Repositioning Restorative Justice

372 Pages·2003·7.23 MB·English

by  Lode Walgrave

Repositioning Restorative Justice

Repositioning Restorative Justice

edited by

Lode Walgrave
Published by
Willan Publishing
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Mill Street, Uffculme

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© the editor and contributors 2003

All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

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Court Road, London W1P 9HE.
First published 2003

ISBN 1-84392-016-6 (paperback)
ISBN 1-84392-017-4 (hardback)

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Printed by T.J. International, Padstow, Cornwall
Project management by Deer Park Productions, Tavistock, Devon
Typeset by GCS, Leighton Buzzard, Beds.
Contents

Introduction (Lode Walgrave) vii

Notes on contributors xiii
List of figures and tables xvii

I Discussing the principles of restorative justice 1
1 Is it time to question the concept of punishment?
Martin Wright 3

2 Restorative justice: a discussion of punishment

Jolien Willemsens 24

3 Alternative conflict resolution and restorative justice:
a discussion
Anne Lemonne 43

II Evaluating aspects of restorative practices 65

4 A survey of assessment research on mediation and

conferencing
Paul McCold 67
5 Evaluating the practice of restorative justice: the case of
family group conferencing
Nathan Harris 121

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Repositioning Restorative Justice
6 Differences in how girls and boys respond to family group
conferences: preliminary research results
Gabrielle Maxwell, Venezia Kingi, Allison Morris, Jeremy Robertson

and Tracy Anderson 136
7 Juvenile offenders’ perceptions of community service

Isabelle Delens-Ravier 149

IIIExtending the scope of restorative approaches 167
8 Researching the prospects for restorative justice practice in
schools: the ‘Life at School Survey’ 1996–9
Valerie Braithwaite, Eliza Ahmed, Brenda Morrison and

Monika Reinhart 169

9 Community mediation, criminal justice and restorative justice:
rearranging the institutions of law

John Blad 191
10 Restorative justice for adult offenders: the New Zealand
experience

Allison Morris and Gabrielle Maxwell 208

11 Restorative justice in prison?
Ottmar Hagemann 221
IVPositioning restorative justice in different countries 237
12 The possibilities for restorative justice in Serbia
Vesna Nikolic-Ristanovic 239
13 Alternative practices for juvenile justice in Flanders (Belgium):
the case for mediation

Mia Claes, Frans Spiesschaert, Catherine Van Dijk,

Inge Vanfraechem and Sigrid Van Grunderbeeck 255

14 Preparing the South African community for implementing a
new restorative child justice system
Buyi Mbambo and Ann Skelton 271

15 Positioning mediation in the criminal justice system: the Italian
‘justice of the peace’
Grazia Mannozzi 284

16 Anthropological reflections on restoring justice in Norway
Ida Hydle 296
17 Implementing family group conferences in Belgium
Inge Vanfraechem 313
18 The future of the Japanese criminal justice system
Toshio Yoshida 328
Index 339

vi
Introduction

Lode Walgrave

The boom in restorative justice
Twenty years ago, ‘restorative justice’ was a barely known notion,
indicating some isolated experiments with anecdotical significance only
and some sympathetic utopian ideas advanced by a few academics. It has
now grown to become a crucial field of renovating practices and empirical

evaluation, a central issue in theoretical and socio-ethical reflection, and an

unavoidable theme in debates on juvenile and criminal justice reform all

over the world. In most countries, restorative practices are taking their
place in the mainstream of responses to crime. International organisations
advise further exploration of the restorative track in the hope of finding

socially constructive renovating responses to crime. Restorative justice has
also become a buzz-word. Practitioners and researchers get easier funding

when they label their activities as such. Politicians refer to restorative

justice to enhance the acceptability of their plans.
Several factors and dynamics may have assisted the breakthrough of
restorative justice. Socio-cultural understreams – such as communitarian-
ism and emancipation movements of indigenous people, victims’
movements, feminist approaches to crime and criminal justice, and critical
criminology – have all inspired the development of the restorative option
in doing justice. These understreams have found fertile soil in the
increasing awareness among the public and policy-makers that the

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Repositioning Restorative Justice
traditional punitive responses to crime have ended up in a dead end, and
that they do not offer prospects of more safety and more peace in society
and communities – thus not providing relief for victims and/or reasonable

reintegration opportunities for offenders. But this recognition rests also on
the appealing potentials of the restorative approach itself. This has become

more and more obvious in recent decades, thanks to the quality and the
creativity of enlightened practitioners, the open minds of judges and
visionary policy-makers, empirical feedback, and theoretical and socio-
ethical underpinning by academics. They have all benefited enormously
from intensive and constructive interaction, which has been facilitated by
conferences and meetings.

International conferences on restorative justice

An important series of such conferences is organised by the International
network for Research on Restorative Justice for Juveniles. Since 1997, the

network has set up international conferences in Leuven (hosted by Lode

Walgrave), Fort Lauderdale (hosted by Gordon Bazemore and Mara
Schiff) and in Tübingen (hosted by Hans Jürgen Kerner and Elmar
Weitekamp). Each has brought together most of the top scholars in the
field, as well as advanced practitioners and enlightened policy-makers.
They have created an ideal forum for debate on the methodological,
empirical, theoretical, socio-ethical and juridical issues involved in
restorative justice and for their implications for practice and policy. The
conferences so far have undoubtedly initiated further scientific debates

and empirical work, have resulted in influential publications and have had

a direct impact on policy options.

The fifth conference in the series was held in Leuven, 16–19 September
2001. It registered 227 participants from 26 different countries from all
continents of the world. More than 70 papers were presented and

discussed. Though the events of 11 September necessitated the forced
absence of some prominent scholars (which was more than deplorable),
the meeting was nevertheless a great success again, offering in a friendly

atmosphere very stimulating presentations and intensive and constructive
debate.

Why ‘repositioning restorative justice?’

The theme of the conference, ‘repositioning restorative justice’, was
inspired by both satisfaction and concern. Satisfaction, because restorative

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Introduction
justice appears to open ways of dealing with the aftermath of crime which
are more satisfactory for the victims, more constructive for communities
and society, and more reintegrative for the offenders. The feasibility of the

restorative approach clearly goes far beyond what was originally believed.
An increasing stream of empirical evidence shows significantly more

satisfaction in those victims who participated in mediation or restorative
conferencing. The offenders do understand better what they have done,
accept more easily the consequences and display a tendency towards less
reoffending. When confronted with various methods of responding, the
public’s attitude towards restorative responses is generally favourable.
Restorative responses also seem not to lead to more public danger or

disorder. On the contrary, the few indications as yet available suggest that

this shift could result in a decrease in feelings of being unsafe and an
increase in trust more generally.

But there is also reason for concern. As a buzz-word, restorative justice
is sometimes misunderstood and even misused. Paradoxically, one could
even say that the most important threat to restorative justice is the

enthusiasm with which it is being accepted. Enthusiasm leads to poorly

thought-out implementation, an overestimation of possibilities, negli-
gence of legal rights, the blurring of the concepts and confusion with
regards to the aims and limits of restorative justice.
It is therefore time to make an inventory of what has been achieved in
terms of the experience, knowledge and visions of restorative justice.
Hence the conference’s title ‘Repositioning Restorative Justice’. ‘Repo-
sitioning’ suggests a kind of self-confidence: restorative justice takes its
position in the belief it has much to offer communities which are often

imbued by a fear of crime and societies which are in need of new and

socially more constructive responses to crime. At the same time, however,

‘repositioning restorative justice’ suggests a task, a programme to be
carried out, possibly even an exercise in modesty. Restorative justice must
seek to clarify its position and to accept its limitation. So, for example,

evidence has made it clear that a restorative approach can be successfully
applied after very serious crimes, but is unclear how far it can be applied,
and how it would relate to punishment. Some consider restorative justice

as nothing more than another type of punishment, while others claim it as
a genuinely new paradigm. The underlying question is whether the
deliberate infliction of pain (the essence of punishment) is socio-ethically
intrinsically different from a possible imposition to repair, which is by its
very nature intrinsically restorative.
During the last century, rehabilitation was the predominant aim for
juvenile offenders. Pure rehabilitation, however, is now being supplemen-
ted or even replaced by a more strict, norm-enforcing approach. What are

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