From Destruction to Reconciliation

SUMMARY

Daniel Johnson discusses how the application of “restorative justice” in his own life and in the life of the victim of his criminal offense contributed to his personal regeneration and healing for his victim. Mr. Johnson challenges criminal justice policy-makers to create conditions where “restorative justice” can be employed in the broadest sense in order to do what contemporary, punitive, retributive criminal justice systems are largely incapable of doing, that is, facilitate lasting offender rehabilitation and healing for crime victims and communities, and to offer opportunities for victim-offender reconciliations.     

Restorative Justice

Abstract

One of the most popular criminal justice paradigms is restorative justice. Restorative justice is victim-centered and focuses on repairing the damage individuals and communities suffer as a result of a criminal act. Uncoerced apologies and remorse for the offending behavior and the victim are important features of restorative justice. However, the criminal justice system and the public eschew principal features of restorative justice. For example, the law coerces apology and remorse. Moreover, the courtroom has become, for the most part, a place for victims, and sometimes judges to attack, demean, ridicule, and disparage defendantsall antithetical to restorative justice. The omnipresent expectation for an offender to unilaterally accept total responsibility for the crime, apologize to the victim, and express remorse for the crime undermines the core objectives of restorative justice and obscures significant social and legal problems.     

Restorative Justice

Abstract

Restorative justice is the growing movement that aims to change the direction of criminal law by focusing it on the needs of victims and repairing communities. The focus of this article is on three restorative initiatives-family group conferencing, victim-offender mediation, and reparations. The link between social work and restorative justice is explored in each of these areas.     

The Practice and Efficacy of Restorative Justice

SUMMARY

Beginning with an exploration of the importance of understanding the power of questions, this paper examines the question, “Does it work?” regarding restorative justice as a philosophy and a set of practices based on that philosophy. The paper identifies problems in the dominant retributive philosophical paradigm for responding to crime that the philosophy of restorative justice resolves. The author describes the practices of restorative justice in criminal justice as well as other contexts and presents evidence of effectiveness in achieving restorative outcomes. The paper discusses challenges and limitations in restorative practices.     

Nurturing the Seeds of Restorative Justice

Abstract

Communities are looking for community-building responses to the issue of crime. Traditional social and political discourses have presented only two responses to crime, “get tough” or rehabilitate offenders. An alternative view has begun to emerge in community criminal justice discourse and practice. Restorative justice emphasizes the restoration of relationships and community peace that are damaged by the harm of crime, and the repair of these social injuries. This article presents the findings of a pilot study that was conducted to assess a community's openness to restorative justice principles.     

Perceptions of Adult Protective Services Workers of the Support Provided by Criminal Justice Professionals in a Case of Elder Abuse

ABSTRACT

This paper summarizes results of a 1997 survey of adult protective services workers in 43 states. The survey yielded ratings of police and victim assistants in detecting and treating elder abuse and estimates of the likelihood that criminal justice professionals would provide ten forms of assistance in a case of elder abuse. Respondents also reported the most helpful services supplied by criminal justice professionals, the services that were most difficult to obtain, and overall ratings of criminal justice professionals in cases of elder abuse. Findings provide insights about relationships between adult protective services workers and criminal justice professionals.     

Mental Health and Criminal Justice Issues Among Perpetrators of Elder Abuse

ABSTRACT

Recent studies on elder abuse suggest that the pathology or impairment of the abuser may be a stronger predictor of elder abuse than characteristics of the victim. To examine the relationship between elder abuse, abuser pathology, and the criminal justice system, the New York City Department for the Aging (DFTA) undertook a survey of older victims of reported domestic abuse seeking assistance from the DFTA Elderly Crime Victims Resource Center. Preliminary findings from the survey indicate that impaired abusers were significantly younger than unimpaired abusers and more likely to live with their elderly victims, to be unemployed, and to have a history of involvement with the criminal justice system.     

Convict

Summary

Convict, a computer simulation of the criminal justice system, assumes an economic explanation for criminal behavior. Players choose one role to play for ten years. Decisions about working, stealing money, or both must be made. All aspects of the criminal justice system are included, from bargaining with the police to considering plea bargaining to serving time are included. Results are kept in a separate file. All program probabilities are based on recent government data.     

The U.S. Criminal Justice System: A Role for Radical Social Work

ABSTRACT

Characteristics of the current United States criminal justice system include mass incarceration at a rate higher than that of any other Western country, extraordinarily long sentences, rampant racial discrimination, and discrimination against all low-income persons. The impact of this system goes beyond devastation of those subject to supervision of the system to their families, communities, and society at large. This article analyzes the current criminal justice system relative to neoliberalism and ongoing reform efforts. The possible roles of radical social work in facilitating reforms and connecting criminal justice advocacy and issues to larger structural issues as well as direct practice strategies are explored.     

Restorative justice: an alternative approach to juvenile crime

This paper examines “restorative justice,” a new approach to the problem of juvenile crime, from an economic point of view. Advocates assert that the personal, social, and economic harms inflicted by many juvenile crimes are more adequately repaired through mediated face-to-face conferences between victims and offenders than through the conventional disposition of juvenile cases. Parallels between this conception and key elements of the “economic model of crime” are reviewed, followed by an application of the concept of social capital to this process. We conclude with a brief review of early empirical evidence suggestive of the promise of this new approach.     

Social Work and Criminal Justice

SUMMARY

We shall begin with the principal, and complicated, conclusion: Regrettably, the social work profession has largely abandoned the criminal justice field. That is not to say that social workers are not employed in criminal justice settings. Certainly they are. Significant numbers of social workers earn their living as probation and parole officers, caseworkers in public defender offices, counselors in correctional institutions and halfway houses, and so on. As a profession, however, social work no longer has a major presence in the criminal justice field (Gibelman and Schervish, 1993). Relatively few social workers embark on their professional education with the aim of employment in the criminal justice field. Virtually no courses in social work education programs focus explicitly or comprehensively on criminal justice (Knox and Roberts, 2002; McNeece and Roberts, 1997). Workshops offered at professional conferences or continuing education seminars rarely focus on criminal justice issues per se. And, relatively little serious scholarship on criminal justice issues is authored by social workers.

Interestingly, this has not always been the state of affairs. Earlier in the profession's history, social workers were much more visible and vocal participants in dialogue, debate, research, and practice related to criminal justice. Ideally-in light of social work's unique perspectives on practice and social problems, and the profession's noble value base-the profession will reclaim its preoccupation with criminal justice. As Sarri (2001) concludes with respect to social workers' involvement in the juvenile justice system in particular:

Thirty years ago, social workers were in leadership positions in juvenile justice in the majority of states. In the 1980s, a gradual decline began in agencies and in social work education for practice in juvenile justice. Some have suggested that the decline was at least partially due to professional resistance to working in coercive settings with involuntary clients. However, given the millions of people now caught up in the criminal justice system who are not receiving the social services they desperately need, it is a priority that social work return to a more central role in criminal justice. (p. 453)     

Too Strict or Too Lenient?: Examining The Role of School Strictness With Educational and Juvenile Justice Outcomes

Abstract

Although there is research exploring how school punishment practices are influencing academic and juvenile justice outcomes, how strict or lenient school punishment practices are related to aspects of education such as grade retention and dropping out, as well as juvenile justice contact, remains unknown. This study draws from the Texas Education Agency’s Public Education Information Management System to investigate the relationship between strict and lenient school punishment practices, academic progress or failure, and juvenile justice contact. Results indicate that schools with more strict punishment practices can contribute to higher grade retention and juvenile justice referral rates; however, it also appears that lenient punishment practices also exacerbate these same outcomes as well as higher referral rates. The importance of fair, just, and balanced school punishment practices is discussed.     

Crossover Children: Examining Initial Criminal Justice System Contact Among Child Protection-Involved Youth

ABSTRACT

Child protection-involved youth face increased risk of criminal justice system contact. Such “crossover children” experience earlier police involvement and more serious criminal justice sanctions, yet little is known about their early offending. Using a cross-sectional sample of 300 crossover children before three Victorian Children's Courts in 2016–17, this mixed-methods study examines the nature and context of children's initial police charges. Findings indicate that crossover children are initially charged with disproportionately violent offending, and often incur first police charges around the time of initial care placement. For many, initial criminal justice contact occurred in the context of conflict with caregivers, ongoing maltreatment, and household adversity, or emotional and behavioural regulation challenges. Efforts towards preventing offending for child-protection-involved youth should focus on preventing childhood maltreatment, alongside targeting parent–child relationship challenges, and strengthening community and care system responses that address the impacts of complex trauma, mental health problems, and neurodisability.

IMPLICATIONS

• Compared to all sentenced children, those from statutory child protection backgrounds are charged with more serious offending at their first criminal court adjudication.

• Among “crossover children”, earlier police charges were seen for Indigenous children, those experiencing greater cumulative maltreatment, and children with emotional or behavioural challenges related to trauma, mental health, and neurodisability.

• Crossover children are most often first charged by police in the year before, and after, their first out-of-home care placement.

     

Conflict Resolution,Restorative Justice Approaches and Bullying in Young People’s Residential Units

Restorative justice has been an increasing feature in the discourses within adult and youth justice criminal justice systems in recent years. This article examines interpersonal conflicts arising from crime, bullying and antisocial behaviour in residential care, and the advantages and disadvantages of utilising such approaches in relation to these forms of conflict, based upon an evaluation of restorative principles and approaches from the perspectives of young people, residential workers and managers. The article sets out how the staff in the units studied modified restorative justice approaches to take into account the specific relationships within group care settings.     

An Interplay of Individual Motivations and Sociocultural Factors Predisposing Men to Acts of Rape in Kenya

ABSTRACT

There is a general public perception in Kenya that rapists are “sick” people who deserve to be put far away from the society. Consequently, rape perpetrators are left to be dealt with by the criminal justice system while most of the research has focused on the rape survivors without taking into consideration the need to explore and understand the motivations and sociocultural factors that could predispose men to rape. This paper examines this form of “deviant” sexuality characteristic of some men. The paper is based on findings of a study conducted in three main prisons in Kenya between January and March 2008. The study sample was drawn from the Kamiti, Naivasha, and Nyeri main prisons. Respondents were convicted rapists serving their jail terms. The findings suggest that a number of factors may predispose a man to rape. These factors could be either individual motivational factors, sociocultural factors, or a combination of both. The individual motivational factors identified included drug consumption, marital problems as an excuse for rape, inability to negotiate for consensual sex due to being shy or afraid of women, rape as a form of sexual access, psychological factors like pornographic influence and rape hallucinations, impersonal sex and power, and use of rape as a “tool” for punishment. On the other hand, the sociocultural factors identified included the view of rape as a sexual act rather than an act of violence, social attitude that the woman “invited” the rape, early childhood environment, cultural practices, peer influence, and a lack of parental advice on sexual activities.     

Precinct Domestic Violence Teams: Whose Goals Should Determine Program Activities?

ABSTRACT

This article describes an urban community's attempts to increase domestic violence survivors' participation in the criminal justice system by combining social work advocacy, specialized police officers, and prosecutors into precinct domestic violence teams. An analysis of the outcomes of 1,057 domestic violence reports found that the presence of the teams did not result in increased survivor participation in prosecution. A survey of 265 of the survivors indicated that prosecution was rarely a goal of the survivors, whose participation was needed to meet the goals of the criminal justice system. This study illustrates the importance of learning the views of people that interventions are designed to help.     

Green grey hairs: A life course perspective on environmental engagement

ABSTRACT

Older adults provide a long view of understanding environmental engagement from their early beginnings to their current community activities. This study draws on interviews with self-described environmentalists and follows a life course analysis that employs social work values and practice skills as they work towards environmental justice in their Midwestern communities. We conclude that the older adults of this second generation of environmentalists offer valuable lessons for social workers with regard to environmental justice, while at the same time contributing insights into older adult volunteering and addressing the challenge of a generational gap in participation in their community organizations.     

Social background,emotionality, and belief as predictors of punitiveness toward deviants

This research addresses the general question of which factors other than evidence determine the outcomes of criminal justice processing. Specifically, it investigates the relationships between social background factors, beliefs and emotions, and punitiveness toward deviants. The results offer support for the proposition that differing backgrounds are systematically linked with different views about human nature and society. The results also support the proposition that these variations in belief are linked to punitiveness toward deviants.     

Challenges of implementing restorative justice for intimate partner violence: An Islamic perspective

ABSTRACT

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is currently recognized as a critical public health concern and a human rights issue. Not surprisingly, Muslims – a religiously and socio-culturally diverse faith-based populace – are not an exception. To address this complex area of criminal justice and social policy, some scholars advocate implementing restorative justice (RJ) approaches. While RJ approaches have been traditionally used in Islamic cultures for conflict resolutions, to date, few studies have investigated how RJ operates in dealing with IPV in Muslim countries and communities. This article explores how RJ approaches towards IPV operate in some Muslim countries/communities, and offers insights into developing culturally and religiously appropriate ways of implementing RJ in IPV situations among Muslims. Given the prevalence of IPV among Muslims, the question is particularly important and timely. Taking exclusively limited examples of RJ approaches that have been used to mediate IPV cases in Muslim countries and communities, this paper found one significant challenge in the RJ approaches among Muslims: community acceptance of IPV. To reduce IPV in Muslim society, it is necessary to develop treatment models and techniques that meet cultural and religious needs. This paper found that since RJ is not alien to Islamic teachings, RJ approaches can be implemented effectively in dealing with IPV among Muslims by ensuring justice and equity of the abused woman. The findings of this paper will assist policymakers, practitioners, and service providers in providing religiously and culturally appropriate care when addressing IPV issues among Muslims.     

Lay theories and criticisms of mental health news: elaborating the concept of biocommunicability

Abstract

This article examines how mental health service users/consumers, advocates, professionals and researchers interpret and theorise the impacts of mental health news. It focuses on the following themes: Creating fears about mental illness by focusing on criminal and violent acts; Reinforcing power imbalances by privileging biomedical issues and sources; and Sanitising mental health issues through the selective use of personal narratives. The study draws upon the concept of biocommunicability, which casts light on the performative power of health news in reinforcing ideas and expectations about the appropriate role for different actors to adopt in relation to health knowledge. Previous research on health news has identified biomedical authority, patient-consumer and public sphere as three predominant models of biocommunicability and this article examines how these are bound up with criticisms of mental health news. The findings are related to the ‘mediatisation of psychiatric culture’ as one of extremes and perspectives from Mad Studies.