1.     Introduction of restorative justice

Restorative justice is a new mediation strategy to solve conflicts between offenders, victims and community. As Daniel. W & Karen. H. S (2015) mentioned restorative justice is global. Restorative justice has been adoption in diverse cultures, economics, political systems and legal system. The application of restorative justice is very broad that shifting from crime system, school system and family. The contemporary restorative justice movement stemmed from 1970s in Canada called VORP. The basic principle for restorative justice is respect, the collaborative work, forgiveness and healing. This kind of restorative justice progresses in informal way that using dialogue to solve problem. It respects all real stakeholders involved in the crime or conflicts to overcome problem together to achieve maximum benefits for all parties. The one objective is to reduce recidivism of offenders.

2.     Why I choose the perspective of recidivism?

As one of the objective of restorative justice, recidivism can be used to measure the effectiveness of justice process. Not only be used in restorative justice, but also used to measure other justice’s effectiveness. The shift from retributive justice to restorative justice has resulted in the shift of the effectiveness of preventing recidivism. And I want to figure out how the shift of restorative justice to reduce the rate of recidivism in crime system and school system. There are interrelation between recidivism and the progress of restorative justice. Firstly, I will illustrate the causes of recidivism of ex-offenders, and what the relationship between progress of restorative justice and causes of recidivism. Then I use case study how it works in crime system and school system.

3.     Introduction of recidivism

Recidivism is the act of offenders repeat doing the unexpected behaviors after experiencing the consequences of acting wrongdoing.

-In crime system, recidivism is always measured by re admission to prison. The effect of jail sentences on recidivism is an important issue to those worried about public safety and cost-effectivenss of putting those convicted offenders into prison. In the past, the traditional crime justice attempt to reduce recidivism rates by allocating longer prison terms, or longer sentences in the interest of public safety. But what they did could not prevent recidivism effectively. According to the U.S Department of Justice (n.d) conducted the study of prisoners released in 1994, the recidivism rate of offenders like robbers, burglars, motor vehicle theieves were all above 70%.

-In school system, recidivism is conducted as re bullying, re doing violence like fighting with peers, teachers or damaging facilities of school. In the past, the problem with the armed guards, or School Resource Officers solution at each school resulted in the high recidivism rate in school violence. As a result, the 1990s had more juvenile arrests in America than America’s entire history before 1990 (Ken. J, 2013).

4. The shift from ineffectiveness to effectiveness recidivism prevention by using restorative justice

Outcome study based: According to the meta-analysis of juvenile offender recidivism by William B., David. & Mark (2006), participation in victim offender mediation accounted for a 34 percent reduction in juvenile recidivism, which is more effective to reduce recidivism than that of without using restorative justice approach. Another research done by Jeff. L, Craig. D & Danielle. M (2005), restorative justice programs, on average, yielded reductions in recidivism compared to non-restorative approaches to criminal behavior. The outcome represented the behavior of ex-offenders were positive. It also found that offenders in the treatment groups were significantly more successful during the follow-up periods.

5.     Recidivism reduction and shift from retributive justice to restorative justice

The change of recidivism is affected by the integration of change in the element of progress of justice process.

5.1 Retributive justice

In the past practice of contemporary criminal justice, one a crime is reported, the victim and members of the community have minimal roles. They more likely participated as witnesses during the whole practice.

The offender takes little part in the proceedings and he or she is reduced to the passive participant. The only active participants are generally professionals who have only professional connections to the crime make virtually all the decisions and take all the actions. In crime system, the professionals can be judge, defense attorneys and prosecution. In school system, the professionals can be the president or Security Officer.

The effect 1: Distrust the decision of justice

The vague information in the process of judgment will result in that offenders think the sentence is not fair enough to them. It is easy to contribute to the sense of unfairness and increase the tendency to participate in the recidivism. As Dandurand and Griffiths (2006) said that the factor to reduce re-offending one is getting the agreement by genuine consensus, the lack of participation in the justice process cannot convince the offender produce the commitment to the result of sentence.

The effect 2:  No sense of obligation for victim

There is no interaction between offenders and victims will result in the no guilt or remorse to the harm to the victim. As Roger. G (2000) mentioned in contemporary criminal justice system, serious punishment makes the legal system mindful of protecting the rights of the convicted persons. So such accused people desire to reduce their sentence, rather than out of remorse and a desire to do some restitution to repay their wrongdoing. Offenders cannot realize the responsibility or obligation to the victim.

The effect 3: The loneliness and less sense of respect

Recidivism measure the long term matter that offenders need to re-entry the society and community. Community members always have direct or indirect relationship with offender. Once offenders released from prison or suspended by school, people will misunderstand the offenders that forming the firm perception that offenders are dangerous person who will do some harmful thing to affect the safety of community. At this moment, offenders face the obstacle of immediate discrimination by society, and this is often compounded for ethnic minorities (Daniel. W, & Karen. H. S, 2015) will lose the sense of safety and respect which forces them distrusting society and re-offending.

5.2 Restorative justice

Currently, the implementation of restorative justice encourages all parties participate in the meeting and making decision together. The participants are all very stake in the particular criminal justice interventions.

Analysis using by collaborative theory

The effect 1: Objective judgment for offenders

Using restorative justice, it provides opportunity for direct and active involvement of each party in the procedures that follow a crime. Just like Pixar’s operating principles, one is everyone in the team has freedom to talk, another one the environment should be safe for everyone to offer ideas. And the last one keeping close to innovation happening in the academic community (Ed,September 2008). In the element of restorative justice, triple parties can share the information freely to others that what they know about the crime to make the information comprehensively and detailed. The safe environment provided by restorative justice like circle to make offenders and victim to provide their feelings and opinions openly. On the other hand, the participants from community can also offer their opinion in more objective way to broaden the horizon of the incident of crime. It is beneficial to restore the scene of incident and make the fair decision to offenders and victims. At that time, offenders can understand the restitution of the decision and implement the restitution voluntarily. And then, it contributes to reduce the possibility of offenders’ recidivism.

As analysed by the defiance theory (Sherman, 1993), offenders observe that victim as having a legitimate stake in deciding the form of justice that an offender should receive. They do not trust the decision only made by professionals who were indirectly harmed by the offender.  Mentioned by Robert. F. H (September, 2006), level of communication affect the person to decide whether trust or not. In restorative justice judgment process, the climate of meeting is to make decision by “doing with offenders” and openly rather than “doing to offenders”, the emotional connection between organizer, victim and offenders in restorative justice program lead to offender to trust the outcome of justice the offenders need to receive.

The effect 2: Empathy for victim using persuasion approach

By open and honest communication environment, the victim involves the progress of restorative justice by talking their true feeling after harmed. The important principle of persuasion is to make consistency between offender and victim and let offender alter his or her role in victims to feel the harm of misbehavior done by offenders themselves. Good turns are one reliable way to make people feel obligated to you (Robert. B. C, October, 2001). Using the theory of empathy, offender empathy for a victim’s suffering creates an aversive association with the idea of hurting anyone (Strang, 2002). Thus, it is effective for restorative justice decrease the recidivism.

The effect 3: The identity of offenders

In the process of restorative justice program, community plays an important role. As Nancy. R. (2007) illustrated that participation of community is benefitual for offenders to reintegrate into community. In the period of meeting, community members allow to reflect their neighborhood’s values and norms. Community members clearly declare the how offenders should do in the future to re entry to the community to build relationship and what the skills offenders should facilitated to get along well with community members. After the release from prison or accepting reparation, offenders’ reintegration relies on having community members clearly understand that their role in the reparation process is not to punish offenders but rather to assist in the reintegration process (Crawford, 2004; Karp & Drakulich, 2004). Offenders need to get the respect from community members to live in the society. Since reintegrative shaming (Braithwaite, 1989) shown that if offender conducts apology and atonement, it offers a path to affirming an offender’s identity as a full member of a community of law-abiding people, rather than law breaking. Offenders can get the sense of safety to survive in the society. It gives offenders more respect and sense of trust when they released from the prison or relative restitution. During the justice, giving opportunity to offenders to deliberate the decision forces offenders have the sense of belonging to the community and make the commitment to the meeting. It shows the procedural justice that restorative justice can reduce recidivism by treating offenders with greater respect and giving them more opportunity to participate in the deliberations about the nature of the justice (Tyler, 1990).

6.     Case study evaluation

To be more vivid to analyse how restorative justice influences recidivism. The following two kinds of case study in terms of crime system and school system to illustrate the value of restorative justice to reduce recidivism. School system case is based on traditional justice process, and the crime system case is based on restorative justice process. The full stories are shown in Appendix.

6.1  School system in the perspective of traditional criminal justice

In the school system, the zero tolerance policy implemented to punish students without any compromise in the judge process. In the case, the zero tolerance can be shown as students who fought with others, they were suspended for five days without any concession. If students were late for class five minutes, they got detention. The more tough regulation was that students who could not show would be sent to Saturday School. What is more, they would be suspended if they could not show to Saturday school. In terms of pathos, students who were offenders cannot argue for any reason. The disempowerment in the process lead to students tended to be passive and less commitment to the decision decided by the security officers because traditional justice satisfy the appearance of justice that it wants to protect the authority of the regulation, rather than human rights (Zvi. D. G, 2005). Since students did not meet with victims to offer their feelings and opinions they would think suspensions would not be fair to them and less agreement with the decision also. In terms of logos, in this case, the message of “suspensions tell a person: ‘I do not want you here’” told offenders the negative message that the strictness of the regulations. Thus, offender could not feel any fairness of the result. The less energy, engagement and exploration in the case, there is no effective teamwork in dealing with problem in more fair and effective way (Andy, Chroatic, 2012). The consequence would be offenders repeated offending, and the victim could not be healed and community could not build up the relationship with the problem student. The integration of isolation from community, the less empathy, less responsibility for the consequences they created and the less sense of fairness for the decision forces them redo the wrong behavior.

6.2 Crime system in the perspective of restorative justice (Integrative analysis using collaborative theory)

The high commitment among Eric, his parents and Paul to maximize the result of judging make them trust each other and offer their opinions and feeling freely because they have same interest to make the deal. With credibility established in the meeting, persuasion becomes matter of presenting evidence. The photography and clear number of the misbehaver which is firing the bridge give the clear evidence to Eric and use smooth language to make sure Eric understand the degree of harm he caused to his parents, the community and to himself. On the other hand, his mother’s words in the meeting was very powerful and genuine shocked Eric that he had previously hand no idea of the hurt and upset he had caused his parents. The evidence can be shown by Jay (1998) the use of language paints a vivid word picture and, in doing so, lends a compelling and tangible quality to the persuader’s point of view.

The mediator let Eric to described what happened at that night to motivate Eric to talk in the meeting actively. This leads to community to improve the identification-base trust that they understand, agree with Eric that he did not meant to fire the bridge because identification-based trust based on the emotional connection (Leigh, 2009). For long term consideration, after the work with Youth Offending Office, Eric could still get the community identity in the community and less sense of isolation or discrimination.

The help of Eric’s parent to make Eric understand the complicated words and the mediator helps to explain the process of meeting to help Eric to gain a better understanding of the impact his behavior on other people. Therefore, it helps to improve the trustworthy of the decision and make Eric produce the commitment to the decision and feel regret for the harm sincerely. The active communication between Eric and Paul prior the meeting and after the meeting which illustrates the connecting emotional relationship which can build up relationship and feel empathy with each other and solve the problem in consensus.

7.     The challenge of restorative justice

In other words, although restorative justice programs may yield reductions in recidivism compared to more traditional criminal justice responses to crime, they did not have nearly as strong an impact on reoffending as psychologically informed treatment. (Jeff, 2005)

In the future, in order to improve the effectinvess of restorative justice in terms of reducing recidivism, the relative council will provide more broaden service to treat re-offenders to heal their mental health. The treatment from consultants in terms of religion, belief, and spirit can facilitate the metal health of offenders. By doing so, it can assist to reduce recidivism in the long run.

8.     Conclusion

Restorative justice pattern illustrates the human caring and democracy to offenders. The primary cause of recidivism is always the misorder at the level of metal health that offenders are short of sense of trust, safety and respect. Restorative justice is helpful to reduce the recidivism by caring the psychological conditions and social mentality of building relationship in the process of justice like the mutual interactions, the suitable usage of language and the warm environment of the meeting.

9.     Reference

Braithwaite, J. (1989) Crime, Shame & Reintegration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bradshaw. W, D. R, (2006). ‘The effect of victim offender mediation on juvenile offender recidivism: A meta-analysis’. Conflict Resolution Quarterly 24(1): 87-98.

Catmull. E. (September, 2008). ‘How Pixar fosters collective creativity’. Harvard Business Review. Pp65-72.

Cialdini. R. B (October, 2001). ‘Harnessing the science of persuasion’. Harvard Business Review. Pp72-79.

Conger. J. A (1998). ‘The necessary art of persuasion’. Hardvard Business Review. Pp86-95

Dandurand, Y. & Griffiths, C.T. (2006). Handbook on restorative justice programmes. New York: United Nations.

Gilmore. A, (April, 2012). ‘The new science of building great teams’. Harvard Business Review. Pp61-70.

Gabbay. Z. D (2005). ‘Justifying restorative justice: A theoretical justification for the use of restorative justice practices’, Journal of Dispute Resolution, 2, 349-397.

Graef. R. (2000). Why Restorative Justice: Repairing the harm caused by crime. Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, London.

Hurley. R. F. (September, 2006). ‘The decision to trust’. Harvard Business Review. Pp55-62.

Johnson. K. (August, 2013). ‘A collaborative justice approach to bad behavior in Tennessee schools’. Mediate.com. Retrieved from http://www.mediate.com/articles/JohnsonK1.cfm

Karp, D., & Drakulich, K. M. (2004). ‘Minor crime in a quaint setting: Practices, outcomes,

and limits of Vermont reparative probation boards’. Criminology & Public Policy, 3(4),

655-686.

Latimer. J, D. C. (2005, June). ‘The effectiveness of restorative justice practices: a mete-analysis’. The Prison Journal, 85(2), 127-144.

Ness. D. W. V., & Strong. K.H (2015). Restoring Justice: an Introduction to Restorative Justice. USA: Anderson Publishing

Rodriguez. N. (July, 2007). ‘Restorative justice at work: Examining the impact of restorative justice resolutions on juvenile recidivism’. Crime & Delinquency. 53(3). Pp355-379.

Sherman, L. (1993) ‘Defiance, Deterrence and Irrelevance: A Theory of the Criminal

Sanction’, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 30, pp.445–73.

Tyler, T. (1990) Why People Obey the Law. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Thompson. L. L (2009). The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator.

USLEGAL.com. (n.d). ‘Recidivism law & legal definition’, USLEGAL.com. Retrieved from http://definitions.uslegal.com/r/recidivism/

10.  Appendix

Case study 1: School system case study

Darryl Robinson, the head of security at Richmond High School, kicked off a no-nonsense approach to restoring order. Students who fought with others, they were suspended for five days without any concession. If students were late for class five minutes, they got detention. The more tough regulation was that students who could not show would be sent to Saturday School. What is more, they would be suspended if they could not show to Saturday school. The result showed that the school enrolled by approximately 1900 students, 700 students was suspended. During the tenure of Robinson, fights broke out nonstop. The problem of school violence was still serious and there was tendency of aggravating. He said: “The kids come back, and I guarantee whatever they did will happen again.”

The case study 2: Criminal damage: burnt bridges?

Background

Eric is a bright boy and work hard student in school. His goal is to get HD for the GCSE.

The story happeded at Christmas 2001. Eric, a 15 year old boy with his friends goes to their normal meeting place- a den in a hollowed out thorn bush. As normally, they brought some tools. But at that night, Eric had argument with one of his friend and ran away with a saw to a bridge. At that time, he decided to saw bits of wood off the wood bridge to build a fire to keep warm. After one hour, he calmed down and then went home. Unfortunately, the witness called the police and Eric was arrested because he committed arson. As he had previously received a Final Warning, the matter was referred to Court. 

Eric received a three month Action Plan Order for a criminal damage offence and then went to the Youth Offending Team. While preparing the Pre-Sentence Report, local council who owned bridge agreed to attend the Restorative Justice conference to help Eric understand the degree of his actions and give some opportunity to him to repair the wrongdoing he did. Considering the unwell condition of Eric’s father, only his mother would attend the conference. The mediator meet with Eric and his mother in advance to make them clear about the process of restorative conference and answer questions what they have. And the mediator also told the process of meeting to Paul, who was council’s representative.

The meeting

Paul shook Robin’s hand and spoke to Robin’s mom who looked like nervous before the start of meeting, held in the Youth Offending Team office. After introduction, the mediator asked Eric to tell what exactly happened on the evening. Meanwhile, Eric showed his confusion about effects on others. Then Paul demonstrated the evidence-the photograph of damaged which worth £2,500 bridge and illustrated the effect on others, which resulting in local farmer lost cattle. After that, Betty showed her shock and upset and produced 2 pieces of paper prepared by her and Eric’s father. Obviously, the words were genuine and made every attendant moving, especially for Eric. Eric’s parents presented the high commitment of helping Eric to make positive change. Eric wrote the apologized letter to relative people including the farmer. And the leader of council showed his remorse. Eric also apologized to his mother in the meeting.

Post meeting

Eric had finished working with the Youth Offending Team and was making good progress in his life, studying hard continually and took some part time job to repay the fine his parents received.  Finally, there had been no further offending.