European best practices of restorative justice in the criminal procedure

conference 27-29 April 2009, Budapest

Pushing the barriers: the use of restorative justice with hate and sexual crimes

Dr. Theo GavrielidesChief Executive

Race on the Agenda (ROTA) and Independent Academic Research Studies (IARS), UK

Will RJ ever be good enough?

• The evidence on restorative justice (RJ) is far more extensive, and positive, than it has been for many other policies that have been rolled out nationally. Restorative justice is ready to be put to far broader use …” (Sherman and Strang 2007).

• However, Restorative justice is still far from being mainstreamed or even accepted as an official response to crime; least serious crime and adult offenders

Why hate crime and sexual offenes?

1. ‘Push the barriers’: theoretical proclamations vs practice

2. Grey areas for RJ: power imbalances between victim and offender

3. Perpetrators of hate and sexual crimes fall within a special category of criminological interest due to the deep rooted causes of their behaviour and offending: how susceptible are they to RJ?

4. Philosophical challenge: Can hate or sexual crime ever be restored?

5. Policy: e.g. community cohesion

Definitions

• Restorative justice is “an ethos with practical goals, among which is to restore the harm done by including all affected parties in a process of understanding through voluntary and honest dialogue, and by adopting a fresh approach to conflicts and their control, retaining at the same time certain rehabilitative goals” (Gavrielides 2003, 2007).

• Restorative practices are direct and indirect mediation, family group conferences, healing and sentencing circles and community restorative boards (Bazemore and Walgrave 1999: 127-235, Crawford and Newburn 2003: chapter 2, Gavrielides 2007: 29-36).

• “Hate crime is when someone has hatred or prejudice against someone because of their race or ethnicity, or religion, age, faith, gender, sexuality, disability” (Black male, aged 25, Lewisham).

Project Methodology

• Phase 1: Desk Research (June 2005 – June 2007)• Phase 2: Fieldwork (June 2007- 2008)• Phase 3: Dissemination, awareness raising, policy

development and training (2008 – ongoing)

Fieldwork• Qualitative research

• Interviews – questionnaires focus groups – observation

• Sample: Practitioners, victims, offenders, policy makers, young people (total 100)

• Sexual offences: within the context of the Catholic Church cases

Hate crime and RJ best practice examples

Hate crime and RJ best practice examples

Findings – Hate crime/ 1

1. Typology of typical hate crime offender: none/ all

2. Victims

Findings – Hate crime/ 2

3. The “Spectrum of hate crime”: fluid - corruption

Findings – Sexual offences/ 1

1. The Case of the Mount Cashel Orphanage, St. Joseph’s Training School for Boys, and St. John’s Training School for Boys, USA(a) Facilitation of apologies by those responsible for physical and sexual abuse. (b) Financial compensation for pain and suffering. (c) Financial advances for medical/ dental services, vocational rehabilitation, educational upgrading, and literacy training. (d) Provision of counseling services. (e) Payment to ex-students who had not been paid for farm work and menial work while they were at the schools. (f) A commitment by the participants to work towards the eradication of child abuse”

Findings – Sexual offences/ 22. The Fraser Region Community Justice Initiatives

Association (FRCJIA), Canada3. School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith

University, Brisbane, Australia387 cases (227 court, 119 restorative conferences and 41 formal cautions) during a 6.5 years period (1

January 1995-1 July 2001) concluded with the following findings:

• Victims believe that they are better off if their case is handled restoratively• If a sexual offending case goes to court the chances of being proved is half (51%). This has severe

consequences on the victim including deep psychological and emotional stress, depression and personality disorders

• It appears that the potential problems of a restorative process may be less victimizing than the formal legal process

• The traditional criminal justice process has proved to do very little for victims as long as offenders can deny they have done anything wrong

• Restorative processes can open a window for those who have offended to admit to what they have done.

Findings – Hate and sexual crime

• Restorative justice – transformative justice: pre-condition is voluntariness

• Common element in all best practice case studies was their partnership arrangements with existing structures

• RJ happens in the community and in the shadow of the law• Challenges: Funding – training – accreditation – definition• Mainstreaming is questionable – the “Gordon Ramsey test”• Caution: Diluting the principles – no paradigm shift

language

References

• Gavrielides Theo (2007) Restorative Justice Theory and Practice: Addressing the Discrepancy, HEUNI: Helsinki, Criminal justice Press: New York.

• Gavrielides Theo and Dale Coker (2005) “Restoring Faith: Resolving the Catholic Church’s Sexual Scandals through Restorative Justice: Working Paper I”, 8:4 Contemporary Justice Review, pp. 345-365.

• Gavrielides Theo (2008) “Restorative justice: the perplexing concept. Conceptual fault lines and power battles within the restorative justice movement” 8:2 Criminology and Criminal Justice Journal, 165-183

Contact Details

Waterloo Business Centre, Unit 217 & 208

117 Waterloo Road, London SE1 8UL 

020 7902 11 77, Direct line 020 7902 1966, mobile: 07720057750

www.rota.org.uk www.iars.org.uk

theo@rota.org.uk