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Responding To Crime In A Restorative Way
By
Charito Calvachi-Mateyko
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Tatum, Charles Gene Jr. Federal Correctional Institution,
Sandstone, Minnesota. Untitled. (Prison-theme art and African
American cultural themes. Pen and ink drawing.) |
The way our communities react to crime
and wrongdoing may illustrate the kind of society we are. Restorative
justice may be a new idea here, but it is also an old idea –a
nonviolent approach to crime– that may broaden our centuries-old
assumptions about crime and punishment, which precede the creation of
the state, so we can start our collective journey from the present
adversarial criminal justice system towards a restorative one.
Communities define crime in different
ways depending on the context of their culture and traditions. In
Western societies crime may be defined in written codes, so crime
would mean the breaking of a law. Native, aboriginal and indigenous
communities may define crime from the standing of community harmony,
so crime would mean the breaking of relationships. Laura Santillán
and Fernando Chimba, an Indigenous couple from Quito, Ecuador, told me
that their community may call for an assembly to discuss the behavior
of one of their teenagers who had not greeted an 80-year-old man of
the village. "We may consider his behavior stealing. The teenager
would be robbing from the elderly man his dignity that took him 80
years to obtain. Dignity is the most precious commodity one has."
When it comes to valuing different
perspectives, such as the above, the opportunity is open for Western
societies to start to question the validity of the existing system of
punishment, which is working so poorly for us. We need to see other
alternatives. Western and native societies may be able to enrich one
another. John Perking's indigenous legend of the eagle and the condor
may explain why. Back in the mist of history, he says, human societies
divided and took two different paths: that of the eagle (representing
the brain, rational and material) and that of the condor (representing
the heart, intuitive and mystical). In the 1490s, the prophecy said,
the two paths would converge and the eagle would drive the condor to
the verge of extinction. Then, five hundred years later, in the 1990s,
a new epoch would begin, one in which the condor and eagle would have
the opportunity to reunite and fly together in the same sky, along the
same path. If the condor and the eagle accepted this opportunity, they
would create a most remarkable off-spring, unlike any ever seen
before, Perkins ends. In using these two sources and combining the
wisdom of Western and Indigenous traditions, the restorative justice
approach may serve as a catalyst, as Howard Zehr, the grandfather of
this field asserts, for forming ideas and directions.
From that point of view, restorative
justice is new because it gives an alternative to our present dilemma
of dealing with an inadequate system, but it is also old because it
connects with the idea of community that guided our ancestors all
along. Kay Pranis, argues that when the state takes over in our name,
it undermines our sense of community. This resonates with what we lack
now: community belonging and the "we" that must be reclaimed.
Restorative justice is the approach that
allows us to see crime from a different frame, as the breaking of
relations, so we can collectively, with all involved in a specific
case, address the harm done unto people and take care of their needs,
merging obligations with the ideal of personal and societal healing
and restoration.
Additionally, it must be said that while
the state, within the frame of punishment, returns violence with
another type of violence such as fines, detention, community service,
incarceration and even the death penalty; restorative justice
dismisses punishment and uses accountability instead. And in doing so,
it chooses a nonviolent response because it doesn't purposely intend
to inflict pain on the offender. The lesson should already have been
learned by now: the use of violence only results in more violence. The
painting that illustrates this article was made by an inmate. It is
easy to see what jail does, especially for the 75 per cent of
nonviolent individuals incarcerated in those walls, who have potential
and are not a threat to society. We can wonder why our government
expends seven times more on the prison industry than it does on
education.
But in fact, accountability demands more
of someone who committed an offense than is demanded of the offender
by a court of law or prison system (where the offender doesn't have to
face the victim and the realization of the pain caused). Under
accountability, the offender actually has to work to make amends to
meet the victim's and society's needs.
Let's see an example of how it works. In
2006, a case was referred to the Lancaster Area Victim Offender
Reconciliation Program (LAVORP), a nonprofit organization that
practices restorative justice. The story goes that two senior high
school Latino students went to Amelia's Grocery store with the mother
of one of them. The two youngsters found a lighter on one of the
shelves and each took turns playing with it, then they returned it to
the original place and continued shopping through the other aisles.
Shortly thereafter, the mother was ready to leave. They had already
paid for their purchases when they heard somebody yelling "Fire,
fire!" All the customers were asked to leave immediately. They jumped
into their van in the parking lot and left. Some days later, the
police knocked at their door. Even though they hadn't intended to
start a fire, their playing with the lighter was related to it. They
took responsibility for their action and declared themselves guilty.
The Probation Office sent the case to LAVORP.
A face-to-face meeting took place with
the LAVORP facilitator, one of the offenders, and the manager of the
store –in this case the victim. The mother of the offender came to
support her son. Mike Rosado, the offender, told his side of the
story, took responsibility for what he had done and expressed regrets.
The manager, in turn, was able to explain to the youngster the worse
scenario that could have happened -not being able to control the fire,
as they did, and the number of lives that could have been lost, let
alone the loss of his livelihood on which his family and so many
others depended. But because of the willingness of Mike to take
responsibility, supported by his mother, the manager felt more at
ease. As part of the accountability of his action, Rosado agreed to
pay the $750 amount of damaged caused. Determination of the monthly
payments and time of completion was agreed upon, put it in writing and
signed.
At that time, the manager said something
that Rosado recalls made all the difference. Rosado said, "The manager
wanted to know more about me." Rosado told him he was born and raised
in Lancaster and that his mother was from Puerto Rico. He told him as
well that he wanted to go to college and he would not let this mistake
prevent him from doing so. All of a sudden, with this new information,
something changed in the picture the manager had of this Latino
offender. The manager, in fact, had a transformation of heart.
Subsequently, the manager spoke slowly and clearly: "Now, listen
carefully. If you pay me the amount agreed at the time agreed, and if
you in fact get accepted to college, you send me proof of your
acceptance, and I will give you this money back to pay for tuition."
Well, Rosado went to college. The manager donated $750 for his college
tuition. And, not only that, Rosado took accelerated courses to finish
college earlier so he is now on his way now to getting a master's
degree in criminology. He'll go all the way to obtain a PhD so he can
become a professor in criminal sciences, he told me in a radio
interview on For a Culture of Peace, a Spanish language program that I
produce and host at Radio Centro, WLCH 91.3 FM.
We all can perfectly image the
contrasting circumstances if this case would have been dealt with at
the court of law: no room for accountability by the offender, nor
lessons learned of the effects caused in others by our actions. No
space for the victim to know the truth or receive apologies or see the
human complexity and potential of an offender. But more than anything,
no room for empowerment of all the participants. No room either for
the ripple effect of this empowerment to translate itself into a safer
community. And certainly, again, just the mentioning of this beautiful
word –community!– evokes so much.
Yes. Community. That is you, me and all
of us being inspired by the human capacity to transcend the facts and
heal so that in the aftermath of violence we may be able to create the
Beloved Community we all yearn for, since the Dream is alive in our
hearts.
Charito
Calvachi-Mateyko an activist and restorative justice practitioner
based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Lewes, Delaware, was born and
raised in Ecuador. She received her doctorate in law from the
Pontifical Catholic University in Quito and her master in Conflict
Transformation from the Eastern Mennonite University. In 2006 as part
of a research project she spent a summer interviewing the indigenous
strategists and Yachaks (Shamans) of Ecuador.
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