Restorative Justice: A Summary Introduction For many people, restorative justice is a relatively new idea. In British Columbia, restorative justice was identified as an orienting premise of the Attorney-General's 1997 "Strategic Reforms" initiative. Federally, restorative justice is supported in the Ministry of the Solicitor General, particularly in the Correctional Service of Canada. The first restorative justice projects were established in Ontario in 1974 and in British Columbia in 1982, and hundreds of restorative justice initiatives have been established in communities throughout the country since the early 1980s. The practice of restorative justice predates the use of the more familiar retributive and adversarial forms of criminal justice. Before the establishment of professional police forces and a criminal justice system, victims had to assume the burden and expense of prosecution. Consequently, many crimes were dealt with by the communities in which the transgressions occurred rather than by formal systems of state justice. Community justice focused on restitution through informal processes of mediation and arbitration, with both victims and offenders playing central roles. Aboriginal communities had also employed similar practices in which victims, offenders, their families and friends and other members of the community gathered together to resolve conflicts in a way that restored harmony to those who were affected by interpersonal wrongdoing. Today, we attempt to solve the problem of crime through retributive and adversarial systems of justice with which almost no one is satisfied. Victims, offenders and other stakeholders argue that existing state systems do not meet their respective and/or shared needs. The proposed solutions vary, and include calls to increase the punitive mandate of state justice or to increase the rights of stakeholders. Typically, criminal justice reforms are advanced within the framework of the existing system. Attempts to curb crime by increasing the number and intensity of penalties designed to deter and punish have been largely ineffective, as the experience of the United States clearly demonstrates. This is particularly true with crimes of violence, which are typically motivated by passion or anger and are consequently the least susceptible to deterrence measures which presume rational forethought. With an incarceration rate fives times that of Canada and the death penalty in 38 states, we could expect the U.S. to be one of the safest countries in the world if this particular response to crime was effective. It was in response to the recurring failures of the existing retributive and adversarial system that the first modern attempt was made, in Canada, to recover the simple wisdom of community justice. Restorative Justice v. Retributive Justice In order to understand the paradigm of restorative justice, it is useful to compare it to the more familiar paradigm of retributive justice. While the retributive paradigm begins with
the premise that crime is a violation against the state, restorative justice asserts that crime is a violation of people and relationships which creates obligations to make things right. The process of justice in the retributive model involves a determination of blame and the administration of pain in a contest between the offender and the state orchestrated by a system of rules, largely reducing victims to the status of witnesses, and offenders to the status of spectators. The process of justice in the restorative model involves the active participation of victims, offenders and communities in the search for solutions which promote repair, reconciliation and reassurance. A key characteristic of restorative justice is its centering of the victim. The role of the victim is necessarily diminished in the retributive adversarial system, which presupposes the state as the legal victim of lawbreaking. Attempts to address the neglect of victims within this system have accelerated in the past few years, yet cannot offer much more to victims than consistent information sharing about their cases and the opportunity to offer input to sentencing and parole decisions. The existing system is about determining whether a crime was committed, and if so, who did it and how that person should be punished. The focus, in the retributive adversarial system, is on the offender. While the offender is the centrepiece in criminal justice proceedings, it is not necessary that they be directly accountable to the victim for their wrongdoing. Indeed, accountability is largely calculated on the basis of the offender's response to state officials throughout the period of their sentence. In restorative justice, the offender is primarily accountable to the victim and then to the community. A key difference between the retributive and restorative justice paradigms is the idea that crime is sanctioned against more constructively through a process in which the community and the offender do something for the victim, rather than the state doing something against the offender. Restorative Justice Programmes At present there are a number of restorative justice programmes in locations around the world. Victim-Offender Reconciliation Programmes (VORP) bring the victims and offenders together in a mediated encounter in cases which have entered the formal criminal justice process and where the offender has admitted the offence. The VORP process requires that victims and offenders resolve disputes together, and usually results in some form of restitution. This kind of programme is currently used in Canada as a tool for diverting criminal cases of a more minor nature (usually property crimes) from the formal justice system after charges have been laid. Restorative justice programmes may also be deployed later in the criminal justice process, when the offender has already been incarcerated. Programmes such as the Victim-Offender Mediation projects (VOMP) serve offenders and victims in cases of serious crime, such as aggravated sexual assault, serial rape, murder, and armed robbery. The primary goal of this kind of programme, one of which currently operates in British Columbia, is to promote the healing of both parties to these offences. VOMP uses interventions mediated by a trained third party which support communication between and mutual understanding of the parties through counseling, transmission of information
to both parties, indirect communication by means of videos or letters, and direct communication through face-to-face meetings. Restorative justice programmes are also directed specifically towards young offenders and their victims. Family Group Conferencing (FGC) originated in New Zealand in the practices of the Maori people, and has since been exported world-wide. FGC programmes are currently being used in British Columbia and other parts of Canada as a method of responding to youth crime. FGC involves a wider group of participants, including a coordinator, the victim, the offender, the offender, the family and friends of both victim and offender, and community representatives. The FGC process involves the telling of their respective stories of the victim and the offender, a group discussion of what should be done to repair the injuries caused by the crime, and the negotiation of a plan of action. In Canada, particularly in First Nations communities, Circle Sentencing (Circle Remedies) are also used for both young and adult offenders and their victims. The process of the Circle is similar to Family Group Conferencing, except cases are overseen by a court judge and a group of respected elders from the community in which the offence occurred. All offences are eligible for this process, and the remedy may include a period of incarceration if deemed appropriate by the judge and elders. Circle Sentencing operates on the basis that both victims and offenders require healing, and that offenders can be reintegrated into the community.