005
