Restorative Justice and Minorities

The over-representation of minorities in the criminal justice system is a well-known and apparently intractable problem. It reflects larger societal problems in dealing with race and class. How does restorative justice contribute to the problem or to a solution? These articles consider this critical issue.

Can restorative justice help balance the scales for African-American youth?

from the article by Rebecca M. Stone in the Miami Herald: Darryl is a 12-year-old African American boy whose mother, Ariel, is a single parent. Ariel left high school after becoming pregnant with Darryl and has struggled to find anything but minimum wage jobs to support her family. One day when he was out with another friend, Darryl and his friend snuck into the neighbor's house and stole a video game. The neighbors called the police. One might conclude that the future does not bode well for Darryl. In fact, we probably would not be surprised if we were to learn later on that he was in prison. However, there is much more to his story, and much to learn from it. The police response ultimately resulted in a restorative intervention and provided Darryl with an alternative approach.

Our justice system requires us to punish wrongdoers, what if there were a better way?

from the entry by Mikhail Lyubansky on race-talk: For those of us living in the United States, “doing justice” is mostly synonymous with administering punishment. We may not literally follow the Biblical edict of “an eye for an eye”, but most of us still believe that “the punishment must fit the crime”. Indeed, many of us would be hard pressed to even come up with an alternative justice system. Yet alternatives abound in the form of restorative justice.

Restorative Justice: Where are we now and where are we going? Getting real.

With the March 3 release of One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections in the wake of our current economic woes, many of those who work in our community's trenches are relishing the bittersweet moment as we utter, “I told you so”. Thirty years of struggling to control the impacts of rapid social migration, challenges to family structures, and the media's overriding influence, our nation has supported increasingly invasive punishments or wildly permissive privileges and excuses. And it should come as no surprise that the punishments have been disproportionately visited upon our most challenged populations.

Restorative Justice: Where are we now and where are we going? Getting real.

from Christa Pierpont's article reprinted with permission from Restorative and Criminal Justice News and the Association for Conflict Resolution, www.ACRnet.org: With the March 3 release of One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections in the wake of our current economic woes, many of those who work in our community's trenches are relishing the bittersweet moment as we utter, “I told you so”. Thirty years of struggling to control the impacts of rapid social migration, challenges to family structures, and the media's overriding influence, our nation has supported increasingly invasive punishments or wildly permissive privileges and excuses. And it should come as no surprise that the punishments have been disproportionately visited upon our most challenged populations. As we look at the potential inherent in restorative justice to bring people to their senses in actively responsible ways—will this be done while also taking the time to address the structural harms we've incurred through unprecedented levels of social exclusion? Social exclusions that begin at pre-school, follow up through failure to graduate from school with marketable skills, into our courts and prisons, then aggravated by the continual lack of support for re-entry strategies that bring people back into the community prepared to support themselves and others in meaningful ways. While across town in an up-scale neighborhood another person undermines their colleagues' ability to support themselves and their family but is not held to account because they can afford to get away with it. Our current investment in justice leaves many of us cynical and frustrated. We are weary of adding new layers of unfunded mandates and increasing penalties to increase our neighbor's chances of having their daily lives better protected. A recent statement at our state's General Assembly session brought waves of self-conscious laughter when one representative commented that they were not aware that there were any misdemeanors left but they were all now classified as felonies.

Community justice: Not to you or for you, but with you

by Christa Pierpont. The “magic” of restorative practices comes from a principled belief that when there is a breach in relationships, people can re-story their lives (often in gifted ways), given an active and supported responsibility to do so. It is clear from the research report, Restorative Justice: The Evidence, (Lawrence W. Sherman and Heather Strang, Smith Institute, 2007) that individuals can transcend large and small wrongs in a highly satisfactory way with improved long-term consequences when restorative practices are used. Our next question was: Could this opportunity be expanded from individuals to a wider sense of cultural harms?

Community justice: Not to you or for you, but with you

by Christa Pierpont. This is a selection of an article from a special online complement to the Summer 2008 issue of ACResolution, Vol 7, Issue 4. The Association for Conflict Resolution has given permission for it to be used on RJOnline. The complete article is attached. The “magic” of restorative practices comes from a principled belief that when there is a breach in relationships, people can re-story their lives (often in gifted ways), given an active and supported responsibility to do so. It is clear from the research report, Restorative Justice: The Evidence, (Lawrence W. Sherman and Heather Strang, Smith Institute, 2007) that individuals can transcend large and small wrongs in a highly satisfactory way with improved long-term consequences when restorative practices are used. Our next question was: Could this opportunity be expanded from individuals to a wider sense of cultural harms? In particular, could restorative processes begin to address underlying racial anger and fears in our region without exacerbating negative economic realities? These questions grew out of dynamics we were discovering as we explored the history of public school education in Virginia. When the RCF studied school disciplinary statistics for public schools, we found a significantly higher rate of disciplinary action for low-income and minority youth. Efforts are now being made to reduce out-of-classroom placements and to transition to more restorative disciplinary practices, but it will take decades and funding to re-build skills for individuals who have given up on the public school system.

Is there a role for restorative justice in addressing public education issues in Mississippi?

from the syllabus: This is in an interdisciplinary seminar, which will be conducted over the course of two semesters, and open to undergraduate honors students, law and graduate students. After a brief introduction into the concept of restorative justice, the first semester will be devoted to the study of existing data and research into other sources in order to gain a full understanding of the history of public education in Mississippi, with emphasis on how the issue of race has informed educational policy and the status of education in Mississippi today. The second semester will consider potential remedies from a perspective of restorative justice.

Harvard scholar versus Cambridge police

by Lisa Rea Most of us have heard all about the police incident in Cambridge, Massachusetts, home of Harvard Square. A Harvard scholar by the name of Henry Louis Gates was arrested at his home after a neighbor called the police concerned someone was breaking into the house. This occurred at 12:30pm after Gates had just returned to his home from an international flight to China.

South Africa's whites and restorative justice

We hear a lot in the news about racial conflict, and a lot less about racial reconciliation. But from South Africa to South Central Los Angeles, there are communities engaging in what experts call “restorative justice" to resolve the wrongs of the past and present.

Dan Van Ness: Restorative justice and the problem of minority over-representation

Over-representation of minorities in the criminal justice system is a problem around the world. It raises questions about the fairness of the justice system itself and of how larger social justice problems influence the justice system.

Tauri, Juan Marcellus and Walters, Reece and Bradley, Trevor and Tauri, Juan Marcellus. Demythologising Youth Justice in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

This article presents a critique of current juvenile justice policy in New Zealand, which has been widely lauded as offering the first example of restorative justice practices. The Children, Young Person’s and their Families Act 1989 introduced a new paradigm for youth justice, one that incorporated the first elements of restorative justice practices. Despite the intentions of the 1989 Act, the authors show how the reforms, and in particular the family group conferences (FGC) process, does not empower ethnic minorities but instead simply uses selective elements of the Maori culture in an effort to make the juvenile justice system appear more culturally appropriate. Victims rarely report feeling empowered by the restorative practices and the Maori people have complained that although some of their justice and restorative practices were co-opted, they are still not allowed any actual power over their juvenile offenders. The authors note that in order to be a truly restorative system, the New Zealand model must enhance participants’ ability to exercise control over the course of juvenile justice. The 1989 Act attempted to respond to the criticism that New Zealand’s juvenile justice completely eschewed the traditions and beliefs of the Maori and other ethnic minorities. In the face of growing demands for an entirely separate system of justice for the Maori, the government developed the Children, Young Person’s and their Families Act 1989, which provided a more culturally appropriate juvenile justice system that also sought to de-dramatize the issue of youth crime. The new juvenile justice paradigm included an information and formal warning system, a diversionary plan, and, perhaps most importantly, FGC. Advocates of the new paradigm lauded the culturally sensitive nature of the reforms and pointed to the restorative properties of the FGC process. The FGC process was conceived of as an empowering process for ethnic minority youth and borrowed heavily from the cultural traditions of the Maori and other ethnic minorities of the region. (National Criminal Justice Reference Service, www.ncjrs.gov).

McDonald, David and Walker, John. The Over-Representation of Indigenous People in Custody in Australia

This Trends and Issues presents some of the key facts about the high levels of imprisonment of Indigenous people in Australia and explores some of the principal reasons behind the statistics. The rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander incarceration are compared with those of non- Indigenous people in juvenile institutions, in police lockups, and in adult prisons, linking them with data on other relevant issues such as education and employment, and so mirroring a process which appears to be all too familiar to members of the Indigenous community. (excerpt)

Greene, K.J.. "Copynorms," Black Cultural Production, and the Debate Over African-American Reparations

An article contrasting the music industry's stance against piracy of intellectual property with its historical agenda of denying African-American artists the fruit of their intellectual labors. The article also addresses the question of reparation with regard to this industry racism.

Føllesdal, Andreas. The Special Claims of Indigenous Minorities to Corrective Justice

Andreas Føllesdal opens this chapter with a question, "Are indigenous minorities different from other national minority groups?" That is, some people maintain that indigenous groups have more compelling claims to material resources and political autonomy than other, later groups -- even other, later minorities (often termed "national minorities"). Føllesdal supports this position, pointing to the historic control over territory of the ancestors of indigenous groups, territory that had been forcibly taken from those ancestors. Føllesdal does not deny that national minorities may have legitimate claims for justice. However, their claims are different. Indigenous minorities have more compelling and extensive claims due to the fact that their ancestors exercised historic control over particular territory or territories that were taken from them by force to the detriment of the people and their culture. Føllesdal argues all of this on the basis of a liberal contractualist view that an indigenous minority's history of prior occupation and culture should give at least some legitimacy to present claims for resources and forms of political autonomy.