U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of Justice
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TOOLBOX FOR IMPLEMENTING RESTORATIVE
JUSTICE AND ADVANCING COMMUNITY POLICING

A GUIDEBOOK PREPARED FOR THE OFFICE OF COMMUNITY
ORIENTED POLICING SERVICES,U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

BY CAROLINE G. NICHOLL



TOOLBOX FOR IMPLEMENTING RESTORATIVE
JUSTICE AND ADVANCING COMMUNITY POLICING

A guidebook prepared for the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services,
U.S. Department of Justice

By Caroline G. Nicholl

Funded under Grant No. 98-CK-WX-0059 awarded to the National Victim Center by the Office
 of Community Oriented Policing Services, U.S. Department of Justice. Companion document
to Community Policing, Community Justice, and Restorative Justice: Exploring the Links
for the Delivery of a Balanced Approach to Public Safety. The opinions, findings, and
conclusions or recommendations expressed in this document do not necessarily represent
the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.


SUGGESTED CITATION

Nicholl, Caroline G. Toolbox for Implementing Restorative Justice and
Advancing Community Policing. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of
Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 1999.

See companion document: Community Policing, Community Justice, and Restorative Justice


Acknowledgments

There are many people to thank for making this project a reality. First, my colleagues and
the communities in Britain who tolerated my experimenting with community policing and
exploring restorative justice; in particular, Charles Pollard, Chief Constable of Thames Valley
Police, and Ian Blair, now Chief Constable of Surrey Police, both of whom placed considerable
trust and faith in the work I was attempting to do while I was Chief Superintendent at
Milton Keynes. I must also thank The Commonwealth Fund in New York, which awarded
me a Harkness Fellowship in 1995–96, thereby providing an unusual and wonderful
opportunity to test and further develop my thesis in a different cultural context.

I wish to express a special thanks to Professor Herman Goldstein of the Law School at
Wisconsin University, who is a constant source of inspiration; to Beth Carter and everyone
involved in the Campaign for Effective Crime Policy in Washington, D.C. (it is comforting to
know there are so many eminent people who believe change is needed); to Kay Pranis,
Annie Roberts, and all the other restorative justice visionaries in Minnesota who have
influenced my thinking; to Mike Dooley, Ronnie Earle, Ellen Halbert, Kay Harris, John McKnight,
Mark Umbreit, and Howard Zehr, all of whom have been especially helpful in their own way
in getting me thinking “outside the box”; to the inmates and staff from Grendon (United
Kingdom) and Shakopee (United States) prisons, whom I will remember always; to those
parents and spouses of murder victims I have met, from whom I learned what can be
achieved through gaining understanding and giving compassion; and to the many police
officers I know—in England and in the United States—who provide a constant reminder of
the realities of the street.

I owe my gratitude to Joseph Brann, Stacy Curtis Bushée, and Karen Beckman of the Office
of Community Oriented Policing Services, without whom this project would not have
become a reality. Finally, a huge thank you to my closest allies, Jenny Edwards, Dr. Catherine
Fitzmaurice, Chris George, John Stuart, and Ken Webster, whose confidence in my work is
always a source of encouragement.

Note

The author can be contacted via e-mail at [email protected].



Contents

Introduction to Toolbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Part 1. Values of Restorative Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Dialogue and Inclusiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Crime: More than a Violation of Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
Repairing Harms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Involving and Strengthening the Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Part 2. Addressing Victims' Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
Impact of Crime on Victims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
Restoring Victims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
How Can This Be Accomplished? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
The Role of Victim Advocates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Part 3. Holding Offenders to Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
Role of Positive Shaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30
How Can This Be Accomplished? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Offender Accountability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Part 4. Building Community Capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
Is the Dream of Regenerated, Cohesive Communities Utopian? . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42
What Is Community? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43
Community Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46
Restorative Community Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Building Community Decisionmaking Capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47
Actions You and Your Agency Need to Take . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49
Stages in Transition to Strong Informal Social Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Part 5. Developing a Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55
Stages of Developing a Restorative Justice Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56
Gaining Public Support for Restorative Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57
Case Referrals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57
Intolerant Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58
Obtaining Resources and Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Advisory Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59
Developing Skills in Sensitivity to Victims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59



Cultural Sensitivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59
Key Role of Preparation Meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60
Neutral Role of the Facilitator and Agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60
Participation of Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61
Resource Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62
Accountability for Public Safety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62
When Cases Need Specially Skilled Facilitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62
Use of Victim/Offender Letter to Initiate a Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
When One Victim Participates but Another Says No . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64
Volunteers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64
Matching Cases with the Skills and Experience of the Facilitator . . . . . . . . . . .64
Should Restorative Justice Be Entirely Voluntary? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Job Descriptions for Program Personnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Part 6. Benchmarks For Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69
Core Aims and Related Benchmarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72
1. Redefining the meaning of crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72
2. Involving victims, offenders, and communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73
3. Restoring victims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73
4. Seeking offender competency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74
5. Seeking community safety and connectedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
6. Learning how to prevent crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76
Testing How Restorative Your Program Is . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Part 7. Unresolved Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83
Threats to Guard Against . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83
Confidentiality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Coercion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .86
Role of the State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Relationship Between the Traditional Criminal Justice System and
Restorative Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Police Role in Restorative Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89
Proportionality Versus Tailored Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
What if the Offender Fails to Fulfill the Agreement? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91
Widening the Net . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91
Scope for Applying Restorative Justice in Inner Cities and Frustrated
Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Mentally Ill or Substance-Abusing Offenders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Issues for You to Resolve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

References and Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95



Toolbox For IMPLEMENTING RESTORATIVE JUSTICE

AND ADVANCING COMMUNITY POLICING

Introduction to Toolbox


Introduction to Toolbox

Putting Restorative Justice into Action1

Not too much has been written or said about police officers using their discretion
to choose not to initiate criminal proceedings. It is done frequently . . . but
when it comes to ‘going formal,’ our training and imagination for the most part
starts and stops with the laying of criminal charges and going to court. We are
seemingly locked into the court syndrome.

— Cleve Cooper, Commander
Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Restorative justice offers the hope of transforming the way the crime problem is addressed by
encompassing community problem solving and citizen engagement. It affords citizens and communities
opportunities to understand their role in controlling and reducing the incidence of
crime. In addition, restorative justice is a means of promoting a healthy balance between
formal and informal measures to address the causes and consequences of crime.

This toolbox aims to provide a practical guide to police departments interested in starting a
new restorative justice program. It is not a definitive account of everything that restorative
justice has to offer. Nor is it a training manual for facilitators of restorative justice processes.
Facilitation requires specialized training and the supervision of those taking on this role.
Starting up a program requires more than a few trained staff members. However, many issues
need attention before a program can go live.

Remember that restorative justice is a new approach without a standard blueprint. Your program
can benefit from what has been learned so far, but your program will be unique and will
evolve over time. Across the world, as restorative justice continues to spread, new lessons are
being learned all the time.

Our understanding of what is restorative to victims, offenders, and communities is still at an
early stage of development. We are only beginning to explore the real capacity of lay communities
to participate in justice decisionmaking through problem-solving solutions to crime. How
to meet the needs of victims, and how to make offenders accountable without emphasizing punishment,
are subjects that also require much more experiment and testing.

Restorative justice offers many rewards, but a couple of warnings need to be heeded. Be mindful
that gaining acceptance of restorative justice in a retributive climate is likely to be thwarted
unless the values and principles are understood and properly applied. It is easy for practitioners
to rush into experimenting without having considered all of the principal elements that
make up the necessary framework of restorative justice practice. Appropriate translation of the
key values into a program requires considering a series of questions and issues that are relevant
to the implementation and operation of restorative justice processes.

A poorly planned program may merely tinker with or replicate the traditional criminal justice
system; this danger exists when the program is developed by practitioners accustomed to the
rules and procedures of the courts who are not yet conversant with the new paradigm.

The overall aim is to
introduce an effective
program that restores
victims and offenders to
the community by
repairing the harm and
preventing further harm.



All the good initiatives in
restorative justice have
evolved over time, in
response to specific
priorities, and have been
custom-made for local
circumstances.

In restorative justice, the
basic ingredients are
essential, but there is
room to improvise.

So be aware that in trying to introduce your program, there will be obstacles simply because
restorative justice is so different from the traditional system.

Nevertheless, the dangers are offset by opportunities for learning—for finding out how we can
meet the challenges of crime, victimization, and offending behavior in ways that promote a healthy,
inclusive society. This is a goal for which all police officers can happily work.

No single implementation plan and no one model of restorative justice is right. In the development
of community policing, the police are learning the importance of applying principles in ways that
are sensitive to local issues. Restorative justice requires the same flexible approach, without losing
sight of the values and ethos inherent in this new vision of justice. As with community policing,
restorative justice demands thoughtful and careful planning that considers both the needs of today
and the needs of the long term; there is no quick fix for either. Restorative justice has clear aims,
but how you go about achieving them is critical to the success of your program. The processes of
implementation are just as important as the goals and objectives.

This toolbox has been designed to help people avoid the dangers and avail themselves of the
opportunities. The sections of the toolbox outline the basic ingredients needed to design and
implement restorative justice, leaving plenty of leeway for creativity and local adaptation.
The sections do not specifically distinguish between the three models outlined in the accompanying
monograph: victim-offender mediation, family group conferencing, and circles. While these models
represent the bulk of experiments to date, they are by no means the only ways to put restorative
justice into practice. Do not be put off by all the ingredients you need to have. Developing restorative
justice is something you should not try to do on your own. Get others on board to help you!

The basic ingredients of restorative justice (and Parts 1–7 of this toolbox) are:

1. Values of restorative justice
2. Addressing victims’ needs
3. Holding offenders to account
4. Building community capacity
5. Developing a program
6. Benchmarks for evaluation
7. Unresolved issues


There may be no such thing as the perfect system but the restorative philosophy offers a
way of bringing justice to the ideal.2

Restorative justice requires more than tinkering with existing practices and systems. It should
bring transformations in thinking and understanding about crime, communities, and the role of
policing. The aim of this toolbox is to bring justice closer to the ideal.



Part 1


Toolbox For IMPLEMENTING RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
AND ADVANCING COMMUNITY POLICING
Part 1. Values of Restorative Justice


Part 1. Values of Restorative Justice

Introduction

Several basic values and principles need to be understood in the evolution toward a restorative
justice response to crime. Talking and working through their meaning will help your department
plan, design, and shape programs, processes, and working practices. Many police departments already
have mission statements and objectives that reflect central elements of restorative justice.
Community-oriented policing, problem solving, victim services, youth mentoring
and education, diversionary schemes, and child abuse investigation teams, for example, reflect
many of the features of restorative justice: concern for community problems, recognition of victim
needs, communication with a large variety of people, opportunities for offenders to be reintegrated
into society, and a focus on promoting safety and order in the community. As you know
already, shaping how these initiatives develop depends largely on having clear goals and basic
principles that guide practitioners.

The following pointers will help police departments to review existing approaches and to think
about developing new ones, particularly in relation to their handling of reported crime.
Restorative justice views crime as harm done to people—victims, offenders, and communities.
If crime is essentially about harm, accountability is about learning to understand that harm and
attempting to repair it—and this requires engaging the primary parties, who are given key roles
in restorative justice processes.

Dialogue and Inclusiveness

Restorative justice builds on many features of community policing—including working in partnership and
problem solving.

How can this be accomplished? You need these:

• Bring parties together. Instead of keeping the parties involved in crime separated, think about
 how people can be brought together in a safe environment to
talk about the impact of a crime and about its consequences for both the victim
and the offender. Engage affected parties in a process that encourages collaboration and problem solving.
• Safe environment. A safe environment means thinking about the right timing
for such a meeting, preparing the participants who have been identified as having a stake,
being clear about the purpose of the meeting, and ensuring that
everyone is invited in a voluntary capacity. The location of the meeting should be
a neutral place. Bring people together in an environment that feels safe and
at an appropriate time. Sometimes this might be a few days after a crime. In other
cases, it might be months later.


Dealing constructively
with crime requires the
participation of those
people with a stake in the
offense to work out what
should be done, giving
equal attention to the
needs and interests of
victims, offenders, and the
community. Restorative
justice promotes an
inclusiveness approach to
the problem and to harm
identification and repair.
No one person is seen as
having all the necessary
information, nor all the
answers.



“The symposium gave me
firsthand experience of
the collaboration
necessary for restorative
justice to work.”

— feedback from a
regional conference on
restorative justice run by
the U.S. Department of
Justice, 1997

• Focus on harms. The focus of the meeting is on identifying the harms and:

- Restoring the victim(s)—emotionally, materially, and relationally.

-Encouraging the offender(s) to take active responsibility to repair
the harm.

-Identifying resources in the community to support both the victim
and offender.

- Taking steps to prevent further crime.

• Several steps. The process involves several steps. Typically such dialogues take
about an hour and a half, including introductions and allowing all parties to
express how they feel, to ask questions of each other about what they would like
to do to address identified needs, and to work out agreed outcomes. The emphasis
is on listening, learning from one another, and working out what would
best serve everyone’s interests. Focus on identifying and addressing people’s
interests and needs.
• Skilled facilitator. The meeting requires a skilled facilitator who explains the
process and the ground rules, provides the parties an opportunity to speak openly
about the crime and its full impact, to receive answers to questions they might
have, and to follow up on insights as to how best the harm can be repaired. The
dialogue should be facilitated to enable parties to keep this focus.
• Respectful dialogue. The meeting should be conducted with a respectful dialogue
about the crime and with the purpose of promoting cooperative problem
solving by the participants, including the offender. It should not be an
adversarial process, even though people who attend my feel like adversaries. Show
respect for all parties who attend at all times.


Be ready for these:

• Powerful communication. Communication in restorative justice processes
is often experienced as being “powerful, difficult, frightening, devastating,
exhilarating, euphoric.”3 Do not underestimate the power of the dialogue, which
allows people to show their emotions as well as to exchange facts. The process
is a dynamic one, empowering all affected parties to respond to crime.
• Breaking down stereotypes. The communication helps to shift people’s
focus because the dialogue is meaningful to those present; this in itself begins to
repair the harm done by the crime. The process breaks down stereotypes about
victims, images of monster offenders, and assumptions about apathetic and
uncaring communities. People are encouraged to see that others too have
strengths and weaknesses—and are human. The process is humanizing and
promotes understanding.
• Obstacles. The meeting may not replace the traditional criminal justice system
if, for example, the offender is uncooperative or the victim does not volunteer to




participate (see “When Is Restorative Justice Appropriate?” in box). Recourse to
the formal, adversarial system takes place when the dialogue fails. Punishment
may be an appropriate solution to address public safety and protection
needs, but victim restoration can still take place.

When Is Restorative Justice Appropriate?

Restorative justice is suitable for any offense, including cases where no offender is caught and so-called
victimless crimes (e.g., drug dealing). Selection of cases, however, should be based on the value of the
intervention to the parties concerned and to the wider community, as well as on the wishes of those
involved. All restorative justice processes should be conducted on a voluntary basis, and some cases
call for specific procedures that are highly sensitive to those involved, as in crimes involving serious
violence.

It is advisable, therefore, to choose restorative justice when there is support for this
kind of intervention, when there are trained facilitators equipped to run the dialogue,
and when there are opportunities for victim restoration, offender reintegration, and
mobilizing community resources.

• The dialogue affords a good opportunity for handling the impact of a crime that
has already happened as well as for promoting crime prevention. Those present
learn that crime does not happen in a vacuum: offenders are not born, they are
created. The avenues for prevention become clearer after such an open
forum.

As the key values of restorative justice are presented in this section, think through carefully what
they mean for your program.

Crime: More than a Violation of Law

While laws invoke standards, restorative justice necessitates an understanding
of the particular consequences following a crime. The idea is that you cannot
repair harm unless you know what harm has been done. (See “Value of a Focus on Harms,” in box.)

Value of a Focus on Harms

A focus on harms will change the way you respond to crime and how those involved in the dialogue
think about crime. This is important to deal with crime effectively as well as prevent future crime. Thus,
restorative justice is a response to crime that includes prevention. Helping victims recover, reintegrating
offenders into the community, and promoting care in the community will enhance public safety.
Crime is no longer seen as an unresolved issue, and people learn from the dialogue. This
learning promotes positive change.

While traditional systems of crime control have focused on the investigation of facts to identify
evidence for a prosecution, restorative justice initiates an exploration of all those who might





have been affected by a crime in any way. A property crime, for example, may provoke deep
emotions for some people, making the crime harmful beyond material terms. Do not just think
about the primary victim(s). There will be others who suffer consequences, including, for
example, the offender’s family and the victim’s friends and colleagues. Bring together those
people who can determine what harm has been done and how the harm can be addressed.

The theft of a piece of jewelry or a car, for example, is seldom only a matter of property loss.
How the crime was conducted, on whom, by whom, and where, can have significant consequences not
only for the victim, but for the offender and community as well. A standard
response will inevitably be inappropriate. Only by exploring the facts and the feelings provoked
by a crime can there be a full understanding of the impact that needs to be addressed in a
response to crime.

VALUE: Crime is a
violation of the law, but
this is too abstract;
restorative justice
recognizes that each
crime creates its own
unique consequences for
those affected and harms
people materially,
mentally, individually, and
socially. The response to
crime includes identifying
the harm and finding out
what can be repaired.

Repairing Harms

Many victims of crime who go to court do not feel that their needs have been taken care of, even
if they see their offender(s) convicted and sentenced. Some people call this the need for healing,
which requires that all the injuries and harm are addressed. The traditional system forces
us to think inside the box and shapes how we view the impact of crime. Restorative justice asks
us to redefine crime beyond a breach of the law:

• Have a broad outlook. Harms come in many guises and require a broad outlook on how crime can
and does affect people. The harms are dealt with through
a mixture of:

- Letting victims speak for themselves on how they have been harmed.

-Distinguishing between the offender and his or her behavior: condemning the behavior, but not the offender.

- Dialogue in which care and empathy prevail over anger and vengeance.

-Recognizing that while the offender has obligations to repair the harm,
these should not be harmful to him or her.

• Alleviate suffering. Some harms are not reparable, but restorative justice
challenges us to be imaginative about what might alleviate a person’s suffering.
Even parents of a murdered child can experience some relief if attention is paid
to the different feelings of despair that they have. They might feel guilty about not
having done more to protect their child, or feel regret that their last conversation
was too casual or involved a quarrel. Acknowledging these harms is important.

Example: The mother of two homicide victims attended court when the killers
were given life sentences. She addressed the men in court: “The only thing that
has kept me going without my boys is my hope and faith that one day I would see



you stand before God just before you burn in hell. And on that day you will tell
me why you killed my sons.” A very natural response from a victim who is suffering
deep pain. Notice however, the question she has—even after a court trial.
“Tell me . . .” suggests that she has many unanswered questions as to why her
sons were killed. The victim may benefit from a restorative justice process at
some stage—when she is ready and if she is willing—to get answers that she will
be struggling to understand for the rest of her life.

• Be sensitive to every harm. Even offenders experience harm. They might
feel defensive or feel deep shame. It is not unusual, for example, for lifers to be
emotional about their crimes many years after the event. Offenders can feel isolated
and scared. (See “Harms Typically Experienced by Victims, Offenders,
and/or Communities,” in box.)
• Be aware of community harms. A community also experiences harm and
might change the way it behaves or relates. Fear might stop people from doing
certain things or speaking to others. Anger might create tensions that never get
resolved, with community members harboring distrust, suspicion, and resentment.
Left to fester, these harms are counterproductive to social arrangements
whereby people care for each other and are committed to harmony. Consider
what impact the crime has had on the community when convening a dialogue.
• Enable victims to tell their story. The importance of victims being able to
tell their story cannot be overemphasized. This experience satisfies part of their
need to be listened to, to be vindicated, to be supported, and to move toward
healing. Victims should not be patronized but dealt with as key players in
determining what should be included in the response to a crime. The physical
and emotional protection of the victim should be paramount considerations.
Example: An elderly woman who is the victim of a burglary might not be concerned
with the property loss so much as the sentiments and feelings bound up
in the stolen property—say, if the property used to belong to her recently
departed husband. A monetary compensation for the property thus might not be what
she needs. An acknowledgment by the offender that he has taken something
precious from her, however, might be an important symbolic gesture that helps her
to heal.


• Acts of repair must be relevant to victims. There will inevitably be direct
victims—those against whom the crime was committed—as well as secondary
victims, including families, neighbors, employers, friends, and the wider
community. Those who have suffered specific harm(s) should be encouraged to
speak about their victimization so that no one assumes on his own what is
needed. Acts to repair the harm need to be relevant to the people who have been
harmed.


VALUE: Victims of crime
must be respected for
what they might be going
through, and this includes
not assuming we know
how they feel. Restorative
justice processes need to
involve the victim so that
his or her needs and
interests can be
determined.




VALUE: Offenders have
obligations but are also
seen as needing
support—and respect.
Their crimes are
construed as being
caused by circumstances
or problems that need to
be addressed. Their
behavior is not excused,
but an explanation is
sought as to why they
caused harm to others
(and often to themselves).

Harms Typically Experienced by Victims, Offenders, and/or Communities

Loss of trust
Physical injury, pain
Sense of aloneness/ isolation
Loss of a sense of safety/security
Feeling numb, disconnected
Remorse/ sorrow
Feeling angry/humilated
Loss of control
Shame, guilt
Emotional trauma (that might continue for years)
Fear and anxiety, defensiveness, prone to attack
Post-traumatic stress disorder
 Property damage or loss
Loss of dignity and/or respect
Sense of powerlessness
Betrayal, feeling of being abused
Loss of sleep or job, disrupted relationship
Inconvenience, court attendance, hospital/ insurance bills
Depression
Feeling of vengeance, hostility
Difficulty relating to people
Feeling of weakness
Death, loss of limb or senses
Memory losses, difficulty concentrating

• Acts of repair should be meaningful and proportional. The decisions
about harm repair need to be fair, realistic, and closely related to the damage that
has been done. The values of restorative justice require that the obligations to
repair the harm should be meaningful to the parties involved, rather than
imposed according to standard guidelines. Sentencing guidelines or minimum
mandatory sanctions do not have a place under restorative justice. Obligations
should be proportional, however, to the harms identified.
Example: A teenager was shot by a neighbor with an air rifle and required hospital
treatment costing thousands of dollars. His mother was not so much worried about
the money, however, as about confiscating the air rifle so that “my son
can freely play in the yard without fear.” A process under restorative
justice values is more likely to ensure that the neighbor agrees to surrender possession of
a gun than is any court order under the traditional criminal justice system.


• Distinguish the offense from the offender. A pragmatic response to
offending behavior is sought: the offender has done wrong (and harmed himself
and others) but he or she ought not to be condemned as a person. Rather, the
offender should be invited to take part in identifying the harm and how it can be
repaired. The offender is seen as a valuable member of the community who has




to be held accountable for the wrongdoing without being isolated from those who
might help to keep him away from further trouble.

• Think “outside the box.” Restorative justice demands that we think outside
the box and learn what the real capacity for changing behavior is when care,
respect, and support win over anger, fear, and hatred. (See “Educative Value of
Restorative Justice,” in box.)

Educative Power of Restorative Justice

Approaching offending behavior through a restorative justice lens affords much more opportunity for
reflection, introspection, and learning about what crime means, how it can be prevented, and how
important social controls can be. This is true for the offender as well for others who participate in the
dialogue. Restorative justice processes are educative processes, teaching us in ways that break down
myths, assumptions, and stereotypes—building instead confidence, willingness to try new things, and
learning from one another.

• Accountability should be meaningful to the offender. Restorative justice
processes expose the offender to the harm done by his behavior; this exposure
is critical to gaining the offender’s understanding of the link between actions
and consequences and is a precursor to the development of empathy and willingness
to change. The accountability for crime is thus more meaningful than
simple punishment; and major life changes for offenders are not unknown.
These might include addressing a drug or alcohol problem through treatment
and counseling, learning skills for controlling anger or destructive behavior,
finding employment, learning the impact of crime on victims and communities,
or making a commitment to a plan that involves helping other people keep out
of trouble. Obligations may be difficult for the offender, but they should be
achievable.
• Enable offenders to feel connected to others. Addressing the offender’s
needs and obligations—with support from the community—is likely to enable
the offender to see that he is someone connected to people who care about him.
The result is that offenders are more likely to feel genuine remorse for their
crime toward the victim and community. It is often hard for offenders to apologize,
but restorative justice processes are intensely powerful catalysts for changing
hearts and minds. Remorse or apologies should not be expected as a matter of
course, but are more likely to come from offenders who have been
shown care.


VALUE: The offender is
not isolated or banished
from the community
unless this is necessary.
The community can
exercise monitoring and
supervision as well as
provide support and
encourage the offender’s
restorative experience.

Involving and Strengthening the Community

The traditional criminal justice system applies power and force to control offenders. Restorative
justice suggests that much can be done by way of cooperative arrangements between the com-






munity, the victim, and the offender (with the state’s help) to see crime in a social context—
and the need for informal social controls. Restorative justice helps people learn from each
other and promotes mutual respect.

VALUE: Restorative
justice encourages a
dialogue between victims,
offenders, and
communities to resolve
crime in a way that leaves
everyone in a better place.
The focus is on making
things right instead of
being resigned to what
has gone wrong.

VALUE: Restorative
justice promotes the
peaceful resolution of
crime by focusing on
recovery and develops a
spirit of cooperation and
respect, seeking creative
solutions for harmony.

Communities experience crime as victims—they can be weakened by the impact of crime,
including fear. Communities also bear the responsibility, however, of supporting the victim(s)
and the offender(s), and they can be strengthened by this process:

• The community can play a vital role in determining how the offender should be
held to account, as well as in helping the offender adhere to an agreed plan that
addresses the victim’s needs and the offender’s own behavior. Social interventions
are often necessary to stop further offending. This might involve punitive
sanctions, but the focus is on enabling the offender to understand what is due to
others from past behavior, as well as what he owes to reduce the likelihood of
further offending. The community can help the offender develop a sense of obligation
and a willingness to change. It is unlikely that this will come by itself from
the sole effort of the offender. Offenders should be supported by the community
while being encouraged to take responsibility for their behavior.
• The community can help the offender identify his or her positive strengths and
work on building on these to change behavior. In this way the offender is
encouraged to accept active responsibility for making good the harm without
being banished from the community. Offenders who make amends with the support of the
community are reintegrated into the community, which helps to prevent further
crime. Encourage collaboration and reintegration rather than isolating
offenders.
• As harms and needs are identified through the dialogue involving the parties, the
community, and justice agencies, it becomes clear that many of these require
community resources. Communities can provide help and support to victims,
instead of leaving them to feel alone and isolated. Communities can share
information about the offender, which can lead to understanding which social issues
need to be addressed by them, or with their support. Communities can use
their resources to promote repair of harms and prevent further harm.
• Indirectly, these efforts become a learning process. Communities are likely to feel
more committed to addressing the underlying causes of crime when exposed to
a dialogue that reveals the links between cause and effect. The community is
thereby strengthened and less likely to be feeling powerless in the face of
crime.
• Restorative justice is about strengthening individuals and communities rather
than about perpetuating weakness and failure. Victims are afforded opportunities
to regain their sense of safety and trust. Offenders are given opportunities for
learning the consequences of their behavior and making changes to avoid further
criminal activity. Communities are given the opportunity to express care and
concern for their members and to learn from one another what promotes safety and




freedom from crime. Those who participate in restorative justice processes
learn of the interdependency of people: that there is a need for sharing
responsibility and caring for one another.

• The shift from focusing on how to punish offenders to identifying how the
consequences of their behavior has created harm is highly instrumental in
encouraging an open dialogue among parties affected by crime. Instead of a “blame and
nail ‘em” attitude, the objective is to help recovery and to decide what measures
would be most conducive to preventing crime from happening again. Defining
the harm increases awareness of needs and obligations that have arisen, rather
than allowing ungrounded assumptions to determine sanctions. The dialogue
provides insights as to how the crime has affected people and not just which laws
have been broken. Victim empathy and offender responsibility develop as understanding
about what has happened unfolds. Further harm is avoided. The dialogue can be
intense—at times, hostile and upsetting—but remarkably
there usually is a sense of wanting to work toward a plan that is in everybody’s favor.
• Society is not in a position to hand over the handling of crime to communities.
Nor should we pretend that the formal, adversarial system is a sufficient response
to the problem of crime. The state’s role is to seek a balance between the capacity
of communities to respond to crime and its own ability to deliver public safety.
Communities cannot decide culpability, and offenders can choose to be uncooperative.
Some crimes have such broad impact that no single community could
determine harm or the restoration required. Some victims do not wish to
participate in restorative justice processes. The state will always have a role, but the
role needs to be shared.
• The state needs to recognize that crime violates people and has repercussions for
individuals and communities. Participatory problem solving is often better for
reaching agreed outcomes than an adversarial contest conducted by professionals
where one side wins, and another loses. Punishment is not always more
important than reparation and reconciliation. Engaging communities, rather
than sidelining them, can promote informal social controls, an essential
contribution to crime reduction and public safety.


Restorative justice involves the transfer of power and decisionmaking authority (principally that
of the court) from the state to the community and engages victims and offenders as key participants.

VALUE: The state has a
role but its role is to
support communities—to
develop their capacity for
resolving crime. The
state’s role is to safeguard
citizens from community
prejudices and abuse of
authority, and to deal with
crimes in which the
offenders deny
responsibility.



Summary

Part 1 has covered the basic values of restorative justice that you need to think about. Other
sections of this toolbox go into more depth about the way you should approach victims, offenders,
and communities in designing your program—and the role of the state.
You need to:


• Involve all parties affected.
• Provide a safe environment.
• Focus on harms.
• Use a skilled facilitator.
• Promote respectful dialogue.


With special attention to:

• Particular consequences.
• Community resources.
• Giving victims a key role.


To foster dialogue that:

• Addresses needs of victims.
• Breaks down stereotypes.
• Encourages the offender to take responsibility.
• Distinguishes offender from offense.
• Builds on the offender’s positive qualities.
• Prevents harms from growing.
• Finds causes of crime.
• Locates areas for social intervention.




Part 2


Toolbox For IMPLEMENTING RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
AND ADVANCING COMMUNITY POLICING
Part 2. Addressing Victims’ Needs


Part 2. Addressing Victims’ Needs

Introduction

Victims experience an immediate disruption of their lives following crime, and may experience
long-term trauma. The impact of crime on individual victims, as well as on communities and
society at large, is not widely understood. The traditional criminal justice system has made
efforts to listen to victims (through victim impact statements and panels, for example, and
court-based victim services, which provide support to crime victims as well as provide valuable
information in the court).

Although the traditional system has become more in touch with the needs of crime victims, it
still regards any crime as its case. Victims are often perceived to be confused, unreliable,
overemotional, and incapable of making decisions. However, victims should be given every
opportunity to tell their story without the constraints often imposed by the rules of evidence and
due process of law.

Impact of Crime on Victims

Restorative justice processes need to be victim-centered, victim-sensitive, and victim-
empowering. Restorative justice helps us to understand much more about victim trauma and
to recognize the shortcomings of traditional attitudes toward victims. Restorative justice
processes promote interventions that assist victim recovery. Crime is a sudden, unpredictable
event for most victims and can provoke an emotional rollercoaster.

Ironically, as is the case with offenders, many victims face stereotyping and stigmatization. They
can be isolated (often because their victimization increases other people’s sense of vulnerability)
and may be seen as being in some way responsible for what has happened to them. The isolation and
blaming of victims can compound the harm that they already are suffering following
the crime.

Victims can feel disoriented after a crime event has disrupted their life. They often endure
conflict between a willingness to share what has happened to them and a desire to forget—or to
deny—that the crime occurred at all. The denial can be powerful but is counterproductive for
recovery and healing. Any denial or understatement of what has happened to the victims by
others is also damaging. Remembering what happened and telling people about the crime are
prerequisites for victim restoration.

Telling their story does not come easily to victims; they experience sudden changes of which
they themselves might not be aware, or of which they cannot speak. They can be very emotional
and thus thinking in a disorganized fashion. Recent research has revealed that serious crime
victimization can have a physical impact on the brain, making memory retrieval more difficult.
In some cases, the effects of crime on a victim can change the victim’s entire life. Trying to
rebuild one’s life takes time and may require therapy or clinical treatment over the span of several years.



“We are working toward
restorative justice when
we work toward the
restoration of victims,
empowering them and
responding to their needs
as they see them.”6

Victims suffer grief, for example, from the loss of a loved one, loss of trust, loss of property, or
loss of feelings of safety. Crime can provoke shock, rage, despair, detachment, depression,
and fatigue.4 Remember that victims can experience these even when the offender is not
caught. Think about what can be done for victims in these cases as well.

What Victims Need

“Victims of violent crime have ‘holes in their hearts’ that no amount of support, therapy, theology, self-
talk and behavior modification seems to be able to fill. They need answers to their questions which only
the offender can provide; they need the opportunity to express the full impact that their crime has had
on their lives and the lives of others; they want to hear the offenders admit guilt, take responsibility, and
be accountable beyond themselves to the victims and their community.”5

The suffering that victims experience can last for days, weeks, or even years. In some cases, the
crisis will have an impact on those around the victim. For this reason, the response to victimization
is critical. (Some maintain there is a need for medical attention as a matter of course,
in addition to interventions relevant to justice; in Argentina, for example, in all cases
of violence, a victim will be seen by a doctor as well as a lawyer or police officer.)

Restoring Victims

Restorative justice processes need to reflect the elements listed in “Key Stages in Victim
Recovery” (in box) as much as possible and to give victims choices, time, information, the
opportunity to be heard, support, a chance to hear and to understand why the crime happened
to them, and influence over what action needs to be taken. Above all, restorative justice
processes must afford victims respect and ensure that provision is made to avoid further
harm.

Key Stages in Victim Recovery

• Establishing safety
• Reconstructing the crime—ventilation
• Acknowledgment from others—validation
• Supporting the victim: words of empathy or “I’m sorry”
• Providing information
• Maintaining good communication
• Reconnecting with people
• Help in reconstructing life to make sense of what happened after a crime
• Giving victims a role in making decisions for the justice process


Goal:
To lessen the immediate and long-term effects experienced by victims and to
prevent future harm.



The true involvement of victims as a key player will come only from building opportunities for
victims of crime to be engaged fully in the planning, design, implementation, and operation of
restorative justice programs. Think about involving crime victims as soon as you consider
restorative justice for your department.

How Can This Be Accomplished?

• Involve victims of crime and/or victim support services in the planning of your
program. It is important that victims be given opportunities to
learn about restorative justice and about how it might help them. Their input will
be invaluable, even if they have reservations about restorative justice. Experience
to date suggests that crime victims can recognize that restorative justice offers
benefits, but problems can arise in the course of its implementation. These problems
can be avoided if crime victims are at the table from the start.
• Victims of crime should be invited to participate in restorative justice processes
without coercion or the expectation that they must
come. In theory, no crime is unsuitable for restorative justice intervention, but
restorative justice is not suitable for all victims. Victims need to feel safe and
should not be pushed into doing something that feels threatening. Give victims
information on which to make decisions. Good preparation before a restorative
justice intervention can prove helpful in securing the voluntary attendance of
crime victims. In some cases, a telephone call might suffice. In most
cases, however, only a personal visit by the facilitator can build trust and an
understanding of what to expect from participation. In some cases, any meeting
with their offender might not be appropriate for years after the crime.
• It is important to distinguish between affording victims of crime a
choice to participate as active partners—and allowing them to attend
merely to help the process achieve outcomes unrelated to their restoration.


Using victims as props to make decisions about an offender is not only damaging
and disrespectful to the victims, but will ultimately dissuade them
from participating in restorative justice.

• Victims of crime are willing to participate in restorative justice
processes more often than is generally recognized, but one must
ensure that they feel fully involved in all stages of the process and are included
in decisionmaking, such as timing, location, identifying who else should be invited
to participate, seating, and agreed plans for the offender and the community.



Focusing on material
outcomes for the victim
might seem appropriate,
but this ignores the
importance of the
emotional needs left in
the wake of crime.

International Focus on Victims

In November 1989, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Declaration of Basic
Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power. It recommends measures to be taken
on behalf of crime victims and has helped direct attention to the needs to victims internationally. A
manual for enhancing victims’ access to justice, fair treatment, restitution, and assistance is presently
in circulation.

• Some victims (e.g., the young, the elderly, the ill) may require dedicated support
if they are to participate in restorative justice. In certain cases,
a parent or other guardian will suffice, but the victim might also enjoy a trusting
relationship with a teacher, counselor, nurse, or someone else. Ask the victim
who should be invited to be with him or her at a preparatory meeting or any
dialogue with the offender.
• Victims of crime may feel anger toward their offender, and they
need to know that it is legitimate for them to share their feelings.
Letting victims vent their feelings helps to normalize what they are experiencing.
Victims should be well prepared, however; they should be helped to understand
that the restorative justice intervention seeks to create a safe environment for
everyone, including the offender, to promote a dialogue that focuses on restoration.
Certain ground rules must be established, including the prohibition of
any violence, threat of violence, and abusive language.


• Understanding the impact and consequences of a crime on victims
requires a different kind of dialogue than that allowed in the
courts. Restorative justice does not seek to prove a case against the offender. It
focuses on recovery from harm and reintegration. Ask victims how they feel,
whether they feel safe (and if not, where they would feel safe), and acknowledge
their victimization, for example, “I am sorry this has happened. It’s not your
fault. You’re not going crazy.”
• Victims of crime should not have their expectations raised unrealistically.
It is important to be honest about what restorative justice
may or may not achieve. In some cases, a single restorative
justice intervention will not address any of the victim’s needs.
It might take several meetings over a period of months before the victim experiences
any benefit. For example, some offenders will not exhibit remorse or fulfill the agreement to repair the
harm. These failures can further erode the victim’s sense of trust of other
people and can compound the victim’s suffering.
• It is important to be sensitive in your use of language: some victims
do not like to perceive themselves as victims, believing that the label connotes
some kind of failure. One should also recognize that words like recovery, healing,
reconciliation, and forgiveness can provoke resentment. A facilitator




needs to be aware of the comfort zone of a victim and of cultural differences
that can play a significant role. Alternative words less likely to evince a hostile
reaction include survivor, making right the harm (or wrong), support, assistance,
holding the offender to account; or use the person’s name (this is often
the safest) and define the harm or feeling as he or she would express it: e.g.,
“the loss of your gold watch,” “the kidnapping of your daughter Mary,” or “the
fear that you have.”

• Restorative justice processes are highly personal to those involved
and entail people telling their story—as they see it. The dialogue
should be open, nonadversarial, and allow the expression of fear, anxiety, pain,
and hopes. Restorative justice should provide opportunities for the victim to
gain a better understanding and personalization of the crime’s impact, to
allow for recovery.
• No one can fully understand the victim’s feelings or experience.
Thus, one must allow victims to speak from the heart and let them
know that we are listening with the heart as well. They have things to say
that we might not understand; they often need answers to irresolvable questions;
and they have expectations that might not be met. We have to assume that what
they say is important for us to hear and that we will learn from hearing it.
Sometimes victims prove remarkably frank, blunt, or direct. It is important to
respect these exchanges and the victim who shares them.
• The victim has the right to terminate his or her participation at any
time. Sometimes, a victim may just need more information or the choice of
having the dialogue another time. If an offender is being destructive, the facilitator
should stop the process unless the victim chooses to continue. Even then, the
facilitator has a responsibility to consider the best course of action in the
circumstances. (The figure “Levels of Victim-Offender Communication” shows types
of contact from lowest intensity to highest intensity communication.)
• Victims’ feelings can be experienced with acute intensity, and it can
be difficult to know what to say or how to respond. Recognize the power of
silence; it can help participants accept what is being said and allow time to
absorb its meaning.
• Restoring victims has different dimensions, in addition to giving
victims opportunities to be heard. Restoration can include restoring
safety, a sense of security, and the lack of fear, as well as recovering
property or material losses. Regaining control, dignity, power, and a sense
of fairness can also be restorative. The critical element in restorative
justice is that the victim determines which kind of restoration matters to
him or her: Some victims will prefer an apology from an offender rather than
monetary compensation, for example. This preference must be respected, as it
determines the sense of satisfaction
and fairness experienced by victims who participate in restorative justice.




Levels of Victim-Offender Communication

Lowest Intensity Victim-Offender Communication

Panel of victims tells stories to offenders
(surrogate victims)
Victim-offender mediation in property
crimes and minor assaults.
Family group conferencing
(face-to-face meeting between the victim,
offender, families, and support people—
nearly always in the community)
Victim-offender mediated discussions
in community
Victim-offender dialogue in crimes
of severe violence
(face-to-face meeting between
victim and offender, nearly always
in a maximum security prison)

Highest Intensity Communication


SOURCE: Adapted from the Center for Restorative Justice and Mediation, University
of Minnesota, in conunction with the Minnesota Department of Corrections, the
Balanced and Restorative Justice (BARJ) Project of the U.S. Department of
Juctice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Value of Victim-Offender Dialogue

In one victim-offender dialogue, between the father of a murdered daughter and the killer, the father
talked openly about his love for his daughter and recounted huge chunks of her life. He said to the
offender, “I am not doing this to hurt you. I just need you to know you took my baby . . . my little girl
. . . my ‘tomboy’ . . . my teenager . . . a beautiful woman who was my daughter.”7

• Symbolic reparation can be very important to a victim—for example,
an offender indicating a willingness to respect the victim’s needs by offering new
information about the crime. It is also important for restoration agreements to
be honored, and subsequent monitoring plays an important role in restorative
justice. The community needs to be active in the response to the needs of the
victims.



• An assessment of the current level of victim support in your jurisdiction
is prudent and supports restorative justice processes. While
the victim’s informal social network can do much to provide support, sometimes
a broader support system needs to be mobilized after the victim has had the
opportunity to express his or her needs. A balance must be struck between
responsiveness by the community and oversight and provision of services by
the state: victims might need a coordination of health services, emotional
support, property repairs or recovery, assistance in security and in personal
safety, financial support, and careful handling of their involvement in the
justice intervention. These needs require a partnership effort to ensure that
community support and state services are coordinated and generated with consistency.
• Even when a crime is committed without the detection of the
offenders, restorative justice can help by bringing victims together
with community members and ex-offenders. The police still have an
important role here to show commitment to supporting and serving the interests
of the victims. Victim panels may afford victims a chance to share their story with
inmates, community groups, schools, or criminal justice professionals, which
can help promote understanding about victims’ trauma and their need for support.
Some crime victims have moved into advocacy work following such
experiences, and many report that this has aided their recovery. (See “Long-
Term Benefits to Victims,” in box.)


Long-Term Benefits to Victims

Face-to-face meetings between victims and offenders carry potential risks and rewards.
Restorative justice is much more than a crisis intervention. Victim support services
can help victims reach the point where they feel less overwhelmed by their emotions.
Restorative justice takes things one step further by
enabling victims to overcome the offender’s action by understanding
why he or she did it. This understanding helps to balance emotions
with cognitive thinking—which is conducive to putting the crime
behind them. The hurt may not go away, but it changes over time. Some victims will require ongoing
support through this process.

Victim participation in justice processes, either under the traditional criminal justice system or
under restorative justice, is a relatively recent phenomenon, and too little is known about what
victims truly gain from their involvement (or offer to the processes). Feedback from crime victims
from both kinds of processes is essential to learn what is beneficial and helpful. This
requires victim surveys, interviews, and research over many years. Think about how your
program can contribute to this.

Part 6 of this toolbox explores how to evaluate restorative justice in relation to the victims of
crime. These evaluation measures will help determine the shape and focus of your program.

Victims have a
tremendous stake in how
restorative justice is
implemented. Without
their support, involvement,
and input to learning,
restorative justice is likely
to be a fragile alternative
to traditional criminal
justice processes.

We need to move away from the situation Zehr describes in which the victim’s needs
are sidelined in the traditional criminal justice system: “We may invoke [victims’] names to do all sorts



of things to the offender, regardless of what the victims actually want. The reality is that we do
almost nothing directly for the victim, in spite of the rhetoric. We do not seek to give them back
some of what they have lost. We do not let them help to decide how the situation should be
resolved. We do not help them to recover. We may not even let them know what has transpired
since the offense.”8 It is important to elevate victims to a preeminent place in justice decision-
making.

The Role of Victim Advocates

The last 20 years have witnessed significant improvements in the awareness of victims’ needs,
due largely to those who have worked in the victim’s movement. Their role has been critical in
promoting rights of access to crime victims, securing better information for victims, encouraging
justice professionals to be more victim sensitive, and generally increasing the involvement
of victims in decisions during the criminal justice process. One potential clash lies between
those who maintain the need for victims’ rights and those who hold that addressing the victims’
needs is the proper course of action. Some victim advocates might see restorative justice’s
emphasis on needs as compromising their efforts to secure a more favorable balance of rights
for victims, compared with the current emphasis on protections for offenders in adversarial
criminal justice processes.

For this reason, it is important to maintain a dialogue with victims’ groups to understand the
issues they seek to address and to work out satisfactory solutions to the tensions that may exist
about restorative justice. This is particularly relevant in the case of domestic abuse and in other
serious, violent crime cases.

Consistent with the ethos of restorative justice, however, one should not assume that
victim representatives can always speak for crime victims. It is important for victims
to be treated as individuals who have their own unique experiences and views.

Summary

Victims’ needs include:

• Participation in planning. Be prepared to give victims an active role, but don’t
pressure them.
• Sensitivity. Be careful not to use words that carry condescending connotations
for the victim. The facilitator should not allow violence or profanity.
• Support. Since expressing emotions is encouraged, the victim should have relatives
or other trusted persons present.
• Others’ listening. The victim needs the opportunity to speak with emotional
intensity. Allowing for silence also gives these words time to sink in.
• Role in agreed outcome. The victim’s participation helps determine what sort of
restoration will be meaningful.
• Conclusion. The victim must be able to opt out at any time.




Part3


Toolbox For IMPLEMENTING RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
AND ADVANCING COMMUNITY POLICING
Part 3. Holding Offenders to Account


Part 3. Holding Offenders to Account

As a society we have been thinking that the only choice we have in responding to
crime is to get meaner and meaner until we frighten people into behaving as we
wish. But that is not the only choice we have for managing behavior, and fear is
not the most powerful of measures.9

Introduction

Some say the criminal justice system is getting “meaner” because tougher sentencing is thought
to be the only thing that works against crime. In the traditional view of crime fighting,
offenders are different from law-abiding citizens, and public safety demands their segregation. This
us-versus-them dichotomy is driving many crime control measures and is deep-seated in
contemporary attitudes about crime:

Woe betide him who dares, even so faintly, to blur this elemental distinction.10

Restorative justice seeks not to blur the distinction so much as to expose it as a real obstacle
to understanding crime and what can be done about its causes and consequences. Restorative
justice does not preclude the need for punishment, including incarceration; but punishment is
not the focus, nor is it seen as the last line of defense. The focus, instead, is on holding
the offender accountable for his or her behavior in ways that are meaningful to the offender—as
well as to the victim and the community. Meaningful means:

• Making a clear distinction between the behavior and the offender. Restorative
justice condemns crime and wrongdoing; but it seeks to explore the reasons why
a person behaved this way—not to excuse or justify the crime, but to find an
explanation. The offender is treated with respect and dignity.
• Involving the offender in the problem identification process. He or she may
hold valuable clues as to what past or current experiences might have contributed to the offense;
offending behavior does not happen in a vacuum.
• Encouraging the offender to learn that his or her actions have consequences
and to take active responsibility for repairing the harm.


Humiliating an offender makes it almost impossible for him or her to accept responsibility. But
hearing directly from those who have been wronged encourages the offender to understand the
consequences of his or her actions and to acknowledge that others have been harmed. It does
so by tapping into normal shame about the wrongdoing. Shame plays a crucial role in relationships and social bonds.

The criminal justice system encourages offenders to avoid responsibility and to deny their
offense, in the hope that they might get off. In families, such behavior would be considered
dysfunctional. It should also be seen as dysfunctional in communities.11



Role of Positive Shaming

Shame plays an important role in restorative justice; but it is important to distinguish between
stigmatizing or negative shame and reintegrative or positive shame, which is more constructive.
Positive shaming brings home to the offender the seriousness of the crime. Negative
shaming humiliates and hardens an offender, thereby strengthening his or her defensiveness
and rationalization of the behavior.

John Braithwaite’s theory on reintegrative shaming developed from his observations of the
socialization process in raising children and how regulatory processes for dealing with
corporate crime can be effective. Neither laissez-faire parenting nor authoritarian
methods are effective in child development, for example. Parents need to confront and
disapprove of their children’s misbehavior—but do so with reasoning. Similarly,
in the corporate world, persuasion in
lieu of enforcement has worked to promote adherence to safety and security negotiations.

In crime cases, the offender’s behavior must be disapproved within a continuum of respect
for the offender that includes helping him or her to understand the reasons why the behavior
was wrong:

• One needs to exercise care when discussing shame because the word is
laden with baggage suggesting that it means to degrade—rather than (as a verb)
to cause to feel regret or consciousness of guilt. Shame is often hidden; but if
victims share their story, the impact of the crime is likely to be accepted by the
offender through understanding and empathy. This acceptance helps the
offender to think about taking responsibility to repair what harm has been
done and to change his or her behavior. (See “Keys to Positive Shame,” in box.)
Crime creates obligations that offenders are encouraged to meet.

Keys to Positive Shame

• Volition: Offenders have a choice whether to participate.
• Preparation: Make clear the possible consequences and that it will not be an
adversarial setting.
• Atmosphere: Let the offender and victim speak and listen freely; authorities
must not lecture or admonish the offender in a way that will put him or her on
the defensive.
• Reparation: The agreed reparations must be meaningful, achievable, and
tailored to the parties involved.
• Reconciliation: Reconciliation is marked by a symbolic ceremony where the
offender acknowledges the harm he has done to the victim and has the
opportunity to become part of the community again.




• Although an offender may make material reparation to a victim, as
part of an agreement to carry out obligations, symbolic reparation
may be more meaningful to both the victim and the offender. The offender’s
willingness to show empathy or remorse may be the main contribution to a victim’s
recovery. The emotion of shame experienced by the offender is often visible
and made known (for example, by crying, showing discomfort or embarrassment,
looking at the victim and saying, “I’m sorry”). Victims can regain trust. The
expression or sharing of emotion allows the victim to see the offender as a
human being.
• For the offender, the expression of shame connects him or her to the
victim as well as to others. Shame that is not shared tends to make a
person feel isolated and inclined to repress the shame. Instead of hiding the shame,
communicating shame enables the damage to the bond between the victim and
offender to be repaired. The offender can begin to move on by accepting
responsibility for the crime and showing care for others. The victim can also
recover after learning the offender regrets his or her behavior.
• In dialogue involving friends and family, the shame might be experienced by people
other than the offender (e.g., the offender’s father,
mother, sister). Sharing this shame can be done in positive ways
that are respectful of the offender. Relentless finger-pointing or insulting the offender, however,
is likely to provoke defensiveness and denial of shame in the offender.
This interferes with the participants and the offender seeing one another as human beings.


Case Study
Humiliating Shame Can Be Counterproductive

In a case of school vandalism in which graffiti had been daubed on the walls with
defamatory statements about the teachers, an offender who admitted to spray-painting one statement maintained he
had no idea who else was involved. One of the teachers attending the conference, who seemed especially
upset, launched into a verbal attack on the offender and accused him of being a coward.
The conference did not lead to an agreement between the parties. The offender repressed
his shame and, therefore, would not talk.

• Restorative justice promotes showing respect to all parties and seeing beyond the
differences between the offender and others.
Restorative justice processes help people to understand that offenders, too, have
mothers, fathers, children, siblings, friends, and neighbors: they too have feelings,
strengths, and weaknesses. They too are human. When we see shame in an
offender we are able to recognize that they are like us; but we need to learn
how to view shame positively.

Shame must be managed
to avoid it becoming a
humiliating experience
that promotes hiding
shame.12



Traditional criminal justice
asks “who did what?”
Restorative justice asks
“what really happened?”

How Can This Be Accomplished?

• Only offenders who admit guilt and are willing to accept responsibility
for the crime should participate. Those denying their part in the
crime should be dealt with by the formal justice system.
• Offenders should be given the choice of whether or not to participate
in restorative justice processes. Coercion can be counterproductive
if the victim is confronted with someone who is neither cooperative nor willing
to engage in the dialogue. Coercion can make the offender defensive and emotionally
closed. Coercion can also be construed as meaning only that the offender has an
obligation to meet the victim if the victim is wanting a dialogue. If
offenders feel they have no choice, what they say or do in the meeting may not be
genuine.
• Good preparation can help to overcome an offender’s reluctance to
participate. Explaining the purpose of the dialogue, the process, who is likely
to be there, and the possible outcomes can help an offender to see the benefits
of participation. The offender might be encouraged to participate by learning that
people who care about him or her can attend.
• Some kind of risk assessment is required before approaching an
offender about participating in a restorative justice process. In the
adversarial criminal justice process, these risks are seen to be related to the prior
offending record and to the seriousness of the offense. In restorative justice, the
offender’s attitude, capacity (e.g., level of verbal intelligence, psychological
stability, honesty, and use/abuse of power), and willingness to cooperate in
a dialogue are determinants. Other determinants are the emotional risks for
victims.
• You need to think about the influence other people have on the
offender. In the traditional criminal justice system there is a presumption of
innocence. Many legal representatives advise their clients not to admit guilt. This
adversarial process can encourage offenders and their lawyers to minimize what
they have done. In restorative justice, the presumption of innocence is not as
important as simply telling the truth. Offenders should be informed that the
process they will go through is entirely different from that of the adversarial
criminal justice system. Their right to silence is transformed into an expectation that
they will cooperate within the process.


I Wanted To Admit Guilt

A man who had served 19 years for his part in a kidnapping said, “For the first five years I was in prison
I continued to deny what I had done. I wanted to admit guilt at the trial but my attorneys wouldn’t
have it.” In his view, the criminal justice system helped to insulate him from reality, and the appeals
system put off his coming to grips with the wrong that he had done.



• Offenders may be confused by other aspects of the criminal justice
system. Plea bargaining is common in the traditional system, but it erodes the
meaningful holding to account of offenders. Restorative justice affords an
opportunity to offenders to meet the victim in a controlled setting without
the artificial rules, customs, and processes prevalent in court that can
mitigate against offenders taking responsibility.
• Offenders should be advised that the process enables them to be
seen in their life context as human beings. The offender also has a
choice about who he or she wishes to attend. Such choice supports the idea that
restorative justice is about focusing on the harm committed by the offender—but
in a way that shows concern for him or her.
• We need to create an atmosphere that encourages the offender to
actively listen and to talk openly and honestly without fear. An offender
may feel deeply embarrassed and ashamed; but if respect, care, and support are
shown to the offender, he or she is likely to be able to participate in a constructive
dialogue and learn from it. The way the dialogue is conducted is likely to
determine the extent to which it is experienced as restorative by the offender (and by the victim, too).
• We need to give offenders the chance to explain themselves. They may
be able to give reasons why they committed the crime. They might be able to
respond to questions from the victims (and/or the community) and provide
important answers that promote understanding about the crime and about their
behavior and attitude. This is an important part of problem solving following
a crime.
• We need to give offenders the opportunity to learn the consequences of their
behavior in a cooperative atmosphere. Many offenders do not think through the
likely impact of a crime on others. Offenders might
be very anxious about meeting those who can confront them with the harm that
has been done; but this opportunity is critical to promoting their readiness to
take responsibility.
• Care must be taken to avoid focusing only on the offender. It is
important for victims to have a key role in shaping the offenders’ understanding
of the harm that they have caused. If a crime is discussed only in factual terms—
by someone who did not experience the harm—the offender is less likely to
comprehend what he or she has done.


The meeting may be
uncomfortable for
offenders, but when they
are encouraged to
understand, accept, and
carry out their obligations
with the support of those
they care about, then they
feel less threatened.



Stigmatizing or negative
shaming is counter
productive to the offender
getting in touch with his
own shame—a necessary
precursor to victim
empathy and taking
responsibility for his
actions.

Case Study
Victim’s Expression of Harm Helps Offenders

In a Houston prison, victims met a group of inmates over a period of several weeks. The victims were
motivated by wanting to help offenders change their behavior by getting them to understand what their
crimes do to people. One inmate had killed the man who had raped his wife. He had rationalized his
own behavior by believing he had been provoked. He did not understand why he should have been
given a long sentence for something “any normal man would do.” One of the victims talked about her
pain after her son had been killed in different circumstances. The inmate said only after hearing her
did he realize his killing had taken a son from someone else. He understood, for the first time, how
wrong his actions were.

You will find that a dialogue that brings an offender face-to-face with those who have been victimized
is very powerful. The offender will not find it easy to ignore what is being said. This
helps to get him or her to understand the obligations that arise following a crime. This is very
different from the traditional justice process, which tends to insulate offenders from the damage they have done.

• Use a trained facilitator. The dialogue should be facilitated by someone who
has been trained and understands restorative justice. Care needs to be taken to
avoid the dialogue being overtaken by a lecture to the offender about his or
her behavior or by someone putting the offender down. Police officers, for
example, can readily slip into an authoritarian mode, particularly if the offender
does not appear to be fully participating. For this very reason, it is a moot point
whether or not officers who facilitate such meetings should wear uniforms. An
arresting officer present at such meetings may find it hard to refrain from showing moral superiority.


• If the dialogue becomes very intense—and it often does—allow
room for silence. This is particularly useful at the moment an offender
expresses genuine shame and remorse. Giving time and space for these powerful
expressions (and for people to receive them) is important. Emotions are
encouraged, but they must also be channeled. Likewise excessive shaming of the
offender can be balanced by a statement about the strengths of the offender (e.g.,
the offender has taken care of his or her sick mother or has volunteered to help
the local charity).


It is also important for an offender to recognize what the crime has done to
him or her. The dialogue should allow the offender time to say how he or she
has been affected. This may involve feelings of shame, fear, sense of isolation,
denial, confusion, or attacking or blaming someone else. Getting offenders to be
in touch with what is going on for them can be useful to identify behavior and
attitudes that need attention as part of a commitment to taking responsibility for
the crime. The figure “Differences Between Traditional Criminal Justice and
Restorative Justice” compares the goals and processes of the two approaches to
justice.



Case Study
Victim’s Expression of Care Affects Offender

An offender wanted to meet the person he had raped after forcing his way into her home. During the
course of the rape, the victim had asked the offender what had happened to him to cause him to do
this. “It burned my heart that she showed care,” he said. “I did not realize until then what I was doing
and nor did I see, until much later, that I did it because I felt inadequate.”

Case Study
How Connected an Offender Feels Can Influence Behavior

Michael was a persistent young offender who had been in trouble with police since he was 9 years old.
At the age of 15, after stealing scores of motor vehicles, he was asked what would it take to stop him.
He said he didn’t know, but said the only people who ever talked to him were people who were paid to
talk to him like the police, the social workers, and the judge. He hung around the streets to find
company, and stealing cars just relieved his boredom. Michael did not feel connected with anyone, let alone
his victims.

Offender Accountability

Accountability means:

• An offender getting over his or her justification, denial, or self-rationalization
and acknowledging responsibility.
• Hearing the victims tell their story.
• Developing genuine empathy toward the victim.
• Taking active steps toward changing behavior to become a responsible, law-
abiding citizen.


Restorative justice holds offenders to account in ways that reflect modern wisdom
about cognitive thinking. Cognitive therapies focus on the way people think, how they deal with problems
and choices, and the extent to which they anticipate the consequences of their actions.
Cognitive restructuring attempts to change the content of beliefs, values, and attitudes with a
view to improving a person’s thought processes. Similarly, restorative justice processes
involve learning about the importance of social norms, of talking about these norms, of
interpersonal connections that make for orderly behavior, and of actions that threaten
public safety.

“The criminal justice
system doesn’t have a
form of apology. It never
requires people to
apologize for their
behavior. But that’s the
first and most important
part of reparation.”13



Differences Between Traditional Criminal Justice and Restorative Justice

Offender-education deficit/rage, immaturity, peer pressure/greed, drink/drugs
-Leads to Crimes

-Factor Compared
-Traditional Criminal Justice
-Restorative Justice

-Goal in exploring incident
-Determine guilt or innocence
-Discover causes, consequences, gain understanding of
	-harm done
	-offender’s problem
	-repair needed
	-behavior change required
	-support needed

-Role of victim, offender, community
-No role for victim, offender, community
-	Offender asked why
	-Victim tells offender and
	community about the harm
	-Community engaged

-Outcomes and possible consequences
-Punishment imposed:
	-compensation
	-fine
	-imprisonment
Punish and deter (but offender may feel isolated, victimized, more resentful)
-Agreed plan establishes reparations to
diminish/repair harm for all: e.g., service
(to victim and/or community), compen-
sation, actions to support behavior
change (e.g., drug/alcohol treatment,
counseling, training), other
Learning, improved relationships, offend-
er accountability, harm repaired, offender
integrated into community, crime pre-
vented, community strengthened

Inadvertently, the traditional, adversarial system stops people involved in a crime from learning
these important elements of civil society. It is not uncommon for everyone in court except the
offender to feel angry or upset about what has happened.



Be aware that the focus of the dialogue is on identifying the harm and repairing it (see
“Restorative Justice Promotes Repairing Harm,” in box). Restorative justice rejects the concept
of getting even with the offender (as in policies reflecting the just desserts theory). Instead,
restorative justice calls for offenders to understand that their behavior has done harm, not by
simply telling them that this is the case, but by moral learning. Hearing the victim tell how the
crime has affected him or her is not necessarily, by itself, going to educate the offender as to
what he should do to take responsibility. If, however, the victim speaks about how he or she
wants the harm addressed or repaired, the offender will have a greater chance of learning how
his actions have done wrong.

Be aware of the point in the dialogue when the offender can be reconciled. A critical element
of offender accountability is when the offender accepts responsibility for making good the
harm and taking steps to change his behavior—because he recognizes why this is important. It
is then that reintegration into the community can begin. The likelihood of further
offending behavior is reduced if the offender is supported by the community in fulfilling the
obligations agreed at the meeting.

Where restorative justice has been evaluated, drops in recidivism and high levels of offenders
fulfilling the terms of agreements are recorded. This is quite different from the experience with
traditional criminal justice processes. Moral education requires explaining, not imposition of
punishment in the hope that the offender will understand.

There is even a place in restorative justice processes for violent offenders, when victims are
ready for a face-to-face dialogue. (See “Restorative Justice and Violent Offenders,” in the box.)

The reparation should be relevant to the victim and achievable by the offender. It should
be reasonable, fair, and tailored to the parties. Such reparation is much more than a mere
alternative to a punitive sanction by the court.

Restorative Justice Promotes Repairing Harm

The word reparation is often used interchangeably with restitution and compensation. Reparation can
take many forms:

• Expressing full responsibility and making an apology
• Monetary payment to victims for property loss/damage
• Giving victims answers to questions they want answered about the crime
(often the most important in cases of homicide survivors)
• Working directly for the victim or the community or undertaking work that
is important to them
• Taking steps to obtain help to change behavior (e.g., drug treatment,
counseling, education, finding work)
• Speaking to other offenders about what they learned through the restorative
justice processes to prevent further victimization


The sentencing process
attempts to force the
offender to understand,
but it is more likely to
make him or her feel like a
victim.

Some harms cannot be
repaired. The important
thing is that the offender
responds to the
obligations identified
through the process. In
some cases, not offending
again may be the most
meaningful accountability
to the victim and the
community.



Restorative Justice and Violent Offenders

Some might find it incomprehensible how violent offenders can be dealt with by way of
restorative justice. However, James Gilligan, who has worked with violent offenders for
 more than 25 years, comments, “Human violence is complex and tragic; if we only see it
as a criminal justice issue, we limit
the discourse—distinguishing only between violent and nonviolent people and the sane and the
insane.”14 Restorative justice allows a discourse that goes beyond the legal definition of violence and
violent victimization. The reintegrative shame theory is relevant to violent crime; many violent
offenders harbor deep shame, which they seek to repress and conceal. Being sensitive to this is
not condoning violence—it might help to break the vicious cycle of pathological shame.

At the end of a restorative justice process, after a plan has been agreed to on how the offender
should repair the harm, it is good practice to have a ceremony to allow people to release the
tension experienced during the dialogue. In some cases, the ceremony occurs when reintegration
of the offender, forgiveness of offenders, and apologies to the victim take place. What
happens in this time out can be the most powerful symbolic reconciliation between the parties.
The ceremony can take the form of a meal or a drink. In some processes, symbols are used
(for example, a feather) to represent peace and are handed around the room.

Case Study

Restorative Justice Enables Offenders to Come to Terms With Their
Crimes

Many offenders don’t give their crime much thought. One drug dealer who believed he had merely been
successful at running a business told of his realization that he had victims too. He heard a woman talk
about the loss of her daughter in a road traffic accident involving a drunk driver. The drug dealer
serving time said, “for the first time, I learned I had caused people to die (driving under the influence), to
steal (to pay for the drugs), to live in poverty (to sustain the habit). Until that moment he had believed
his crime was victimless.

The end of a dialogue should be seen as a beginning, not as an end. The balanced approach
of restorative justice seeks to build an offender’s competence to become a law-abiding citizen
and to realize his or her potential to make a contribution to society.



Part 4


Toolbox For IMPLEMENTING RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
AND ADVANCING COMMUNITY POLICING
Part 4. Building Community Capacity


Part 4. Building Community Capacity


“Restorative justice never denies the offender personal responsibility. But we
must also recognize crime does not happen in a vacuum. There are environmental
and sociological factors that are undeniable predictors of human behavior.”15

Introduction

Communities are the primary source and recipient of crime, fear, and disorder. The
traditional criminal justice system focuses on individual responsibility (ascertaining who is guilty) and
individual punishment (determining how an offender should pay for his or her crime).
Restorative justice promotes the notion of individual accountability (identifying obligations on
the part of an offender to repair the harm caused by the crime), but the emphasis is not on
individual responsibility alone.

Restorative justice acknowledges that communities are victims of crime; it also asserts that
communities have responsibilities to support crime victims as well as offenders in repairing the
harms of crime—to restore victims and communities. Restorative justice seeks also to promote
transformation of the conditions that contribute to crime and aims to encourage social remedies.
In other words, restorative justice does not focus on the weakness, sinfulness, or other
deficiencies of individual offenders without addressing the role of the community and the
social and structural forces that promote crime.

Case Study
Community Has Responsibilities to Support Transformations

A 17-year-old youth robbed a man in his fifties at gunpoint. The youth was sent to a detention center
after admitting his offense. It was proposed that both he and the victim should go through a healing
circle. The victim agreed to participate and told of his fear of losing his life when the youth pointed the
gun at him. The youth explained that he had himself been robbed earlier that day after dealing in
drugs and had been angry about losing his gains.

The youth’s family was unaware he was involved in drugs and was shocked he had gained access to a
gun. The youth admitted his life had gotten out of control and said his detention probably had saved
his life.

Community members present at the circle asked what the visiting hours were at the detention center;
they acknowledged that the youth and his family needed support if the youth was to make the necessary
changes in his life. The victim told the youth he would have lunch with him when he got out of
the center for the same reason: the offender needed to carry out his obligations but also needed
support to keep away from guns, drugs, and bad company. The community, including the victim, was
exercising violence prevention through informal social controls. The community also wants to do
something collectively about the accessibility of firearms generally in the neighborhood.



The community, in relation to crime, occupies several roles:

• Community as victim
-weakened and harmed by crime
• Community as responsible for its members
-victim and offender
• Community as stakeholder
-in broader issues affecting its health


How communities respond to these roles will have a significant impact on the health
of communities and on public comity and order in the years to come.

Is the Dream of Regenerated, Cohesive Communities Utopian?

I see a large number of people find life so complex and overloaded that they
are no longer participating in community life . . .

Experience shows that people are ready for new opportunities. The real
challenge today is to learn how to act as though what we do can make a difference.16

These two quotations reflect disparate views about the reality of regenerating or promoting
cohesion in community life. There are those who are bleakly pessimistic about the prospect of
dynamic, healthy communities in light of withering family relationships, urbanization,
technological advances, consumerism, the global economy, and mobilization of resources—all
compounded by the speed of change and a sense of disempowerment. Anticipating the future with
the trends of longer working hours, lower incomes, resource shortages, 20-million-person
cities, the automobile culture, and global health problems can cause one to question the
legitimacy of the very concept of community—is it fact or fiction?

A report published by a bipartisan group, the National Commission on Civic Renewal, deemed
America dangerously near to being a nation of spectators in which “community spirit and
community life are on the wane.”17

Others, however, share optimism that community life is not only alive, but—by virtue of
people’s dismay at the problems of society and their hunger to think and work together in new
directions—is being revitalized. These people are confident that new partnerships and
coalitions can achieve social change; perhaps only bit-by-bit at first, but opening up
new possibilities for broader change in the process.

Amitai Etzioni, the founder of the communitarian movement, suggests that communities have
centripetal forces, those that pull toward collective action, including a commitment to shared
values, norms, and standards of behavior—and centrifugal forces, those that pull towards
individualism and autonomy and that undermine community bonds. Communities must
endeavor to balance these two forces.18



What Is Community?

Can communities be enlivened to provide a collective response to crime? Defining community
in the context of restorative justice might seem an awesome challenge for contemporary
society unless we accept the following:

• A community is people. Most people belong to communities by way of
shared interests, culture, family, neighborhood, work, friendships, school, or
church and through associations, clubs, and support groups. There are also people
who could be said to be excluded from communities, such as the homeless,
gang members, prisoners, and illegal immigrants.
• Communities need to be active in some way. Neighbors can live next
door to one another for years with no other connection besides geographic proximity.
Triggers to activating dormant communities might be a crisis, a crime, a
problem, a complaint, a leader, media attention, or a precipitative event that
promotes dialogue, engagement, sharing ideas, developing goals, identifying
common values, and ongoing interaction. Responsive communities characterize
active communities.
• The whole community cannot be mobilized at once. Activating communities often
takes time. A gathering of a few members is a start—they can participate in a
shared event or engage in a dialogue that can precipitate further
interest. Communities are made up of a web of relationships, which spread by
activity.
• No one should assume who makes up the community or what the
issues are— let the community tell you. Communities have different
strengths, problems, and expectations at different times. A definition of community,
therefore, must incorporate flexibility. Communities are amorphous and
dynamic. They also can be in denial: e.g., “they have the problem,” “it’s
got nothing to do with me/us,” “I am not interested,” “I haven’t the time,” “we can’t do
anything.” It is here that government has a role to play—providing opportunities for
activating communities.

Although communities are
hard to define and to
pinpoint, this does not
mean they do not exist.
When we learn a new
word, or find a new street,
it does not mean the word
or street did not exist
before. It’s just we hadn’t
used them. Invisible is not
the same as nonexistent.


Etzioni also says that community can be defined, even if the term is not readily
definable. The concept of a chair seems much simpler to define than almost any
sociological term, let alone community; however, what is a chair? A place on
which to sit? So are benches and sofas. A piece of furniture that has four legs?
Some chairs have three legs. And so on. Yet we have little difficulty with using
such a term.

It is therefore important to be open-minded about the existence of community,
who makes up the community, and what communities are capable of. In light of
modern life, the notion of community might at first appear ludicrous—but not if




we give communities a chance to show that they are not always apathetic,
passive, uninterested, inhospitable, and lacking time.

• Communities can become active either by self-generating or external
forces. Individual personalities, alliances, mutual care, religious or
cultural customs, citizenship, or self-interest can stimulate communities. Outside
forces such as accidents, crime, environmental threats, health problems,
business activities, or outreach by organizations can also mobilize communities.
Here are examples of such triggering events:

-Police organizing community meetings to build interest in crime and
public safety issues

-Appointing community members to an advisory board or to become
overseers of public policy implementation

- Volunteerism, including the training of volunteers

- Involving community members in planning and decisionmaking

-Building community relationships through mentoring and friendship
programs

-Engaging the business community to provide skills training or jobs to
promote crime prevention

-Providing information and inviting participation at meetings of
local issues of concern

-Encouraging communities to be involved in problem identification
and problem solving

-Holding forums to listen to diverse views, explore shared values,
and challenge assumptions

There is a tendency for professionals to plan without involving the community
and for both professionals and the community to think of solutions in terms of
professional services. Such thinking promotes an overdependence on professionals
and weak, silent communities.

When Planning Community Meetings, Consider:

• Who has the right to be there?
• Who has a need to be there?
• Who has the energy to be there?
• Who needs help to be there?




In planning the implementation of restorative justice, you need to think about the following:

• The community as a victim
• The responsibilities of the community toward the victim
• The responsibilities of the community toward the offender
• The responsibilities of the community toward itself


Itself a victim, the community needs help to determine who has been affected by a crime, and
how. Those affected may include all the community members or only some. Some may have
been harmed more than others (e.g., a member who was away at the time may not be as affected
as those who were nearby when the crime happened). During the preparation of a restorative
justice process, efforts should be made to encourage everyone affected by a crime to participate
in the dialogue.

Their participation, as with the victim and offender, should be voluntary. Such voluntary, direct
participation promotes empowerment, shared ownership and responsibility, connections, and
commitment to agreed goals.

Achieving such outcomes requires engaging in dialogue with those who can support people to
attend and identifying those who might be excluded who should be invited to attend. Do not
assume that you automatically know who should be participating or who has been affected by
the crime.

Community participation is desirable, because the active involvement of community
members in identifying the harm or damage caused by crime is itself helpful; it contributes
to building a sense of togetherness within the community. “I” is replaced with
“we.” Mutual care and respect are promoted. Members learn that no single person has the
truth—or all the answers. Members begin to readily share a sense of responsibility for the
wellbeing of others. They learn that cooperation and mutual support are essential. Perhaps most
important, members are encouraged to speak from the heart, openly and honestly. Community
engagement provides the opportunity for exploring shared values, problems, aspirations,
threats, and opportunities. Such meaningful communication is likely to promote informal
crime controls and to reduce crime.

Even if communities are expecting you to have all the answers, be straightforward with them
about your capacity as well as your limitations. You can provide leadership, resources, and
organizational skills. However, you cannot define the problem without their help. Without their
involvement, you can identify neither solutions nor all the needed resources—nor can you
deliver solutions that strengthen the community without opportunities for dialogue that
promote learning, understanding, and seeking the whole picture.

Communities do not have
to be dysfunctional, a
breeding ground for
individual and social
irresponsibility. Like a
living entity, with the right
inputs, communities
develop in positive ways.



Community Responsibilities

Communities have responsibilities toward both the victim of crime and the offender. Fulfilling
responsibilities toward the victim is affected by:

• The availability of victim services.
• Channeling general community resources of care, help, funding, and shelter.


Restorative justice processes are powerful vehicles for boosting the availability of victim
resources and for mobilizing the resources in appropriate channels. Victim services programs
traditionally have had to work tirelessly to overcome obstacles to their survival. Community
participation in restorative justice processes spreads awareness of how important these services
are and what can be done to improve them.

Community members who directly participate in restorative justice dialogues also learn what
they as individuals can do to help victim recovery and to repair the harm done. Affording
communities education about the needs of victims is one of your primary tasks; it can be
achieved by public presentations, media input, and circulating literature, in addition to running
restorative justice programs.

Community responsibilities toward the offender include:

• Holding him or her accountable for the harm he or she has caused.
• Providing support to help the offender become a law-abiding citizen.


Community members can help to identify the obligations of an offender. In addition to hearing
from victims how they have been harmed, communities can provide opportunities to the offender
to work to repay victims. By providing these opportunities, the community is affording the
offender a chance to make amends, to gain skills, and to build a sense of connection to others.
Such opportunities should be worthwhile to the victim as well as to the community, and should
be achievable by the offender. The work or service should be meaningful for gaining closure
for the victim and for reintegrating the offender into the community. You and your agency can
help the community develop a range of opportunities for community service.

Restorative Community Service

Community service can be restorative if it has the following characteristics:

• The work is worthwhile to the victim, community, and offender.
• The offender is seen as a valuable resource.
• The offender is able to learn the consequence of his or her actions.




• The work helps to change the community’s perceptions of the offender and
vice versa (he or she feels more invested in the community).
• The work develops skills for the offender that are likely to help him or her
become a contributing and law-abiding citizen.
• The work promotes relationships that strengthen the community.
• The work allows the offender to make amends or repair the harm done by
the crime.
• The work increases the offender’s sense of belonging.
• The work provides positive role models for the offender.


Building Community Decisionmaking Capacity

Community decisionmaking capacity can be developed in many ways. Here are a few examples:

• Hennepin County, Minnesota. Children under 10 years old whose behavior
is considered delinquent are dealt with by a coalition of police, YMCA, staff, prevention
workers, parents, and the county attorney’s office. A plan is developed for
each child and monitored by community members and the partnership.
• Washington County, Minnesota. Conferencing processes, which are used
for all types of offenses, most recently have been applied to racial tensions and
school behavioral problems. Cases of harassment, assault, and threatening
behavior are dealt with through large or small conferences involving community
members.
• Vermont. Community reparative boards have been established throughout the
State to develop agreements with offenders about the terms of their probation.
The terms are based on restorative justice principles: repairing the harm to the
victim and the community, teaching offenders the consequences of their behavior, and
supporting the offenders to avoid further offending.
• Citizens Council Family Services. CCFS provides support to families of
inmates to help them maintain ties with the offender and ties between the offender and
the community while the offender is serving his or her sentence. The goal
is reintegrating the offender back into the community on completion of the sentence.
• Bemidji, Minnesota. A community-response-to-crime program has been
developed to inform offenders how their offense has affected the community and
to work through an agreement that allows the offender to make amends with the
support of the community.




• Dakota County, Minnesota. Crime repair crews offer the offender opportunities to repay
the community and learn new skills to promote life changes. The
offender can meet his or her victim and the community to discuss the impact of
the offense, and some will join the offender in working to build facilities in the
community.
• Bend, Oregon. Businesses provide work opportunities for youth offenders so
that they can repay their victims for the victims’ monetary losses.
• Minnesota. Communities in Minnesota are using circles to address communitywide
problems, such as youth delinquency and child welfare cases, as well as
to address special education students who are at risk of dropping out of school.
• Newbay, Vermont. Inmates pay back the community through community services that
restore historic buildings and refurbish facilities that otherwise would
have to close. This work is saving the state money, but it is more than free labor.
Offenders feel they are part of the community, and the community frequently has
cooked meals for the inmates. One offender describes the experience this way:
“I was the type of person I did what I wanted when I wanted and it didn’t matter
if I hurt people. But just seeing these people are willing to give you a choice, it’s
shown me that other people have feelings too.” Skepticism about whether the
criminals would do a good job has eroded; initial awkwardness in the relationship
between citizens and inmates has disappeared.


Achieving an actively involved community requires strategies to engage community members,
not just placing services in the community. The community also has a responsibility toward
itself—to promote crime prevention and crime controls. Without the participation of community,
community protection is always fragile. The role of the government includes breaking
down the myth that the state can achieve order and safety without citizen participation.

Community development—community capacity building—strengthens the following characteristics
of member interactions and community life:

• Respect
• Relationships
• Involvement
• Learning
• Understanding
• Having a stake
• Empowerment
• Participation
• Problem solving
• Establishing standards
• Prevention
• Results




The table “Community-Placed vs. Community-Based Justice Processes/Services” compares
aspects of the traditional processes and services (those merely “placed” in the community)
with those in which community members are actively involved (community-based).

Community-Placed vs. Community-Based Justice Processes/Services

Community-Placed
Narrow perspective
-Offenders viewed primarily as
criminals
-Individual characteristics of offenders
viewed as primary cause of crime and,
therefore, as primary target of change

Community-Based
Broad perspective
-Offenders viewed as fathers,
daughters, drug addicts, employees
-Individual characteristics, family
dynamics, and community structure
and organization viewed as contributors to
crime and, therefore, as equally important
targets of change

Community-Placed
Closed-system approach
-Relationship is between the offender
and community corrections system
-Restricts information from going to the
community

Community-Based
Open-system approach
-Information is shared with community
members and organizations
-Information sharing expands
the network of support for offenders; also
protects the community

Community-Placed
Goal: offender reform
-Requires changes in the offender
-Requires offender conformity to
accepted community standards

Community-Based
Goal: offender reintegration
-Requires changes in the offender (e.g.,
attitudinal and behavioral)
-Requires changes in the community
(e.g., acceptance, support,
opportunity)

SOURCE: Fulton, Betsy A. Restoring Hope through Community Partnerships: The Real Deal in Crime Control. A
Handbook for Community Corrections. Lexington, KY: American Probation and Parole Association, 1996.

Actions You and Your Agency Need to Take

Actions you need to take to build community capacity and reduce public passivity include the
following:

• Meet your community
• Learn about your community
• Identify needs and expectations
• Establish common goals
• Establish common values
• Promote shared activities
• Celebrate achievements together




“Stigmatizing and
scapegoating of
individuals and groups
can occur even in
functioning communities,
but such social
pathologies are more
likely the more
communities wash their
hands of responsibility for
care and control, and the
more informal
mechanisms have become
defunct. . . Not only are
communities gradually
losing their capacity for
local social control, they
are learning the rationales
and skills for actively
avoiding it.”19

The community must be engaged to provide—and to achieve—ongoing crime control and prevention.
Indeed, the dominant role of the state should become unnecessary and be abandoned—but this
will take time, adept leadership, and the will to cut back the power of the state.
In some instances, resources are beginning to be redistributed from the state to communities;
the establishment of justice councils in Burlington, Vermont, for example, has given the public
a greater say in how resources are expended for justice.

Preparing the community to do its own work builds bonds as well as confidence that more
work can be done by lay citizens. The transition from a state-dominant system of formal crime
controls to a system in which a strong community is able to apply informal social controls may,
however, have to progress through several stages.

Stages in Transition to Strong Informal Social Controls

Stage 1:

• The justice system defines and “solves” the problem.
• Limited self-government by the community.
• Community dependent upon the professional system.
• Capacity of community to apply informal social controls undermined.
• System relies on use of force and coercion.


Justice system operates independently of community.

Stage 2:

• The justice system gives information to the community about what it does.
• Community learns its dependence on the professional system
is misplaced.
• Community likely to seek more responsiveness from the professionals to meet
their needs/expectations.


Justice system begins to heed community needs/view.

Stage 3:

• The justice system recognizes it cannot meet the needs and expectations of the
community without its help.
• Tensions exist between the community (losing faith in the system) and the
system (assuming that communities are incompetent).
• Partnerships might afford insights about what joint problem solving can achieve.


Justice system applies more force and coercion to keep the public confident, while trying
to figure out what communities can do.



Stage 4:

• Justice system recognizes that the community needs to be engaged in activities
that promote crime control and crime prevention.
• Contribution of the community is seen as valuable.
• Experiments demonstrate that the community has competence and can apply
informal controls.
• Relationship between the justice system and community begins to turn toward a
partnership rather than only a service provider-client relationship.


Justice system sees itself as a partner equal with the community.

Stage 5:

• Communities develop confidence in their own capacity for defining problems
and coming up with solutions.
• Communities learn more about their role and responsibilities in relation to
offenders and victims.
• Justice system loosens its authoritarian stance and promotes a range of responses—formal
and informal—but always with the community role in mind.
• Communities develop responses that help improve crime prevention in families,
schools, neighborhoods.


Justice system supports the community role in controlling and preventing crime.

Crime is in fact a community problem—not just a professional or system problem. In
the past 20 to 30 years, we have tended to send community problems to
professional systems and wait for professionals to fix the problems. It turns out
that it doesn’t work. Communities must be intimately involved in solving their
own problems—with the help of professionals but with a much greater community hand
in shaping and implementing solutions.”20

Your role as part of restorative justice is to facilitate a change in the relationship between
government and the community, recognizing that the formal and informal systems of social control
need to work together. Your role is one of enabling, supporting, coordinating, and providing
resources for progress toward the engagement of citizens and communities. Your role also
includes monitoring and oversight. We do not want oppressive communities, but the promotion
of responsible citizenship. Despite these important roles, the community should be seen as an
equal partner. The community has a responsibility to develop its social capital and to exert
influence on those who seek continuing dependence on the formal system.

Communities can provide moral authority to their members. The state provides legal authority
and should step in when the community’s authority falters. The state must afford protection to
individuals and invoke the formal system of controls for those who are a serious threat to public
order and safety.



Case Study
Progressing Toward Community Engagement

The Central City Neighborhood Partnership (CCNP) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, provides an example
of the steps needed to promote a healthy partnership between the formal state system and the informal
community authority:

1994 Local community associations met to discuss issues of common concern. Quality-of-life
crimes were earmarked as persistent problems for residents. Consensus emerged that the
police and local government were not able to fully address these.

1994-1996 Research conducted in conjunction with the local university revealed 1996 bottlenecks in
the criminal justice system that skewed its effectiveness in relation to offenders causing problems
that contributed to the deterioration of community life. Shoplifters, prostitutes, vandals,
and trespassers were being allowed to repeat their behavior over and over again. Courts did
not give the matter serious attention, and there were weak lines of accountability.

1996 CCNP learned about the restorative justice vision and developed a local forum for resolving
problems and conflicts. They established links with those in the formal system who were
sympathetic. The local police chief, chief judge, and head of corrections, among others, supported
the forum by arranging meetings in which information was exchanged on ideas,
obstacles to change, level of support for change, and willingness to explore restorative justice.

1997 The attorney’s office diverted misdemeanor crimes to the CCNP for conferencing. The police
were asked to consider referring cases to the CCNP. About three restorative justice conferences
a month were run. Community service projects were developed to support offenders in meeting their
obligations toward victims.

1998 CCNP continues to develop with the support of the formal justice system. The system has
supported training and technical assistance for the group. Confidentiality and data protection
issues have been resolved. The introduction of sentencing circles is being explored. CCNP has
been featured on local and national radio, securing public awareness of the group’s work.
Currently, many misdemeanors stay in the community for resolution without recourse to the
formal justice system.

Summary

Keys to building community capacity:

• The state should activate, not dominate.
• Encourage the community to support victims and offenders.
• Let the community set the priorities.
• Keep an eye out for the excluded.
• Allow for plenty of time and several stages.
• Participatory dialogue is a must.




Part 5


Toolbox For IMPLEMENTING RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
AND ADVANCING COMMUNITY POLICING
Part 5. Developing a Program


Part 5. Developing a Program

Introduction

Restorative justice requires vision, clarity of goals, and a commitment to its values and principles.
Implementing restorative justice necessitates a new way of thinking about crime and
offending behavior as well as shifts in roles. It also requires an understanding that community
engagement, participation, and devolved decisionmaking are inherent characteristics of
restorative justice.

Because restorative justice involves fundamental changes in the way crime is addressed, tensions
can arise among agencies, between professional service providers and communities,
between victim services and offender treatment providers, and between traditional subcultures
and those seeking change. Restorative justice requires a commitment to working collaboratively,
to including people, to open communications, and to step-by-step planning, as well as
openness to learning the need to do things differently.

Outreach to the community and community engagement throughout the planning phase is
important to develop a shared vision and sense of ownership for the program. In particular,
restorative justice thrives on consensus building and partnerships, and requires bringing
to the table those who might otherwise be excluded. For example, consider inviting youth
representatives or ex-offenders to planning sessions. This will help to increase awareness of all
the issues that your plan needs to incorporate. Planning meetings can be critical for ironing out
problems and potential obstacles.

Some jurisdictions have chosen to develop a task force of different agencies and community
representatives to build understanding of restorative justice and to promote a common vision.
Such a task force can help widen the focus of the program to capture all the needs and interests
in the community. Workshops in schools, community groups, service organizations, and
youth clubs can also help to identify levels of support for innovation.

Gaining support for your program can take as long as 12–18 months, depending on the size
of your jurisdiction. Recognize that this time and effort is an important investment for the
eventual success of your program. You will gain knowledge of issues that you might not have
considered important. You will also be more confident that what you are doing will work.

Restorative justice is a learning process that seeks to bring together people who are willing to
work toward common goals. Bear in mind throughout the planning process that the goals (and
the means of achieving those goals) must be consistent with restorative justice values.
Remember also that it is easy to stray from the path and get bogged down in isolated issues,
rather than keeping an eye on the larger picture. No program will be perfect on the first try.
The aim should be to develop changes that promote harm reduction, respect, and sensitivity. By
listening to the views of others and working out common objectives, you can get there.

Developing a restorative
justice program requires
more than the desire to try
something new. It requires
sharing why you think
change is necessary and
inviting feedback.



Liaison with a wide variety of community groups is recommended. Restorative justice
processes need to be culturally sensitive so that people feel safe and comfortable.

Requirements To Develop a Vision and Program for Restorative Justice

• Cultivate partnerships.
• Clarify your mission and goals.
• Develop training.
• Attract funding, resources, organization, and oversight.


The primary objectives should include healing the victim’s harm, promoting social harmony,
putting right the wrong, and preventing further crime.

Stages of Developing a Restorative Justice Program

The following are the key stages involved in developing and implementing a restorative justice
program:

• Hold discussion forums to generate dialogue on restorative justice, explaining the
values and principles. Sharing the restorative justice vision will help to
highlight that restorative justice is more than a program. This stage is important
for gaining willingness to experiment with restorative justice in a climate where
the get-tough-on-crime attitude is prevalent.

• Identify who should be engaged in securing ownership and commitment
for piloting restorative justice. This involves working with community representatives
and community-based organizations (schools, churches, youth associations), victim services,
criminal justice agencies, business groups, and the voluntary sector. This stage lays the
groundwork for determining stakeholders’ needs and interests.

• Develop a stakeholder coalition to develop a plan for implementing
restorative justice. The multiagency and community-based partnership should
work out the mission of any program, its goals, objectives, protocols, and
resource needs—and identify barriers to implementation.

• Determine the model—the kinds of crime problems to be addressed, the
type of offender (e.g., adult, youth, violent, nonviolent), and the categories of victimization
and/or disorder problem. The community in which the restorative justice pilot is to be
implemented should have a say in this decisionmaking process,
reflecting the principle that the proper locus of justice delivery is the community.




• Develop a training and volunteer program, including the dissemination
of information materials on restorative justice, protocols, ground rules, supervision, and oversight.

• Develop evaluation and monitoring processes. These might include
base surveys to gauge shifts in attitudes among communities, participants, and
criminal justice professionals; victim and community levels of satisfaction;
engagement in problem solving; changes in levels of crime, fear, and disorder;
and the fulfillment of plans for holding offenders to account. These are the minimum
measures that should be incorporated into program design.


The remaining sections of “Part 5. Developing a Program” should help you think through some
of the general issues to be resolved through discussion with your partners. Plan your program
step-by-step and you will be ready for your first case referral.

Gaining Public Support for Restorative Justice

Restorative justice can be mistaken for a soft option, and its goals can seem unrealistic. It is
important to explain to the public what your intentions are and how you intend to accomplish
them.

Ideally, community representatives should be invited to participate in the planning, design,
and implementation of restorative justice. Media representation may also be helpful to ensure
that the purpose and methods of your program are portrayed accurately. Community input may
be very valuable in determining the path ahead.

Studies across the United States have shown that the public is less vindictive than often portrayed.
In Vermont, Minnesota, Delaware, Oregon, Maryland, and North Carolina, surveys show
that the public is in favor of restitution and community-based sanctions rather than
imprisonment. The public has shown consistent support for public spending on education
and job training. In Minnesota, 82 percent of survey respondents indicated that they would be interested in
participating in a face-to-face mediation meeting with the offender.21 These findings lend support
to the idea of expanding restorative justice. Consider conducting a local survey to find out
the views of your community.

Support for restorative justice from other criminal justice practitioners and victim groups can
be critical to the success of a program.

It is important to build new
programs on a solid
foundation that reflects
the values of
restorative justice.

Case Referrals

How cases get referred to your program will depend on various decisions; for example, is your
program going to run as a pre-adjudication diversion or as part of a sanctioning process after
a finding of guilt by the court? What kinds of offender/crime categories will be included?
Through liaison with those responsible for making the decision to refer a case to restorative





justice, you should make them aware of the rationale of the program and give them clear criteria
on which to base their decisions. In addition, to secure as many referrals as is appropriate,
ask those who are the referral source whether your program staff can select cases—after
negotiation with them about the process. This will promote trust and confidence that people are
working to the same ends, encouraging more referrals.

To receive more cases, a very assertive and cooperative communication
strategy must be employed to help a large bureaucracy change the manner
in which it understands and responds to crime. This is no easy task. One
should never assume that good intentions and philosophical support for
mediation means more referrals. . . . More often than not, the lack of referrals
to victim-offender mediation programs has more to do with the program itself and
the communication strategies it uses than it does with the
larger system actively resisting the concept. If the program staff make it easy
for the referral source to send cases and the referral source sees it in their
interest to reduce their caseload, most internal sources will eventually send
plenty of cases, sometimes even too many. . . . In the quest to receive more
referrals, it is important to never lose touch with the underlying values of
restorative justice.22

The process of developing
or sharing responsibility
for justice not only
requires the state to allow
communities greater
ownership, but also
requires communities to
take an active role, taking
seriously the standards of
human rights and acting
within the law.

Intolerant Communities

A major concern for anyone implementing restorative justice is the danger that the program
might be a formal empowerment of intolerant and punitive views in a community.

The need for safeguards against vigilantism, bigotry, and infringements of individual rights
requires that restorative justice programs have built-in checks, such as monitoring and oversight
by broad-based groups. These groups should receive training in the values of restorative
justice and develop systems for protecting the rights of minorities, human rights, and the right
to privacy. These groups should also include members who have knowledge of the law and the
formal justice system—to monitor the proportionality and fairness of agreements.

This work can be achieved, it is hoped, through a process of community development involving
education and discussion. A community and an oversight board might choose to develop a
local code of practice that reflects the values of restorative justice and can be used to
gain commitment to working responsibly.

Obtaining Resources and Funding

A commitment to restorative justice will inevitably involve the need to identify dedicated
resources to run programs, to coordinate community volunteers, to conduct monitoring and
evaluation, and to keep other stakeholders and the public informed of what is going on.
Equipment, telephone expenses, space, and vehicles may also be needed. These resources can
come from redirecting existing resources (which may become easier down the line if dependence
on the formal justice sysem declines). Otherwise, funding from other sources must be
sought.



Although Federal and state government grants may help, it is also worth looking at local
resources that might be available. There is merit in considering sponsorship from local
organizations that are willing to make a contribution to community safety.

A key component of a restorative justice program is providing materials on restorative justice
and giving presentations, training, and information. Technical assistance in the form of training
facilitators and program management may be provided through collaboration with a local university
or college that has an interest in restorative justice.

Restorative justice promotes community engagement, and the use of volunteers—such as
retired people, part-time workers, parents, and youth workers—should be considered. These
volunteers can assume roles in preparing and conducting meetings, writing letters and articles,
maintaining records, and giving presentations.

Advisory Board

It is helpful to set up a board or advisory group to oversee the design, implementation, and
evaluation of restorative processes. Ideally, the group should include the expertise and knowledge
of a diverse range of people, including the medical profession, the church, academia, criminal
justice agencies, community representatives, corrections facilities, counselors, and cultural
minorities. The group should include males and females, young and old, and various religions.
The role of the board is to provide oversight on the achievement of program goals, adherence
to restorative justice values, resource management, and marketing. In particular, the board can
help to ensure that program managers are equipped with the necessary skills, knowledge, and
sensitivity to run restorative justice processes.

Developing Skills in Sensitivity to Victims

Those dealing with victims should possess good general knowledge of victims’ issues, including victim
trauma, counseling, interview techniques, the needs of special victim groups (e.g.,
victims of domestic abuse or of hate crimes, youth victims, elderly victims, child abuse victims),
and how to provide appropriate support.

Bad practice will lead
to the disrepute of
restorative justice.

Cultural Sensitivity

It is important to implement restorative justice in ways that are sensitive to different cultures.
Not everyone speaks English; not everyone is comfortable with certain kinds of practices or
processes: some people are rather uncomfortable with direct confrontation with eye contact (in
which cases, consider indirect mediation using proxies); some people are uneasy about sharing
emotions; for some, saving face is more important than owning up to their own role in the
crime; and some people are suspicious of anything that the state system does.

Awareness of these issues should be incorporated into your program. Do not take for granted
that you understand the differences. Be respectfully curious and promote such curiosity in the
dialogue. Take a broad view of culture, including differences in gender, sexual orientation,
religion, age, class, etc. Cultural values affect how people interact and can have an influence on
outcomes. It takes a skillful facilitator to be sensitive to these issues, and feedback on your pro-


gram should be encouraged to identify cross-cultural tensions. Cultural sensitivity can be
difficult to manage for any agency used to standard operating processes in the criminal
justice system. Attention to cultural differences can promote more informality than the agency itself is
comfortable with, but this is an appropriate tension.

Key Role of Preparation Meetings

The program design should include resources for preparatory meetings to be held with victim
and offenders before their face-to-face meeting and dialogue. These preparation meetings
should be built into your program. Training for those conducting these preparatory meetings
will be required. Those conducting the meeting should be advised to explain their role and their
agency’s role and the relationship with the other parties; to tell them how long a face-to-face
meeting will take; and to give a telephone contact number to reinforce the message that they
are important. The people who conduct these meetings may require victim-sensitivity and
offender-awareness training, otherwise their contact might be counterproductive. Neither party
attending a meeting should be confronted with surprises, such as an offender not being present
when the victim expects him or her to be there.

Preparation meetings prior to the dialogue are essential to those who will conduct the meetings as
well as other participants, to learn about the case in its entirety: who was victimized by
the crime, the feelings of the people involved, and the appropriateness of referring the case.
Preparation is also essential to secure the involvement of the parties and of the community.

Both the victim and offender should be prepared for their participation in a restorative justice
process. Thus the facilitators need to explain the purpose of the dialogue, to clarify expectations
and to help them understand the ground rules and the implications in relation to the criminal
justice system (e.g., will victims be able to ensure that their losses are recovered? will the
offender still be prosecuted?).

Preparatory meetings are an important part of a restorative justice process to encourage people
to participate and to enable them, based on all the available information, to make a choice.
Case referrals to restorative justice processes can often be thwarted when the parties are not
adequately prepared.

Neutral Role of the Facilitator and Agency

An essential ingredient of restorative justice is that communities, victims, and offenders should
have a greater say in the development and management of justice processes. However, since
current resource distribution is stacked in favor of criminal justice professionals, it is easy for
them to assume greater control over running those processes than is compliant with the ethos
of restorative justice. The role of the facilitator is to enable these other key players to arrive
at decisions—not to dictate or control.

It is incumbent on those running restorative justice programs to be aware of the danger of
confusing their traditional roles with the new roles needed for restorative justice. Their job
descriptions, in most cases, will not fit the needs of restorative justice. (See “Suggested
Traits and Skills for Restorative Justice Workers,” in box.)



Suggested Traits and Skills for Restorative Justice Workers

Traits

Approachable
Compassionate
Consensus-builder
Empathetic
Energetic
Flexible
Nonjudgmental
Organized
Patient
Positive attitude
Responsive
Sensitive to limitations
Team player
Walk the talk

Skills

Communication
Conflict management
Letting go (sharing power)
Managing uncertainty
Public speaking
Reading body language
Victim sensitivity


An important aim of
restorative justice is to
humanize the justice
process. It is more about
people than about
systems.


Participation of Relatives

A victim’s wish to participate in a restorative justice process may not be supported by his or her
family or friends. It is important to recognize that the victim’s willingness to meet an offender
might seem odd to those around him or her. Friends and family members can feel especially
protective toward a crime victim, to the point that they inadvertently impinge on the victim’s
right to make decisions. A facilitator should prepare victims for this potential tension in addition
to offering to provide information to those who might object to the victim meeting the
offender.

In some cases, victims might be willing to have the preparatory meeting tape-recorded, which
could then allow family members to listen to what happened in the process. This can help
reduce the victim’s sense of isolation in making the decision to participate and help promote
appropriate support of the victim after the meeting.



Restorative justice is not
just another legal
intervention: it is a
humanistic approach to
justice in which
assessments are made by
people about the interests
and needs of others.

On the other hand, a facilitator might be wise to consider information from friends, family
members, and others (e.g., therapist, counselor, colleagues) that might cast doubts on the
capacity of a victim to go through a dialogue and meeting. In serious violent crime cases, or
cases involving several abuses, a counselor should always be consulted as to the suitable
timing and appropriateness of any meeting.

Resource Sharing

If justice is to become increasingly community-based, processes should engage ordinary citizens
in decisions traditionally the preserve of justice system professionals. There will come a
time when resource sharing is appropriate. If communities need to rely on professional agencies
for their training, meeting venues, and program operation, community empowerment may
be seriously eroded. One way of tackling this issue is to enable the community to have a greater
say in how resources are distributed and to earmark funding specifically for restorative justice
programs.

Accountability for Public Safety

What happens if an offender who has gone through a restorative justice process commits a
crime that violates personal safety—and the victim (or victim’s family) wishes to sue for
negligence? This is the ultimate clash of the two paradigms, and incidents are likely to occur as
restorative justice continues to spread. Who, if anybody, should be held accountable? The
agency that conducted the restorative justice process (even though it did so with community
support and community involvement)? Or, is this an acceptable risk to be taken when deciding
whether a case is suitable for this approach?

It would be regrettable if restorative justice were to become subject to bureaucratic protocols
and rigid mandates in an effort to preclude the risk of such lawsuits.

While no restorative justice intervention should ever ignore the wider public safety issues
inherent in any crime (or possibly associated with the offender), accountability should be based on
a more holistic platform—as explained in “Part 6. Benchmarks for Evaluation.”

When Cases Need Specially Skilled Facilitation

The facilitation of restorative justice processes in serious crime cases is unsuitable for police
officers unless they are specially trained in this intensive work. This is where volunteers with
mediation skills can be useful. The preparation for such cases can take many hours (see the
case study, in box).

Use of Victim/Offender Letter to Initiate a Process

In some cases an agency will be approached by either a victim or an offender wishing to meet
face-to-face in a restorative justice dialogue. This is likely to become more common as publicity
about victim-offender mediation and other restorative justice processes become widespread.



Case Study:
Dialogue in Serious Crime Case Has Powerful Effect*


In one case of aggravated robbery, sexual assault, and murder of an 18-year-old girl, the facilitator
spent many hours over a period of 13 months to reach a point where a meeting could take place
between the victim’s mother and the convict:

Meeting with victim 			10 hours
Meeting with offender 			9 hours
Telephone conversations with victim 	20 hours
Telephone conversations with offender 	0 hours
Conflicts with prison officials 	12 hours
Total hours before actual meeting: 	51 hours

The actual meeting between the victim and the prisoner was spread over two sessions; in the first session
the victim focused more on her own feelings. In the second meeting, the victim’s main concern
was the accountability of her daughter’s killer when she pressed him for answers to questions about the
rape/murder. She was also able to turn her attention to his self-image, how he used his time in prison,
and how to care for the offender’s children.

The first meeting between this victim and offender took place several years after the crime.

Comments from the victim:

“[The mediation] changed my life–I feel like a new person.”

From the offender:

“I feel like I have made a difference.”

From a prison official:

“It was a great honor to be a part of it . . . very powerful.”


*These insights were provided by David Doerfler of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

In these cases an assessment of the case should be made based on what is known about the
crime incident and the parties involved. It is also appropriate to suggest that the person
requesting the meeting write a letter introducing his intention and outlining his motives in wanting to
meet. The response of the recipient of the letter will be helpful in ascertaining the appropriateness
of starting preparatory steps to arrange a meeting. Letters can also be used to clarify
personal issues that either party might have, questions that one might have of others, and
expectations. This kind of information exchange can contribute to the parties’ decisions to
participate in a face-to-face dialogue and will often contribute to the creation of a safe atmosphere.
Uncovering information that might otherwise come as a surprise at the actual meeting is an
important part of the preparation.



When One Victim Participates But Another Says No

There is no reason why one victim who chooses not to participate in a restorative justice
process should obstruct another victim’s choice to meet face-to-face with the offender.
However, this requires sensitive handling by the facilitator. For example, the direct victim of a
child abuse case might not have any desire to meet the perpetrator, but the parent(s) of the
victim might feel very differently. Again, a tape recording of any dialogue might be useful to the
other victim at some future stage.

Volunteers

The use of volunteers as facilitators or program coordinators can be a positive step toward
sharing responsibility for the justice process with citizens.

Recruitment and training require identifying the needed personal qualities and skills. These
include maturity, ability to listen, commitment, and good interpersonal skills. Volunteers can
play a crucial part in developing community capacity but they need encouragement, support,
and respect. Teamwork can help to provide ongoing supervision and support as well as avoid
burnout. Teamwork can also provide a structure for working on all the logistics of preparing
and conducting meetings, reporting agreements, and monitoring the program. Volunteers
should receive recognition for the important work they do; their involvement makes a
program more restorative by virtue of reducing the dependence on the formal system to resolve
crime problems.

When community members do not feel they can impact social change
through their participation . . . they often withdraw into their own worlds—
not so much from apathy, but from helplessness. It is not that people do not
want to contribute to the overall resolution of social problems in their
neighborhoods—it is that we have not allowed them meaningful access to
our social institutions which allow community mobilization to occur.23

Matching Cases with the Skills and Experience of the Facilitator

The power of restorative justice dialogues and meetings is enormous. No meeting should be
arranged unless there is an adequately trained facilitator who understands the process,
understands the emotional risks involved for anyone who participates, and is capable of dedicating
adequate time and attention to each of the participants—whether or not they choose to complete
the process. Crimes should not be seen merely as cases to be processed through a system. The
handling of all stages of any restorative justice dialogue and meeting requires sensibility,
patience, and respect for the parties involved. It also requires an appreciation that the
process can be easily derailed or co-opted by any failure to adhere to the values of restorative
justice.

Should Restorative Justice Be Entirely Voluntary?

Many restorative justice experiments so far have included an element of coercion to secure the
attendance of offenders. The willingness to cooperate with an organization running restorative



justice processes may be rare among certain categories of offenders, particularly if little
preparatory work is done. Some commentators believe restorative justice is doomed to being
applied only to minor crimes committed by young and infrequent offenders, rather than to
more serious crimes committed by hard-core criminals—unless the voluntary element is
buttressed by the coercive powers of the justice system.24

The coercion suggested by some includes court referrals to a restorative justice process and
the application of sanctions that are restorative in nature but enforceable by the courts.

These suggestions raise the specter of two systems of justice working on the same case, each
with different goals and values. While it is possible for the formal system to adopt more of a
restorative stance, it remains a moot point whether this dual-system approach would eventually
water down the potential of restorative justice to achieve its balanced goals. The application
of restorative justice to violent crime may, however, require such compromise to offset threats
to public safety. Experiments on different approaches—and their evaluation—will, over time,
reveal the full range of possibilities and problems.

Job Descriptions for Program Personnel

You will need to think about job descriptions for those tasked with coordinating or running a
restorative justice program. It is unlikely that existing job specifications will match the qualities
and skills required for restorative justice.

Summary

Keys to program development:

• Be clear about your goals.
• Work closely with key stakeholders in the design and implementation.
• Work out protocols and standards that protect people’s rights.
• Think about the skills and training required.
• Step-by-step planning will prepare you for your first case referral.


Don’t worry if you do not have all the answers at the outset. That would be virtually
impossible—it takes time to adjust to a new way of thinking.

Restorative justice is a way of thinking. It is a fundamentally different framework for
understanding and responding to crime and victimization in communities. Correctional systems
adopting a restorative justice approach are no longer driven by offender concerns alone.
Instead, they acknowledge the need for a three-dimensional response involving victims,
offenders, and the community.25



Part 6


Toolbox For IMPLEMENTING RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
AND ADVANCING COMMUNITY POLICING
Part 6. Benchmarks For Evaluation


Part 6. Benchmarks for Evaluation

Introduction

Implementing restorative justice in the context of policing, either in partnership with other
agencies or by a police department, requires more than a “hunch” that such change is desirable
or needed. The judgment of police managers is important in assessing the merits of putting
a new program in place; however, accountability to the public and stakeholders, before the
program is implemented as well as after, is critical. Accountability is relevant for several reasons:

• The response to recorded crime is important to society and should address basic
requirements of individual and public safety, fairness, effectiveness, and efficiency.
• The needs and expectations of different stakeholders should be assessed carefully and
provided for to the extent practically possible.
• Benchmarks are key targets to be met in conducting activities essential for carrying
out the mission and for meeting stakeholders’ expectations. Benchmarks
help to steer implementation toward the vision and also promote the best practice.
• Record keeping is important for case management as well as for evaluation.
Program monitoring tests the accomplishment of objectives and identifies areas
needing improvement.


Accountability is important to test your thinking about what the goals of your program should
be, how those goals should be met, and how much planning is required. Ideally, your structure
for developing program accountability will include the following:

• Time for broad consultation with the public and all stakeholders.
Their views and input should influence and shape your overall strategy.
• Time to reflect on the values of restorative justice and their meaning in
terms of implementation. Programs can be more restorative or less
restorative, depending upon the attention given to all the elements that are
described in “Part 1. Values of Restorative Justice” in this toolbox.
• Time to gain support for what you want to do—this includes political
support as well as legal justification. You will need to work with the media and
in other communications channels to open a dialogue about restorative justice
and how it can be applied. You will need to collaborate with other criminal
justice agencies to ensure that your program works in tandem with other justice
interventions.




Restorative justice is still
an emerging paradigm.
There is much we do not
know. Your program could
provide useful lessons
about what works well
and what is problematic.

• Time to gain internal and external support and accrue resources
for operating the program. Restorative justice can, initially at least, seem
like an attempt to decriminalize offenses or appear “soft.” It can also appear
threatening to those who are used to more traditional means of handling crime.
Accountability includes listening to those who might be skeptical and working
out ways to provide resources.

Accountability is also important during implementation of the program, to determine what the
program achieves and what it fails to achieve.

For these reasons, accountability should be seen as something that is not only essential but
highly desirable. Accountability teaches all of us.

Listed below are additional accountability factors that need to be considered when designing
your program:

• Restorative justice promotes a balanced approach to crime and requires a
framework of performance indicators and benchmarks that reconcile and
promote the needs of victims and offenders, as well as the community. You
will also need to consider how your program will account to the wider public,
which has a right to know how justice is being delivered.
• Restorative justice promotes a new relationship between the justice system and
the community. It is important for the community to have a say in what
accountability measures are incorporated in the program and how these
measures are used. An advisory board made up of different stakeholders in the
community will provide added oversight and will promote shared ownership of
the program. Think about the measures that could determine how the community is
taking responsibility, e.g., the number of program volunteers, whether citizens offer
support to victims, and whether communities monitor the offender’s
fulfillment of agreements and obligations.
• Consider whether there is a demand for qualitative as well as quantitative measures
of accountability. If so, this will influence the way you operate the program:
the style and manner in which you implement restorative justice will be
important and will require keeping more than numerical records. Oversight by
way of qualitative research (observation, surveys, face-to-face interviews)
will be necessary. In particular, qualitative measures will help to reveal training
and development needs.
• Are there perceived risks to introducing restorative justice, and if so, how can
these be assessed in the performance of your program? For example, victims’
services may fear that crime victims will not be adequately prepared to make an
informed choice about whether to participate in the program. Thought must be
given to what measures could be introduced to minimize the risk of victims
feeling coerced; the voluntary participation of victims is a key value of restora




tive justice theory. Feedback interviews from crime victims who have participated
in a program will provide excellent insights into how sensitive your program
staff are about what is required to allow victims to make a voluntary, informed
choice.

• Consider what specific benefits you hope to achieve through the program and
how these might be assessed. For example, if offender recidivism is important,
then consideration must be given to developing a longitudinal record-keeping
system to monitor all offenders coming into the program. This will undoubtedly
call for research assistance to ensure that the information required for
monitoring is included in your records from the start.
• Consider whether comparisons are likely to be made between what happens to
cases dealt with by the traditional criminal justice process and those dealt with
by the restorative justice program. Such comparisons would require early consultation
with other agencies in the criminal justice system to ensure that separate records
are kept for monitoring purposes.
• Consider whether there are intangibles that you would like measured in some
way following the implementation of the program. If so, it is probably necessary
to conduct a baseline survey before you start the program. For example, you may
wish to assess the attitude of crime victims or your own staff toward offenders
generally and monitor changes in attitudes during the lifetime of the program. A
baseline assessment might be invaluable to gauge how people’s views are
changing.
• Is the program susceptible to challenge on account of resources and, if so, what
cost/ benefit analysis would be helpful? For example, if some stakeholders
perceive that restorative justice offers savings in police time, because officers do
not have to attend court, how can the savings be measured vis-à-vis the expenditure
needed to run the restorative justice program?
• Are there particular crimes or offenders that stakeholders especially want
dealt with by restorative justice processes, and if so, how can case referrals be
maintained? For example, many people support the use of restorative justice for
nonviolent youth offenders but are skeptical of its suitability in other instances.
Your selection criteria may need to be clarified to ensure that your program
meets the mandate you have. In time, as the program evolves, other categories
of offense/offender might be supported for referral to restorative justice; such
change will necessitate altering the screening process. All this will have an impact
on evaluation.


• Perhaps most important, what measures will help to assess the extent to which
the values of restorative justice are reflected in your program? For example,
an important element of restorative justice is showing respect to all parties. Can
you think how to measure this to promote respectful behavior? You might




achieve respectful behavior through good training of facilitators and sound
preparation of all those who take part in the program. However, regular surveys
or feedback from participants about how they felt during and after their involvement
in the program could be valuable.

“Restorative justice is
about redrawing the lines
of accountability within
the criminal justice arena,
re-engaging the
community, and reducing
the focus on
accountability to the
abstract state. . . It seems
consistent with these
fundamental
principles that the
community accept
responsibility for making
the project work.”26

All these factors should help you think about the benchmarks that are needed as part of your
program to test its desirability and, over time, its strengths, areas that need improvement, and
how well it is meeting your objectives.

In addition to these factors, you might have a hunch that restorative justice will have an impact
on the internal culture of the police department and that public support for restorative justice
might lead to calls for changes in such areas as legislation, public policy, and expenditure on
prevention.

There is nothing wrong with having these aspirations, but be careful that they are not the only
driving force for initiating your program. It is important to understand the extent to which
restorative justice will change things. You need to think through what these changes may be and
consider how they can be measured. Documenting change is important for true accountability
and to keep the program on track in a way that optimizes the benefits and minimizes the risks
of applying restorative justice.

Core Aims and Related Benchmarks

The following are core aims of restorative justice for you to think about when introducing any
restorative justice program. Some will require monitoring or assessment before you start referring
cases to a restorative justice process.

Restorative justice:

• Seeks to redefine the meaning of crime.
• Involves victims, offenders, and the community.
• Seeks victim restoration.
• Seeks offender competency.
• Seeks community safety and connectedness.
• Seeks to learn how to prevent crime.


Benchmarks to reflect these aims of restorative justice will help to make your program more,
not less, restorative. Some can be measured by statistical analysis of your cases, others will
require qualitative research, including surveys. Each of the core aims is considered below,
along with possible indicators or benchmarks.

1. Redefining the meaning of crime

The focus of the restorative justice process is more on the harms of crime and less on the
violation of the law. Therefore, identification of the harm is a critical factor. After a few months,
you should be able to come up with two lists of identified harms that victims and communities



experience following a crime. You will have one list for victim harms and another for community
harms; some harms may appear on both lists.

Use these lists for training officers who respond to crime and create awareness
among the public of the impact of crime. Over time more people will understand
that crime requires investment in prevention if these harms are to be avoided.

2. Involving victims, offenders, and communities

The more that citizens are involved in your program, the more likely it is that the benefits of
restorative justice will be achieved. As with problem-solving policing, the more engagement
there is, the more information you receive to identify the real issue that needs to be tackled.
Keep a record of who participates—as well as additional information that came from participants
who added value to the restorative justice process. In time you might be able to discern
how influential to the process and/or outcomes are family members, peers, friends, and non-
familial guardians, as well as specific community groups. This information will help in planning
future restorative justice meetings and dialogues.

There is nothing more powerful than stories about what happens in a restorative justice
process. They convey what restorative justice focuses on, how crime can be resolved through
collaboration and problem solving, and how victims, offenders, and communities can be positively
affected by their participation. Keeping a record of your cases is an essential part of
spreading learning about what restorative justice can achieve.

3. Restoring victims

Repairing the harm experienced by victims (and communities) is necessary to help victims
recover and to hold offenders to account in meaningful ways. Keep a record of how offenders
have restored the losses or damage. This includes making things right in relationships (e.g.,
a letter of apology, a showing of remorse, agreeing to work for the victim or help the victim in
some way).

Victim involvement is a fundamental requirement of restorative justice. It is easy to assume that
the victims feel involved simply because they were invited to participate. You must check with
the victims themselves about whether your program is meeting their needs and expectations. This
will often necessitate survey work or face-to-face interviews at some stage after their
case was dealt with. You need to check:

• The extent to which victims felt they were given ample information for deciding whether
or not to participation in a restorative justice process.
• The extent to which victims felt they were free to choose whether to participate or
not—and to leave the process at any time (e.g., was it really voluntary).
• The extent to which victims felt their role was central to the process: did they,
for example, feel their involvement was seen as important of itself—and not only
to hold the offender accountable?





• The level of preparation victims felt was provided prior to the restorative justice
process. Were they, for example, confronted with surprises that ought to have
been discussed or revealed during a preparatory meeting?
• The extent to which victims felt able to express how they had been harmed, and
the extent to which they felt they had been heard.
• The extent to which victims felt they had an influence on the agreed plan to
hold the offender accountable and to restore their losses.
• The extent to which victims felt respected and dealt with sensitively by the
facilitator and other program staff.
• The extent to which victims felt sufficiently protected.
• The extent to which victims’ feedback was followed up with program adjustments or improvement.


Evaluation of these items will help ensure that your program provides victim choice,
offers victim empowerment, and takes victims’ interests seriously.

“Recidivism is only one of
a range of issues to be
measured. Program
outcomes have more to do
with the mutual needs of
victims, communities,
offenders, and
government.”27

4. Seeking offender competency

Those who commit crime also suffer harm; that is seldom acknowledged by the criminal justice
system. Identifying how offenders feel about their offenses is often the first step toward
their reintegration into the community. Think about keeping a record of what offenders
say about their crime—the information will help to break down stereotype images of monster
criminals. Such images are a barrier to reintegration.

The amount of harm repaired is a critical benchmark for any restorative justice program. The
amount of restitution or community service completed by offenders should, therefore, be
measured. The number of reparative agreements completed by offenders also should be monitored.
The fulfillment of an agreement indicates that the offender understood the consequences of his
or her behavior and wanted to change.

Offender competency development refers to the changes offenders are willing to make to
reduce the likelihood of committing crime again and to increase their contribution to society
as law-abiding citizens. Offenders completing drug treatment, counseling/ therapeutic programs,
skills training, education courses, etc., are positive signs that restorative justice is
supporting important life changes.

Recidivism is a traditional indicator of effectiveness and will be a useful monitor of restorative
justice programs. The process itself may have a sufficiently powerful effect on an offender—or it
might be the direct involvement of community members in monitoring or supporting
the offender to complete the reparative agreement that influences the offender sufficiently to
reduce recidivism.



Other measures of program effectiveness in promoting offender competency include the following:

• Are offenders given the opportunity to participate and to make amends to the
victim? Does the program restrict the types of offenders dealt with by restorative
justice?
• To what extent does the reparative agreement address the needs of the offender and
plan for his or her reintegration into the community?


A balance should be struck between cases referred to restorative justice and those that require
a formal justice response. Monitoring case referrals is a way of assessing whether the balance
is right and identifying obstacles to using restorative justice processes.

5. Seeking community safety and connectedness

Restorative justice seeks to give primary responsibility for decisionmaking to victims,
offenders, and the community, with the support of the state. Community empowerment and
participation need to be monitored. Consider the following:

• Who is invited to participate? (This could indicate how much power is really
being shared.)
• Are community concerns heard?
• Are community safety issues addressed?
• Does the community influence offender accountability and play a part in
victim recovery?
• Is there a focus on training community volunteers to facilitate restorative
justice processes?
• Are there changes that occur in the community after a restorative justice process
or after a few months of program operation (e.g., community begins to solve its
own problems by way of restorative justice processes, supports new victim services,
or tackles crime prevention)?


Community involvement in restorative justice processes will promote stronger communities in
which members actively participate in community life and support the well-being of those who
live, work, and play there. Benchmarks of a successful program might include the following:

• More dialogue about crime and what can be done by the community to prevent
crime.
• More willingness to engage in volunteer work or participate in partnership
activities with public organizations.




• Improved relationships between different elements of the community.
• Support for more restorative justice processes to address different kinds of
conflict, e.g., in schools, businesses, local government.
• Less fear of crime, more confidence in justice interventions.


Relationships should be strengthened by restorative justice process interventions,
not weakened by them. A survey of participants will afford insights into the bonds that have been
strengthened and the divisions that have been maintained.

6. Learning how to prevent crime

Community involvement in restorative justice processes promotes understanding of why crime
happens and what would help to prevent offending behavior. To examine how fruitful this
understanding is in your community, look for:

• A willingness to support and promote local policies aimed at reducing crime
that focus on prevention rather than punishment.
• More reliance on informal controls, such as mentoring, youth assistance, support
for the elderly to protect them against crime.
• The scope of partnership activity to address crime, fear, and disorder; for
example, is there a citywide or community task force involving all kinds of
groups (e.g., churches, youth, ethnic minorities, gays, businessmen, activists)?




Testing How Restorative Your Program Is

You can use a survey like the following to assess how restorative your program is:

Sample Survey

(5=Strongly agree 3=Neutral 1=Strongly disagree)

VICTIMS


Victims and their families receive support and 5 4 3 2 1
assistance
Victims are made aware of the case throughout the 5 4 3 2 1
entire process and are given choices
Victims are directly and actively involved in the 5 4 3 2 1
justice process (from early stages to the end)
Victims are financially restored and restitution is 5 4 3 2 1
given priority by the justice system
Victims have the opportunity to shape how the 5 4 3 2 1
offender will repair the harm
Victims are satisfied with the justice process 5 4 3 2 1
Victims have the opportunity to offer guidance 5 4 3 2 1
and feedback to justice professionals by serving on
planning and advisory groups, and through other means
OFFENDERS

Offenders complete financial and other forms
of restitution in a timely fashion
5 4 3 2 1
Offenders use their assets to give back to
the community
5 4 3 2 1
Offenders are given opportunities to develop
relationships with the community
5 4 3 2 1
Offenders face the personal harm caused by
their crime
5 4 3 2 1
Offenders develop the ability to be empathetic
for their victims and others
5 4 3 2 1
Offenders learn and practice competencies to
reduce the likelihood of returning to crime
5 4 3 2 1
Offenders understand their obligation to their
community and learn mutual responsibility
5 4 3 2 1
Offender’s family or significant others are
involved in similar programs as the offender
5 4 3 2 1



COMMUNITY


The community allows the offender to repair 5 4 3 2 1
harm through meaningful work
Volunteers are recruited and trained to provide 5 4 3 2 1
services to offenders, victims, and the community
The community provides mentors for the offenders 5 4 3 2 1
and their significant others, and offers assistance
to increase their skills
Community businesses provide training and work 5 4 3 2 1
for offenders
The community allows the offender to repair 5 4 3 2 1
harm through meaningful work
Community members have opportunities to offer 5 4 3 2 1
guidance and feedback to justice professionals
by serving on planning and advisory groups,
and help set the goals of the justice system

JUSTICE SYSTEM

The system gives balanced attention to the
victim, offender, and the community, and
views each as equal
5 4 3 2 1
Policymakers allocate resources to meet
objectives of safety, accountability, and
competency development
5 4 3 2 1
Restoration of victim, offender, and community
is given higher priority than cost savings, time
saved, small caseloads
5 4 3 2 1
System outcome measures reflect restorative
justice values
5 4 3 2 1
Measures of individual staff performance
identify expectations
5 4 3 2 1
System has ongoing training and orientation
sessions on topics central to restorative justice
5 4 3 2 1
System seeks to hire employees with values
consistent with restorative justice
5 4 3 2 1
System provides ongoing training on victimology
and victim sensitivity
5 4 3 2 1
System provides ongoing training on victimology
and victim sensitivity
5 4 3 2 1



Think about these benchmarks too:

• Participants in restorative justice processes should, ideally, perceive the process
and outcomes as fair and satisfactory. Frequent surveys will help you to
assess the extent to which your program is perceived as fair and satisfactory by
all parties affected by crime.
• You may wish to find out if the program has promoted respect for the police and
greater trust. Again, surveys might be helpful to gauge whether there have been
changes in police-community relations.
• Restorative justice processes provide a vehicle for citizens to be mobilized for
problem solving and crime prevention. A survey of police officers might help to
ascertain how much confidence there is among officers in the capacity of lay
communities to engage in policing and justice delivery.
• Fear is a useful barometer of how successful an intervention is. Surveys asking
victims and the community about the precautions they have taken since a
crime was dealt with by the restorative justice process will help determine the
extent to which public safety needs have been addressed.


The role of the state in restorative justice is one of supporting the parties through a process.
The facilitators used in a program should be assessed in terms of:

• Making the parties feel comfortable and safe.
• Allowing them plenty of time to speak and to be listened to.
• Allowing the parties to work out an agreement.
• Supporting the participants throughout the preparatory and postmeeting
stages.
• Being fair to reflect a balanced approach that addresses the needs of victims,
offenders, and the community.


Restorative justice programs should contribute to reduced investment in prisons since
restorative justice is measured not by how much punishment is given to offenders but by how much
reparation is achieved. Restorative justice programs should also reduce the number of cases
that must be dealt with by the criminal justice system. Both results would free up resources for
early intervention and treatment of offenders, as well as other crime prevention tactics.

The table “Characteristics of the Most and Least Restorative Justice Systems” indicates the
potential of fully implementing restorative justice—and the costs and dangers of limiting
society’s response to crime to a victim- and punishment-oriented adversarial process.



Characteristics of the Most and Least Restorative Justice Systems

Most Restorative
Justice response balanced between
government and community.

Least Restorative
Justice response dominated by the state
and very costly—emotionally and
financially.

Most Restorative
Communities empowered to participate
and contribute to health of all its
members.

Least Restorative
High fear in the community. Some
communities feel angry and alienated.

Most Restorative
Very low crime rate.

Least Restorative
Very high crime rate.


Summary

When it comes to benchmarks . . .

• Pay attention to local conditions: every community is different.
• Focus on qualitative, as well as quantitative, measures.
• Don’t forget the balanced approach—address the needs of victims, offenders,
and the community.
• Figure out how to calculate the benefits to the state, but focus on benefits to society.




Part 7


Toolbox For IMPLEMENTING RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
AND ADVANCING COMMUNITY POLICING
Part 7. Unresolved Issues


Part 7. Unresolved Issues

Introduction

Restorative justice is a simple idea:

• Recognize the harms of crime
• Repair the damage
• Heal relationships
• Teach civility
• Promote safety and harmony
• Promote strong communities


Who could disagree with these goals?

The implications of changing policy and practice to support these goals, however,
are considerable. The difficulties are exacerbated by two factors: first, the traditional system of justice
must be maintained; second, the new system has yet to be fully developed.

Restorative justice is a framework but has not got all the answers. It’s a compass
but not a map.28

If there is a danger that
we could be damaging
people, we should limit
activity until the model is
properly developed.

Threats to Guard Against

Restorative justice, while becoming more widespread and popular, has also become a journey
of exploring the values and different processes without a full paradigm. In short, restorative
justice is still in the experimental stage of development with a number of unresolved
issues and unanswered questions. The transition can be a difficult challenge with a number
of threats or problems:

• Co-optation of the new values and principles is a real danger, particularly
because of the conflict between the values of retributive justice and restorative
justice. Restorative justice does not seek to advance the traditional goal—
offender accountability through punishment. Its objectives are entirely different.
I fear that we have not yet figured out how to avoid the introduction of
paternalistic, discriminatory, and other attitudes and stances that are
radically inconsistent with the loving and empowering values that
should be at the heart of what is done in the name of restorative justice.29


• The focus on developing familiarity with different restorative justice processes—
such as victim-offender mediation, circles, and conferencing—can divert
attention from the need to examine the context and operating environment





in which these are being proposed. The implementation of restorative justice by
an organization that retains assumptions and beliefs that are not in sync with
those of restorative justice can seriously undermine the restorative goals of the
effort. Many agencies currently experimenting with restorative justice have
failed to think through the contradiction between how they propose to deal
with external conflict (between offenders, victims, and communities)—and
their methods of tackling internal conflict, which are adversarial, blame fixing,
and focused on punishment.

• Change advocates must be aware that their reforms can go astray; the implementation
of restorative justice involves more than mere tinkering with the
current system of justice. It requires, in many cases, challenging the underlying
assumptions of the appropriateness of criminal justice. As Howard Zehr writes,
for example, “It will not do to promote alternative punishments. The concept of
punishment itself must be questioned.”30 Agents of change need to be aware
that the values and assumptions of traditional criminal justice are deeply embedded
in our thinking. It is easy to replicate that system; initial efforts to implement
restorative justice, for example, can undermine the balanced approach (victim,
offender, community) because the focus on offenders in the traditional system is
so strong.

• In making choices about using traditional criminal justice and restorative justice,
more than individual discretion is required. Police officers are used to exercising
decisionmaking authority to pursue criminal charges or to divert cases
outside the traditional court system; but clear selection criteria need to be in
place that respect and reflect the values of both systems, as well as allow flexibility
for specific circumstances. The criteria also ought to take into account
the level of skills training that has been provided vis-à-vis different categories of
offense. For example, although a victim of a serious violent crime might wish to
meet face to face with his or her offender, it would be reckless to conduct such
a dialogue unless there is an adequately trained facilitator to work with this kind
of case. The advice is to walk before you run, despite the temptation to
embrace restorative justice more fully when assigning cases. (The figure
“Traditional Criminal Justice and Restorative Justice: Two Ways of Thinking and
Working” provides a cautionary reminder of how different the two approaches
are.)

• Maintaining consistency and equity, with which the criminal justice system has
struggled, runs counter to the restorative justice principle that the process and
outcomes should be tailored to individual and local needs. There will be an
ongoing tension in accommodating both philosophies, particularly after the
attention given to sentencing guidelines, to proportionality, and to mandatory
minimum sanctions. How this tension will unfold depends in large part on:




1. The extent to which the formal system is willing to share power, authority,
and decisionmaking with the community through restorative justice
processes.
2. How satisfactory the accountability of restorative justice processes and
programs is with regard to reducing reoffending rates, to victim and
community satisfaction, and to the percentage of agreements fulfilled
following restorative justice.


The manner in which interventions are implemented is likely to determine
the degree to which the interventions are actually experienced by
victims and offenders as restorative. Interventions that appear to be
intrinsically restorative may, in fact, not be. It is predictable that so-
called ‘restorative’ interventions could easily be co-opted to meet primarily
justice system bureaucratic needs rather than those most affected by crime . . .
this could lead to the ‘fast food’ version . . .31

Traditional Criminal Justice and Restorative Justice: Two Ways
of Thinking and Working

Traditional Criminal Justice System
Criminal Laws
What laws have been broken?
What sanction?
Offender
Criminal Justice Professionals


Restorative Justice
Victim
Who has been harmed?
What are the needs?
Community
Offender
Criminal Justice Professionals Supporting

Role of Community? Role of Victim?

Confidentiality

Public accountability requires that records be kept of how crime is responded to, and with what
results. While the fact that a case has been dealt with by restorative justice should be made
public, and the agreements (fulfilled or otherwise) should be on record, the substance of
the dialogue in any restorative justice intervention should be kept confidential. Without




the consent of the participants, no such information should be given out at any time. This necessary
policy, however, minimizes the opportunities for broader sharing of lessons learned and
thus limits the opportunities for gaining support for restorative justice. Balancing the needs of
confidentiality with those of informing the public about restorative justice can be problematic.

All of the parties to a dialogue should be advised that there may be some information that is
legally admissible in a court of law.


The questions about
coercion require further
experimentation and
research. We have a
sense of what the ideal
situation would be
(voluntary participation)
and the countereffect of
coerced participation.
How to steer an
appropriate middle course
will become clearer
over time.

The state has an
important function in
restorative justice—to
support the engagement
of victims, offenders, and
communities in identifying
harms done and the
obligations that arise from
these harms; supporting
harm repair and victim
restoration; and promoting
conditions that make
further harm less likely.

Coercion 32

A victim should never be forced or put under pressure to participate. Although coercion is
inappropriate, it is incumbent on the facilitator to present to victims adequate information on
which to base a decision. While this can be interpreted as persuasion, a skillful facilitator will
encourage victims to consider fully the risks and benefits of restorative justice without exerting
 undue influence. Voluntariness is a basic principle of restorative justice: removing choice
disempowers victims and is likely to reduce the sense of experiencing restorative justice as fair
and beneficial.

For offenders, coercion is more problematic for several reasons. Although offenders ideally are
invited to participate and their participation is voluntary, a fine line exists between:

1. The needs of victims, who wish to meet the offender, and the needs of an offender, who
might not feel up to such a meeting.
2. The mere obligation of an offender, on the one hand, and ensuring that the
offender meets the obligations in ways that are meaningful for the victims and the
offender. Forcing an offender to participate may make any subsequent conversation or
actions lack genuineness, thereby undercutting the learning process and
restoration that are the aims of restorative justice.


If a restorative justice process is conducted subsequent to a finding of guilt in court,
via probation or as a diversion court on condition that the offender completes an agreement,
the voluntary nature of the offender’s participation can be compromised. The use of state coercion can
be counterproductive. Preparation can be helpful to overcome some of those problems, but
great care should be taken not to assume that offenders will repair the harm or that they will
alter their behavior in the future; and without these results, the program is unlikely to be
experienced as restorative by either the victim or the offender.

Some programs insist that offenders participate but provide an option for offenders to leave the
program.

In all cases, the offender cannot be involved in a voluntary capacity unless he or she freely
accepts responsibility for the harm caused by the crime. Without this acceptance, the offender
is entitled to be treated according to due process of law, starting with the presumption of
innocence and the right to legal representation.



If an offender refuses to cooperate with the victim’s request for a meeting, the victim should
still be afforded the opportunity to receive restoration, e.g., compensation from a victim
fund, meeting other offenders to tell how they have been harmed, and support from the community.

Role of the State

Under the traditional criminal justice system, crime is seen as an act against the state. In
restorative justice, crime is seen as harming people; the state still contributes to the justice
process, but in different ways.

The state has a responsibility to provide opportunities for such engagement and to safeguard
the correct application of procedures and individual legal rights.

The state also has a role in applying the formal system of crime control in cases where public
safety is threatened, where the parties do not agree to participate, or where the voluntary
agreements stemming from a restorative justice intervention are inadequate in some way. These
assessments demand fine judgment to avoid ignoring behavior that is dangerous to restorative
justice. Care is needed, however, to ensure that restorative justice is not used only in minor
cases when it suits the state.

Restorative justice calls for maximizing the opportunities for community, victim, and offender
engagement—and the state has the primary responsibility to create the framework for distributing
cases appropriately between the formal system of justice and restorative justice.

Even when it is deemed necessary to deal with a case by traditional criminal justice processes,
the state has an obligation to seek ways of involving elements of restorative justice—to promote
victim recovery, offender competency, and community safety.

A classic example of a clash between the formal adversarial system and restorative justice is the
categorization of crime. Courts and the traditional criminal justice system attempt to define
crimes either as serious or not serious (felony/misdemeanor), making the assumption that
victims of crime experience a standard reaction to criminal behavior. This not only is a gross
oversimplification of how crime is experienced, but also is at odds with what is being discovered
in restorative justice experiments. (See the case study “Traditional Classification of Crime
Can Be Inappropriate,” in box.)

The state has a role in developing a vision of restorative justice, educating the public about
restorative justice, and providing technical assistance for communities trying restorative
justice. The state also has a role in promoting research on restorative justice (as well as the
adversarial criminal justice process), including monitoring and evaluation of programs and
processes. This research, over time, will secure better understanding of what restorative justice
can realistically achieve and how improvements can be made to existing practices.

The state needs to take
care that it does not make
assumptions about the
seriousness of cases
based on traditional
criteria.



In all cases the police
should work as much as
possible with other
agencies or volunteers,
promoting a sense that it
is the general community
that is upholding
standards of behavior and
providing opportunities for
restoration.

Case Study:
Traditional Classification of Crime Can Be Inappropriate


A 68-year-old man noticed two youths attempting to steal his car outside his house. He ran after them
and collapsed in the street. His wife, who had seen him running, was desperately worried, as he had
suffered a heart attack several months before. She managed to get her husband safely back into their
house, and then she ran to a nearby park to let her son know what had happened. As she approached
her 20-year-old son who was playing football, the wife had a heart attack. The traditional approach
would have categorized this crime as a minor property crime: an attempted theft of a motor vehicle. In
restorative justice, the full harm experienced by the victim and his whole family would be acknowledged.
At the conference held 2 months later, the son, whose parents were now both suffering from
heart problems, could not avoid showing his anger toward the youths who had tried to steal his father’s
car. An hour later, the same man was telling the offenders he would like them to call him any time they
were tempted to get in trouble again, saying, “I’d do anything to help you not to do this again.”

The offenders agreed and have not been in trouble since. A “property” crime can hide a multitude of
consequences!

Relationship Between the Traditional Criminal Justice System and Restorative Justice

The police have to serve the traditional, adversarial criminal justice system as well as any
restorative justice programs they implement. This raises difficult questions about the response of the
police from the time a crime is reported. The first steps they take at the scene of a crime, or in
response to a witness or victim, can be of critical importance to the criminal justice process in
terms of gathering evidence. Police officers also have to think about restorative justice’s
requirements of problem solving, victim protection, and the engagement of those who might participate
in the restorative justice process.

Since it is unlikely that a decision about the appropriate disposition of the case can be made at this
early stage, the investigative process must still be conducted. Only when the offender is identified
and freely admits the crime can there be a cessation of the investigative process.

In serious offenses, however, (e.g., child abuse, serious violence, domestic abuse, arson), it may
be necessary to prepare for prosecution. In addition, the views of the victim, incidents involving
multiple crimes and offenders, and the attitude and capacity of the offender, are factors that should
be taken into account in deciding the course of an investigation.

In some cases, a restorative justice process might not be the appropriate means of handling the
crime until several months after the crime—or after the case has been dealt with by the court. For
example, victims of serious violence may not be ready to meet their offender for several years. In
these cases, it is unlikely that the police department is the most appropriate agency to conduct a
restorative justice process.

Two trends . . . are conflicting with one another. On the one hand there is a
move towards a greater punitiveness and social exclusion in penal policy . . .



on the other hand, there are moves towards a more inclusive penal policy
which attempts to promote social cohesion and safer communities through
problem-solving policing, restorative justice, and the empowering of
communities to tackle the causes and effects of criminal behavior.33

Nonetheless, the police can develop processes to:

• Increase general awareness of harms done by crime (e.g., by victim
impact panels, school programs, and sharing case studies).
• Encourage people to take responsibility for supporting victims and
offenders through programs that, for example, promote victim recovery and
offender competency.
• Foster community processes for holding offenders to account
through community service and community reparative boards.


In some cases a prison sentence is appropriate to secure a sense of safety in the community,
but there still are opportunities to implement restorative justice, such as prison inmates
working on community projects, speaking to victims to learn the impact of their behavior, treatment
and skills training that promote behavioral change, and providing information to the victim.
These ideas can be implemented as part of a partnership response to the aftermath of crime,
and there is no reason why police officers cannot be engaged in facilitating these efforts.

Police Role in Restorative Justice

If conference coordinators fall into more authoritarian leadership and
communication patterns, the process actually could lead to offenders
experiencing conferences as “shaming and blaming”or even as processes of
“breaking down kids and then trying to build them up,” rather than as
“‘reintegrative shaming” in which criminal behavior is denounced but
offenders are treated with respect and feel safe enough in the presence of so
many adults to grow up and express themselves.34

The police involvement in restorative justice can be contentious, notwithstanding the benefits of
dealing with crime in a restorative way. The police have exposure to victims, offenders, and
communities as well as to the workings and flaws of the formal justice system. They are used
to working in particular ways, however, and are trained as figures of authority. Making the leap
from traditional police methods to restorative justice can be onerous because of the prevailing
cultural views about crime fighting, relative inexperience with dealing with victims of crime,
skepticism about the capacity of communities, and the police’s unique powers of arrest and of
the use of force. Officers, by the very nature of their job, have to be able to work with “command
and control.” Moving away from adherence to procedures and practices that made perfect sense under
a different paradigm is not easy.

The police have a tendency to make assessments based on information and observations that
might not be appropriate in a restorative justice setting. Some police officers will not find it easy





to move from being an active decision maker to a facilitator, enabling others to make decisions.
The personnel makeup of a police department can also determine the likelihood of officers
having the capacity for cultural sensitivity that is so often necessary in restorative justice.

How a department deals with its own internal conflict can also be a barrier to developing
an appropriate environment for restorative justice. For example, many police departments
are used to dealing with personnel, welfare problems, grievances, sexual harassment complaints,
and poor performance through processes that are adversarial and steeped in hierarchical power
distribution. Such processes are the antithesis of what restorative justice stands
for: sharing power and decisionmaking in relation to wrongdoing, harm, needs, and interests
to promote healing, competency building, problem solving, and harmony.

Police must avoid
implementing a restorative
justice program in
isolation from other
operational changes. The
environment and context
in which restorative
justice is implemented
can be a critical factor in
determining how
restorative the program is.

A police department wishing to take up the challenge of implementing restorative justice must
recognize its own strengths and weaknesses in terms of being prepared to take on such a
different approach; considerable training and development might be necessary to acquire the
insights and skills base that support alternative methods of conflict resolution. How the
selection and performance review of officers is conducted might determine how serious the
department wishes to be about restorative justice: selecting officers who are only interested
in traditional crime fighting, or assessing officers only on numbers of arrests, can send the
wrong message.

Instead, a police department might promote the recruitment of people who already have experienced
conflict resolution processes and might measure those indicators that suggest
improved teamwork (e.g., staff sickness, staff turnover, and team problem solving
or the number of grievances/complaints resolved informally).

Police officers must also be aware of how the public perceives them: restorative justice
requires facilitators of programs to be neutral. If the public sees the police as representing
only the victim or an authority of the state, there may be problems in getting people to participate
freely on the understanding that their input is a vital part of the decisionmaking
process, not merely an adjunct to police decisionmaking. It is easy for the public to look to
the police to make decisions, and the facilitator should be clear from the start about the role
that he or she plays in the program.

Restorative justice processes can broaden the powers of the police, compromising the separation
of powers among legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. Police officers
can be guilty of dominating restorative justice processes and failing to accommodate and
promote the empowerment of victims, offenders, and the community.

Nevertheless, citizens in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia, where police-based conferences
were started, supported police officers acting as facilitators, claiming they added
“gravity” to the proceedings.35 Police officers can also lend a presence that makes people
feel safe. One possible option, should a local community feel intimidated by the presence and
role of the police, is to have co-mediators/facilitators who are community volunteers. This can
provide a natural balance to the dominance of the police.

Some would also claim that an investigating officer should not facilitate a restorative justice
process because of the inclination to dominate the proceedings when they know so much about



the case. The police need to be sensitive to perceptions that they are investigator, prosecutor,
judge, and jury all rolled into one. Close monitoring of these issues is essential to avoid
restorative justice becoming owned by one state agency. Opening restorative justice processes
to outside observers might also help to dispel that perception. For the same reason, consider
not holding restorative justice processes in police stations.

Proportionality Versus Tailored Program

In criminal justice there has been emphasis on just desserts—the idea that sanctions should
be proportionate in their severity to the gravity of the offense.

This sense of proportionality runs deep in the retributive system, but its transferability to
restorative justice is problematic. Restorative justice is not focused on punishment, and the
assumption that crime is only or primarily a violation of law is challenged to encompass the
notion that crime harms people. Harms are experienced differently by different people; so the
question arises: “Can there be proportionality with regard to the obligations of an offender to
repair the harm?”

A complication arises by virtue of the fact that the people who identify the obligations are not
representatives of the state. Experience in restorative justice to date suggests that participants
in restorative justice processes properly focus on the needs emerging from the dialogue
and can be creative in deciding how these needs should be met, regardless of traditional
sanctions. Restorative justice encourages the participants to negotiate what harms require
reparation and how they should be repaired/restored—without a fixed formula. On the other hand,
the facilitator has the responsibility to ensure that the agreement is relevant, fair, and
realistically achievable. In this way, restorative justice can be evaluated on whether an agreement
appears to be proportionate when compared to other such agreements and when compared to
traditional sanctions. However, the goals of the two systems are entirely different,
and restorative justice requires flexibility.

What if the Offender Fails to Fulfill the Agreement?

Preparation of the victim is important, and failure of an offender to fulfill his or her agreement
can be especially damaging to a victim who has participated in restorative justice. The courts
can require extra reparation from the offender, but this suggests that the process is coercive
more than voluntary. There is no ready answer to the problem of noncompliance. However,
proper risk assessment as part of the preparation for a restorative justice meeting might help
reduce the danger of lack of offender cooperation. (Related issues are considered in the
“Coercion” section, earlier in “Part 7. Unresolved Issues.”)

Widening the Net

Restorative justice raises concerns about treating minor cases—those that would largely be
ignored by the adversarial criminal justice system—as if they require interventions that go far
beyond traditional expectations. On the other hand, concerns about widening the net (expanding
the number of cases requiring time and resources) rubs up against the notion of supporting
early intervention to reduce youth offending. A balance needs to be struck between the
desirability of more formal state controls and that of informal community regulation.

Communities with weak or
nonexistent bonds present
enormous challenges to
restorative justice. They
require unique leadership
and a strong commitment
to developing informal
social controls that do not
rely on being punitive or
promote stigmatizing
offenders.



Scope for Applying Restorative Justice in Inner Cities and Frustrated Communities 36

The involvement of the community is essential to restorative justice, yet many offenders (and
victims, for that matter) lack family and community ties. Although we can be imaginative about
the people who might be significant in the lives of the parties involved in crime, it is probably
also fair to say that some communities have weak or nonexistent bonds, making their involvement
unrealistic. Community in modern society is problematic—and not a synonym for virtue.
Communities can be harsh, intolerant, and exclusionary. Some communities do not share
values: social and economic divisions can make conflict resolution virtually impossible,
for example, if there is no consensus on how crime should be defined. Many communities feel no shared
interest. Some tolerate racism, sexism, and homophobia and are likely to replicate the punitive
approach of the court system.

Case Study
Communities With Diverse Views Can Have Shared Values

Clementine Barfield-Dye is a mother whose sons were shot in Detroit. She began to make links with
other victims’ families—more than 400, which grew to well over 1,000. The families decided to build
a memorial for all those children who had been killed. Some people, including the local police,
suggested that those who had been responsible for the shootings should not have their names included on
the wall. But the community overcame these objections and held up their memorial as teaching peace,
not war.

Mentally Ill or Substance-Abusing Offenders

The issues of mental illness and drug addiction among offenders cannot be ignored in deciding
whether or not to include a case in a restorative justice program. Both raise safety concerns
for the victim and other participants. There is also the possibility that the offender is neither
willing nor able to participate in an open dialogue in which the free expression of emotions can
take place in an atmosphere conducive to problem solving. On the other hand, restorative justice
can offer these offenders an opportunity to learn the consequences of their behavior, and
it might be able to promote changes that reduce the likelihood of future offending. Great care
is needed in identifying who should be invited to participate, including the consideration of
psychiatrists, counselors, and other experts. Restorative justice also affords opportunities for the
community to understand more about drug and alcohol addiction and mental health problems,
which might foster less stereotyping and more compassion and care. A person is still part of
the community, even if he or she has health problems.

The restorative justice movement also faces a number of important risks.
Perhaps the greatest risk is that of ‘window-dressing’ in which criminal and
juvenile justice systems redefine what they have always done with more professionally
acceptable and humane language while not really changing the
policies and procedures of their system. A few pilot programs may be set up
on the margins . . . while the mainstream of business is entirely offender-
driven and highly retributive with little victim involvement and services, and
even less community involvement.37



Issues for You to Resolve

As you plan for a restorative justice program, think about and discuss the following questions.
Formulate the best answers you can for this stage of your experience and knowledge.

• How can your departmental environment exhibit restorative justice values?
• How should you balance confidentiality with the public’s need for information?
• How can you bring offenders to the table without being coercive?
• When is state intervention needed before a restorative justice intervention?
• How can the police themselves represent to the public the values of restorative
justice?
• How can you make the restoration fit the offense—in particular instances?
• What should you do with communities that promote hostile or clashing values?


Finally . . . remember the “Re” factor.

Each step or decision toward the implementation of restorative justice will need to be redone
at some time. You will need to:

• Re . . learn
• Re . . plan
• Re . . develop
• Re . . evaluate
• Re . . assess
• Re . . mind yourself of the restorative justice values.


And don’t forget:

Good Luck!



Toolbox For IMPLEMENTING RESTORATIVE JUSTICE

AND ADVANCING COMMUNITY POLICING

References and Notes


References and Notes

1. For a full account of restorative justice and its relevance to policing, see the
monograph that accompanies this toolbox, Community Policing, Community
Justice, and Restorative Justice: Exploring the Links for the Delivery of a
Balanced Approach to Public Safety.

2. Wright, Martin. Justice for Victims and Offenders: A Restorative Response to
Crime. Winchester, United Kingdom: Open University Press, 1991, p. 159.

3. Northey, W. Restorative Justice: Rebirth of Ancient Practice. Winnipeg,
Manitoba, Canada: Canadian Mennonite Central Committee, 1994.

4. For a good insight into victim trauma, see Judith Herman’s book Trauma and
Recovery, New York: Basic Books, 1997.

5. David Doerfler, conversation with the author, October 1997.

6. “Signposts: Restorative Justice.” Bookmark available from the Mennonite Central
Committee (MCC) U.S., Akron, PA, and the MCC, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

7. Texas Department of Criminal Justice Services. The Victim’s Informer.
Newsletter of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Services, Crime Victim
Clearinghouse, Austin, TX, February 1997, page 3.

8. Zehr, H. Changing Lenses. Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 1995, p. 32.

9. Pranis, K. “The Minnesota Restorative Justice Initiative: A Model Experience.”
Crime Victim’s Report, May/June 1997; pp. 19, 20, 22.

10. Miller, Jerome K. Last One Over the Wall: The Massachusetts Experiment in
Closing Reform Schools. Ohio State University Press, 1992.

11. Judge Barry Stuart, conversation with the author, November 1997.

12. Scheff, Thomas J. Emotions and Violence: Shame and Rage in Destructive
Conflicts. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1991.

13. Pollard, C., Chief of Police, Thames Valley Police, conversation with the author,
November 1998.

14. Gilligan, J.
Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and Its Causes. New York: G.P.
Putnam, 1996.

15. Kittle, Bruce.
Restorative Justice Project Course Materials. Available from the
University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School.




16. Theobald, Robert. Reworking Success: New Communities at the Millenium.
British Columbia, Canada: New Society Publishers, 1997.

17. National Commission on Civic Renewal.
A Nation of Spectators: How Civic
Disengagement Weakens America and What We Can Do About It. College
Park, MD: University of Maryland, 1998.

18. Etzioni, A. “The Responsive Community: A Communitarian Perspective.”
American Sociological Review, February 1996;61(1):1–11.

19. Marshall, T. “Grassroots Initiatives Towards Restorative Justice: the New
Paradigm?” Paper prepared for the Fulbright Colloquium 1992, Penal Theory &
Penal Practice, held at the University of Stirling, September 1992, pp. 1–4.

20. Pranis, K. “Rethinking Community Corrections: Restorative Values and an
Expanded Role for the Community. The ICCA Journal on Community
Corrections, August 1997;8(1):36–39.

21. Pranis, K., and Umbreit, M. Public Opinion Research Challenges Perception of
Widespread Public Demand for Harsher Punishment. Minneapolis, MN:
Minneapolis Citizens Council, March 1994.

22. Umbreit, Mark S. “Crime Victims and Offenders in Mediation: An Emerging Area
of Social Work Practice.” Social Work, January 1993;38(1).

23. Alford, S. “Professionals Need Not Apply.” Corrections Theory, Winter 1997.

24. Walgrave, L., and Geudens, H. “Restorative Community Service in Belgium.”
Overcrowded Times Newsletter, 1997.

25. Umbreit, M., and Carey, Mark. “Restorative Justice: Implications for
Organizational Change.” Probation, March 1995;59:1.

26. Pulney, R. “A Grassroots Approach to Restorative Justice.”
ICCA Journal on
Community Corrections, 1997; pp. 20–21.

27. Walter, L., and Perry, J. Description of the Vermont Reparative Probation
Program. The ICCA Journal on Community Corrections, December 1997.

28. Zehr, H., speaking at a local community seminar on Restorative Justice in
Washington County, MN, on September 26, 1997.

29. Harris, K.H. “Dilemmas in Restorative Justice.” Contemporary Justice Review,
1998;1(1).

30. Zehr, H. “Justice Paradigm Shift?” Mediation Quarterly, Spring 1995;12(3).




31. Umbreit, M. “Quality Restorative Justice Practice: Grounding Interventions in Key
Restorative Justice Values.” The ICCA Journal on Community Corrections,
August 1997; pp. 52–53.

32. See also the section “Should Restorative Justice be Entirely Voluntary?” in “Part
5. Developing a Program.”


33. Smith, Michael. “Notes on Public Safety and the Criminal Justice System.” Final
Report of the Temporary State Commission on Constitutional Revision in New
York, October 1994, p. 47.

34. Umbreit, M., and Zehr, H. “Restorative Family Group Conferencing: Different
Models and Guidelines for Practice.” Federal Probation, September 1996.

35. Braithwaite, J.
Crime, Shame and Reintegration. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1994.

36. See also the section “Intolerant Communities” in “Part 5. Developing a
Program.”

37. Umbreit, M. Information on Research Findings Related Uniquely to
Restorative Justice Interventions: Victim Offender Mediation and Family
Group Conferences. St. Paul, MN: Mediation, School of Social Work, University
of Minnesota Center for Restorative Justice, 1996.




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Visit the COPS internet web site:
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