Review of research on victims' experiences in restorative justice: Implications for youth justice

Despite claims that restorative justice is “victim centered,” and deliberately focused on healing harms to victims, some studies report that particular applications of restorative justice may not be fully consistent with its fundamental principles and values. Under such circumstances these programs may focus on outcomes (e.g., rehabilitation of youthful offenders) rather than process, and in doing so, may fail to identify and respond effectively to victims' needs. To take a closer look at this phenomenon, this article examines a sample of published restorative justice studies that highlight ‘negative’ experiences of victims. Given a number of studies that indicate victims typically have satisfying experiences in restorative justice practices such reports of negative experiences and practices should be viewed as ‘outliers.’ However, such outliers may provide substantively meaningful insights that inform best practice standard for restorative justice. Implications are drawn for the use of restorative justice practices for youth justice.     

A Qualitative Study of Victim Offender Mediation: Implications for Social Work

Restorative justice has grown extensively in recent years. However, existing research data indicate a lack of information regarding its process. This qualitative study aimed at providing an understanding of the experiences of participants in the delivery process. In addition to observation, 34 face-to-face interviews were conducted with 37 individuals. Analyses yielded important insights into multiple layers of participants' experiences. Though the participants indicated having had positive experiences, some insensitive approaches toward victims were also pointed out. This article discusses the implications in moving toward victim-sensitive restorative justice and for the social work profession.     

Healing Victims and Offenders and Reducing Crime: A Critical Assessment of Restorative Justice Practice and Theory

The current article explores the growing restorative justice movement. It examines promising research indicating that face‐to‐face dialogue with crime victims and offenders may work to restore and heal participants, and reduce recidivism. In addition, the article assesses the current state of restorative justice theory, suggesting new avenues for future theory and research. I show how current thinking about restorative justice can benefit from a micro‐sociological reframing, focusing on the production of collective emotion and micro‐dynamics of interaction.     

Balancing Justice and Welfare Needs in Family Group Conferences for Children with Harmful Sexual Behavior: The HSB-FGC Framework

In England and Wales, family group conferences (FGCs) are most often found either in the field of youth justice or in the field of child protection, and consequently often have priorities in line with either one of the two systems. On the one hand, FGCs are a restorative justice tool to address offending behavior and hold young perpetrators to account, while giving victims the possibility of contributing to the justice process. On the other hand, FGCs address safeguarding concerns and are used to plan for child safety and protection. In cases where a young person has sexually harmed another young person, that is, has perpetrated harmful sexual behavior (HSB), all young people involved will have both justice and welfare needs. FGCs are emerging as promising mechanisms in such cases, not only because of their ability to deal with both sets of needs for both young people but also because of their potential to address more holistic needs. However, HSB cases are often complex and sensitive, and are not without risk. Drawing on their experiences in research and practice, the authors explore how the holistic needs of both the harmed and harming individual can be balanced within a risk managed HSB-FGC framework.     

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

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.     

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.     

“You don’t have to say straight out …”: Directed Impression Management at Victim–Offender Mediation Pre-meetings

Based on a study of two mediation centers in Sweden, this research shows how mediators encourage victim and offender impression management, regarding looks, attitudes, and speech. It shows how they supervise the emotion work of participants, preparing them for mediation encounters. The author investigates how mediators try to create a “balanced” interaction (e.g., preventing expressed prejudices or irresponsible attitudes between the parties). The mediation meeting is seen as an institutionalized interaction with a particular desired outcome. The suggested impression management can be seen as a corrective strategy, implying social control. This article aims to present new ways to understand the mediation process from a micro-sociological and dramaturgical viewpoint. Even if the encounter between offenders and victims is seen as the essence of restorative justice practices, analyses of the process are rare and needed. This process-based approach offers new insights for research in the fields of social science and restorative justice.     

Violence Exposure Among Children of Incarcerated Mothers

Social workers are becoming increasingly aware of the unique experiences faced by children of incarcerated parents. Little is known, however, about their experiences prior to their parents being incarcerated. Using data from a broader study of incarcerated women, we examined women’s accounts of their children’s exposure to violence prior to maternal incarceration. Open-ended interviews addressed family and relationship history, physical and psychological victimization, lifetime delinquency and crime, and interactions with service and justice systems. Interviews were analyzed using ATLAS/ti software and a grounded-theory approach. The emergent themes revealed a myriad of consequences experienced by the children, including child witnessing of violence, emotional sequelae, bodily harm from abuse and neglect, sexual abuse, and birth defects from prenatal violence. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Gender and Moral Reasoning

Abstract

Social work interventions for youths should be based on understanding how youths think about important issues in their lives. This study assesses the moral reasoning of 43 urban, low-income African American seventh graders in response to questions about how to handle dating dilemmas. Responses to videotaped dating situations were analyzed using qualitative methods to distinguish between justice and care perspectives. The majority of responses from both genders came from the justice perspective. Girls gave more responses that reflected care and combined justice and care perspectives. Boys were less skillful in communicating and tended to focus on negative consequences. Culture and social class appeared to play important roles in moral reasoning.     

Challenging Endings: First Year MSW Interns’ Experiences with Forced Termination and Discussion Points for Supervisory Guidance

Every year, students prematurely end their work with some clients due to the completion of their internship, rather than the client’s achievement of goals and thus a more natural endpoint of treatment. It is important to understand students’ experiences with forced termination to provide them with the necessary knowledge, skills, and support to optimally manage this complex phenomenon. This paper reviews the social work literature on forced termination arising from the ending of students’ internships and presents, in their own words, the experiences of four first-year MSW interns with forced termination. Finally, based on the literature and as borne out by these students’ experiences, some areas for discussion and reflection between interns and their supervisors in handling forced termination are offered. Caroline Rosenthal Gelman, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at New York University’s School of Social Work. She received her M.S.W. in 1991 from the University of California, Berkeley, and her Ph.D. in 1998 from the Smith College School for Social Work. Phyllis Fernandez, Nathalie Hausman, Sarah Miller and Michael Weiner received their MSW in 2004 from New York University’s School of Social Work.     

Youth interaction with online strangers: experiences and reactions to unknown people on the Internet

Previous research on youths’ experiences with online strangers has mostly utilized quantitative designs which may result in the omission of important parts of the youths’ experiences and perceptions. In this qualitative study, we adopt a child-centred approach and focus on the children’s and adolescents’ experiences with unknown people from the Internet. This is one of the most pronounced parental concerns, despite the fact that an online presence is now normative for most children. We use the data from focus-groups and individual interviews in nine European countries (N?=?368) conducted with youths between the ages of 9 and 16 years. Participants were asked about their perceptions of potentially negative or problematic situations while using the Internet and digital technology. Using thematic analysis, we classified youths’ experiences and reactions related to interacting with online strangers in four themes: (1) non-verbal interaction; (2) initiation of contact; (3) communication; and (4) face-to-face meeting. In all four levels of interactions, children and adolescents reported a variety of positive and negative experiences and reactions. We interpret our findings with a co-construction model which perceives children and adolescents as active participants in the online world. We conclude that children are successfully making active decisions to initiate, continue, and stop interactions with unknown people from the Internet. These findings broaden the current perspectives of youths’ meetings with unknown people online.     

Distributive interdependencies in liberal egalitarianism

Liberal egalitarian theories of justice share the egalitarian ideal that inequalities due to factors beyond individual control should be eliminated. This justifies that individuals sometimes receive more (or less) than their marginal productivity, which in turn implies that a change in one individual’s effort sometimes will affect the post-tax income of others. What restrictions should we place on such distributive interdependencies? The article provides characterizations of three main classes of redistribution mechanisms on the basis of how this question is answered.     

Understanding shame: Examining how justice and emotions operate in the context of restorative justice

An essential element of the restorative justice process is engagement in emotional healing, which is made possible via the ways in which offenders manage shame. Effective shame management depends in part on the operation of justice principles. While research has examined justice and the importance of emotions in facilitating the restorative justice process, further investigation is necessary to understand how various types of justice affect emotions and facilitate the restoration of offenders. This article provides an overview of major findings regarding the relationship between justice, attributions, and emotions and how these findings relate to restorative justice. Implications for research in restorative justice are also discussed.     

The reporting and help‐seeking behaviors of domestic violence victims with criminal backgrounds

The decision to report domestic violence is often conditional on whether victims were satisfied with their prior treatment by the criminal justice system. One issue in reporting victimization is that victims of domestic violence may also be involved with the system as offenders. The current paper systematically reviews research on this overlap, finding that most research supports that victims who also have criminal backgrounds are significantly less likely to report subsequent experiences of domestic violence, and are less likely and able to seek out social services, particularly when they report prior negative experiences. The paper then identifies theoretical and policy‐based implications of the review findings.     

“Whoa! They Could’ve Arrested <Emphasis Type="Italic">Me</Emphasis>!”: Unsuccessful Identity Claims of Women During Police Response to Intimate Partner Violence

Many jurisdictions in the U.S. have implemented mandatory arrest policies in an attempt to limit police officers’ discretion in their arrest decisions when responding to intimate partner violence calls. Drawing from semi-structured interviews with female victims of intimate partner violence, I explore the ways in which mandatory arrest policies have influenced the identity work of women during their interactions with police officers. I focus specifically on women’s “unsuccessful” identity claims: situations where women are unable to convince police officers that they are victims and situations where women are unable to convince officers that they are not victims. I examine the strategies that women use during their identity work and explore the consequences of women’s failed self presentations under mandatory arrest policies, the most significant of which is a woman’s arrest. I argue that under mandatory arrest policies, for many women, the risk of failed identity work is even more consequential than before these policies were established.     

‘Come and live here and you'll experience it’: youths talk about their deprived neighbourhood

This study examined youths' lived experiences of a deprived neighbourhood in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Previous studies assume that deprived neighbourhoods pose serious risks for youths. What is largely missing from these studies, however, are the experiences of young people themselves. Do they indeed experience their neighbourhood as hostile and unsafe? Do they really experience a lack of resources? We conducted a qualitative study among youths aged 13–18 living in Feijenoord, a district of Rotterdam. The research demonstrates how important it is to discover youths' views on and experiences of their environments, as their experiences are very diverse and often differ from the hegemonic discourse. While the respondents were aware of problems, such as crime and violence, they also pointed to several positive aspects of their neighbourhood. In the eyes of the youths, their neighbourhood has both instrumental and affective meaning. Neighbourhood effect research might benefit from paying more attention to the idea that place can have multiple meanings, and from looking at the perceived neighbourhood strengths instead of only focusing on the deficits in deprived neighbourhoods.     

Racialized Tokens: Latina Teachers Negotiating,Surviving and Thriving in a White Woman’s Profession

Previous scholarship on tokenism in professional occupations analyzes the ways white men exclude white women in male-dominated jobs. This study provides a glimpse of one organization, elementary schools, where white women exclude Latina women in a feminized occupation. Drawing on multiple methodologies, this paper analyzes Latina teachers’ workplace experiences in Santa Ana, a Southern California Mexican immigrant city. The article compares the experiences of Latina teachers working at one school where over 70% of teachers are of Latina origin and three schools where 20% of teachers are Latinas. The author coins the term ‘racialized tokens’ to illustrate how the inextricable link of race, gender and class combine to shape the workplace experiences of Latina teachers who work as numerical minorities among a majority of white colleagues. Since Latina teachers are ‘racialized tokens’ in these spaces, the author argues that in the presumably post-racial era of diversity and multiculturalism in the U.S., Latina teachers do not long for racial integration with white women in their workplaces, rather, they choose to self-segregate because of the comfort and safety self-segregation provides.     

Freedom within bars: maximum security prisoners’ negotiations of identity through rap

This paper examines the construction of prisoners’ identity through rap in England’s high security prisons. While hip hop studies has often addressed rap’s connection to the social practices of criminalized youths, prison rap cultures have received scant attention. This paper draws on a series of rap workshops and interviews with prisoners to investigate the experiences of black prisoners in high security prisons and how identities are produced and negotiated through rap. Rap is associated with the production of a range of identities and identifications, enabling prisoners to accommodate themselves to the conditions of their incarceration and to challenge aspects of the criminal justice system that they experience as unfair or illegitimate.