Restorative Justice

Back when I was planning retreats, teens would often grumble about giving up an entire weekend. Many would have their parents call and try to weasel a few hours off the obligation on account of choir or sports or other activities. I never understood why the teens didn't all want to come to this fantastic event we were working so hard to plan. "It's good stuff," I'd want to tell them. "Come enjoy it!"

The roles flipped on me this weekend. I was required to attend a two full days of training as part of my pastoral ministry with the Clackamas County Juvenile Center. I grumbled. Do I really have to come for two full days? The topic: Restorative Justice. Ever heard of it? I had not, and I was not thrilled at the prospect of missing classes on Friday and giving up one of my two days off, including missing a soccer match.

I'm glad I did.

Like most of the teens that attend retreat, my world was realigned in a new and exciting way. Restorative Justice has the power to change our legal system, and two days of learning about it made me into a supporter. Let me briefly explain the concepts behind it.

The way our legal system is set up currently, when a crime is committed the offender is the focus. We find the offender, try them, and give a punishment that is most often not connected to the crime. For instance, a bank robber going to jail has nothing to do with the bank that was robbed or the impact the robbery had on the community. This is retributive justice.

Restorative justice puts the emphasis on three stakeholders in the process. When a crime is committed, there are offenders, victims, and community. In a restorative process, the offender accepts responsibility for the offense and seeks to fulfill the obligation created to the victim(s) and community. The offender takes a significant role in deciding what that obligation should be. The victim(s) also take part in the process as the community (often represented by an office like Clackamas County's or through some governmental agency) contacts the victim to check in and see what is needed to move forward. Ideally, the community also takes part in rehabilitating the offender, bringing them back into society, caring for the needs of the victim, preventing future crime, and in other ways of healing. It's a beautiful picture of a restoration.

Sound too good to be true? The main criticism of Restorative Justice is that it is too soft on crime. But what we found in this training is that jail time and the death penalty don't create any sense of change or healing. They more often create shame, greater expense, and lack of reform.

Restorative Justice, though presented in a secular context, echoed many teachings I have encountered in the Christian faith and especially in Catholic teachings. At one point I wrote in my notes that the three stakeholders (offender[s], victim[s], and community) needed contrition, reconciliation, and communion (not the Eucharist but the sharing of life) to move forward.

As I work with teens that have committed minor offenses, this Restorative Justice model is put into practice. Clackamas County has incredible, meaningful programs that help youth serve the communities they have wronged. For instance, Green Corps teaches the youth life skills in a community garden in which they grow fruits and vegetables to sell at a Farmer's Market, the proceeds from which go toward paying restitution accumulated by the crimes committed. Another program puts the teens directly back into work for the community getting paid restitution money to clean up the places they vandalized. The consequence is tied to the victims and community. There is no sense of shame for the offender, but there is an understanding that he or she created an obligation through his or her offense. The person is not the problem; the crime is.

I cannot relay all the intense and wonderful things we discussed in this program, so let me end with a note about one of the most influential methods within Restorative Justice. It's called victim-offender dialogue. In this, the person that committed the crime faces the victims in person with a mediator. This meeting does not occur haphazardly. Both parties must agree to meet, and often lengthy (months to years to even decades) preparations take place. We ended our training by watching a documentary called "Meeting with a Killer," a true story in which a man who killed and raped a woman in Texas meets the woman's daughter and mother 15 years after the crime. The process includes much pain but even greater healing for both sides.

In our training group of about 15 people, at least four expressed that they had been abused or had been connected to a crime-related death involving a family member. For each of this people, victim-offender dialogue touched their lives or had the potential to do so in ways retributive justice could not. How many more people are hurting from crimes and have never had the chance to heal and restore?

I'm no criminal justice expert, and I know things are far more complicated in crime than I can learn in two days. I also realize Restorative Justice on a large scale will take some serious thought and care to implement effectively. However, there is hope in this philosophy. I really believe there is hope. Do yourself a favor and watch "Meeting with a Killer" below. It's 45 minutes well spent if you watch all four parts.

And to think, I didn't want to go to this training when the weekend started...