Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Edited by
KATHERINE VAN WORMER
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00
Printed in Taiwan
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
PART I: Introduction
1 Restorative Justice: A Bridge Between East and West,
Katherine Van Wormer 1
Index 267
About the Contributors 273
Acknowledgments
First of all, I would like to thank Christian Aspalter, President of the Asian
Association for Social Welfare, who helped conceiving the novel idea of a book
that would join Eastern and Western thought, concepts, and experiences in the
realm of restorative justice. Furthermore, my deepest appreciation is extended
to the numerous authors who have contributed to this exciting book project who
come from around the globe. The list of contributors includes authors from
India, Hong Kong, China, Japan, El Salvador, the United States, and Norway.
The authors have contributed their vast knowledge of restorative strategies to
this anthology. Last but not least, I would like to thank my very dear husband,
Robert van Wormer, for his great help in proofreading the manuscript for this
book.
Restorative Justice:
A Bridge Between East and West
KATHERINE VAN WORMER
ced to listen. Bishop Desmond Tutu was a key leader in this historic
process.
Central to Buddhism is compassion. Buddhist justice grows out of
a compassion for everyone involved when one person hurts another.
Loy (2001) contrasts Tibetan culture in which a citizen is seen as having
a legal duty to help others with the US legal tradition that the truth
emerges from a clash of opposing forces asserting their interests. In
contrast to Western justice, in Tibet, moreover, there is no clear division
between religion and the state. Such a judicial system would not be ac-
ceptable in most of the Western world.
Breton and Lehman (2001) contrast Western society’s focus on se-
parateness and individualism with the fundamental truth of universal
connectedness in the Buddha’s teaching. The most basic truth about
human nature, from this perspective, is our interrelatedness within the
whole and the infinitely diverse systems that are all linked to each other.
In China, social control is vested in the community, so intrusion into
other people’s lives is customary (Chen, 2004). Chinese crime control,
accordingly, often works not from the top down but from the bottom up.
The risk in such a pervasive informal system of social control, as Chen
indicates, is in shaming the individual in ways that may be personally
harmful and counterproductive (Westerners, in contrast, tolerate perso-
nal deviance to a larger extent and rely on the courts when serious devi-
ant behavior occurs).
Xinzhou Zhang (2004) agrees with this assessment of the Chinese
criminal justice system. He further asserts that victims do not get their
needs met within this system and that there is no incentive for offenders
to pay compensation for wrongs done.
Framed in a context of connectedness, justice at one level filters
down through all the levels, as does injustice. What is needed is a jus-
tice system that is responsive to the needs of people and that resolves
conflict among them. Today, experiments are taking place universally
to address wrongs that might have been ignored previously, experiments
that involve a new consciousness of the harm caused by individual
violations and historic traumas against whole populations. We need to
engage governments, communities and social institutions in healing
trauma from crime, war, and other violations. And instead of ostracizing
Restorative Justice: A Bridge Between the East and the West 5
the violators, we need to help them make amends so that they can rejoin
society. To achieve these ends, a major paradigm shift is required. At
the forefront of such a shift is the restorative justice movement. Law-
yers, judges, tribal members, and social workers are involved in such a
restorative movement.
Restoration of the physical environment due to our exploitation of
natural resources is a matter of urgency for the planet. Uniquely, Fred H.
Besthorn, in his chapter on the restorative justice philosophy, which is
included in this book in Part IV, demonstrates an appropriate model for
environmental justice. Because we depend on nature we must work
toward restoring a harmonious balance between our lifestyles and our
natural resources.
justice, the subject of this book also relates to restoring the balance to
the earth, helping the earth heal after it has been violated. “If we let the
earth heal itself, it will”—so says Native American commentator, Jerry
Young Bear Jr. (2007).
REFERENCES
Breton, D. and Lehman, S. (2001), The Mystic Heart of Justice: Restoring
Wholeness in a Broken World, Chrysalis: West Chester, PA.
Chen, X. (2004), Social and Legal Control in China: A Comparative Perspec-
tive, International Journal of Offender and Comparative Criminology, Vol.
48, pp. 523-36.
Hui, E.C. and Geng, K. (2001), The Spirit and Practice of Restorative Justice in
Chinese Culture, in M. Hadley (ed.), The Spiritual Roots of Restorative
Justice, State University of New York Press: Albany, NY.
Loy, D. (2001), Healing Justice: A Buddhist Perspective, in M. Hadley (ed.),
The Spiritual Roots of Restorative Justice, State University of New York
Press: Albany, NY.
Restorative Justice: A Bridge Between the East and the West 9
Over the last twenty years since graduating, I have endeavored both as a
social work practitioner and as an academic, to find answers to two
questions: (1) Are there ways of holding badly behaving students and
young people accountable to victims for offending and anti-social beha-
vior while at the same time leave them the opportunity to be rehabili-
tated?, and (2) If restorative justice is a “balanced” strategy, how can it
be implemented, particularly as an alternative to punishing misbehav-
ing students or prosecuting juvenile offenders?
I find that the ideas underpinning restorative justice (RJ) provide an
appropriate answer to my first question. I believe that RJ is a near-to-
perfect strategy for meeting the three major missions of a fair juvenile
12 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
Personal Background
Unwittingly, I had my first experience of practicing RJ when I was very
young. I was born in a working-class family with five siblings in late
1950s in Hong Kong, a British Colony at that time. My father was a
porter, and my mother was a cleansing lady at the same building. At
primary school, my classmates were also from working class families.
Every day after school we fooled around together until dinner time. We
all shared a rather similar belief, perhaps an irrational one: “Despite how
hard we try, working class boys will not have a bright future anyway.”
When we were eleven to twelve, we occasionally shoplifted snacks
from a shopkeeper who sold icecream and snacks with a motorcycle.
This motorcycle was always parked outside the front door of our pri-
mary school. As an adolescent, I was on the verge of delinquency and
did not do well at school. During the first and second years of secondary
school education, I became addicted to gambling. My friends and I used
foul language frequently and sometimes played truant to go out gamb-
ling. Deep down in my heart, I did respect my parents and wanted to
Misbehaving Students and Juvenile Delinquents 13
picked out by the criminal justice personnel had gone to the way of no
return under a retributive justice system. I was lucky not to have been
picked up when I was young. If these youths had been given a chance to
restore relationships with relevant social authorities and to be forgiven
under a restorative process, they would have been empowered. These
experiences with youth have further reinforced my belief that punish-
ment alone is not effective in changing human behavior, and that this
approach is, in fact, disruptive to community harmony.
As the Hong Kong government has so far been reluctant to reform the
traditional retributive system of responding to young people who offend,
I have re-orientated my work direction to focus on advocating the use of
restorative practices outside the judicial system and promoting RJ con-
cepts to teachers. I started to train social workers to run restorative
conferences or victim-offender mediation (VOM) so that juvenile delin-
quents might have the chance to repair harm they caused to victims the
community, and at the same time, to find a way of providing improved
arrangements for the guardianship of juveniles who were not receiving
appropriate support from their families. Since mid-1997, I have been
working closely with a team of social workers to conduct victim-offen-
der mediation for juveniles involved in minor crimes. The forum for me-
diation is a voluntary one.
The social workers work in a “Juvenile Self-Strengthening Team”
of a non-governmental organization (NGO). Clients are normally aged
under 18, have committed minor crimes such as shoplifting and com-
mon assault in the local neighborhood, and been placed under the Police
Superintendent Discretionary Scheme. The Scheme provides community
support services to those who are diverted from prosecution to the police
cautioning project. As the consultant of this project, I have taught the
social workers to run conferences. Having connected with a TV program
producer, one TV production team followed my working schedule for a
month and had eventually documented a true case of a restorative con-
ference that I conducted. This was the first restorative conference that
ever appeared in a TV program (Wednesday Report, Hong Kong TVB,
21 July 1999). From then on, more and more restorative confer-ences or
VOMs have been tried and more people had heard of the term “fuk he”
(restoration).
18 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
get used to maltreating the others without any sense of remorse if such
behavior goes unchecked, and that bystanders can be inhibited from
taking the right action if intimidated by the bully. The process by which
school bullying is learned is circular: a victim becomes a bully, and, in
turn, creates more victims and more bullies. As teenagers enmesh them-
selves in bullying subcultures, they become insensitive to others’ feel-
ings. So, instead of harsh disciplinary action, I favor the restorative
practices of mediation and of mending broken relationships in tackling
bullying.
After joining the 1st International Forum on Initiatives for Safe
School in South Korea in June 1999, I became aware of the importance
of evidence-based intervention strategies. I obtained several research
grants to continue research on the impact of restorative practices, and, in
particular, to experiment with anti-bullying programs.
In 2002, my associates and I published results of the first compre-
hensive survey on school bullying (Wong et al., 2002). This study of a
sample of 7,025 Chinese primary schoolchildren found that over half of
the sample had witnessed physical bullying and social exclusion in the
last six months. About a quarter (24 percent) reported that they had phy-
sically bullied another child during the preceding six months. Nearly a
third (32 percent) reported that they had been the victims of physical
bullying at some time. The prevalence of school bullying was particu-
larly high in senior primary school classes. These figures of physical
bullying reflect a relatively high prevalence of school violence com-
pared with those found in Norway, US, and UK (Wong, 2004).
In 2002, a survey on teachers’ perceptions towards school bullying
in secondary schools showed that over 80 percent respondents said that
anti-bullying programs had never been organized in their schools
(Wong and Lo, 2002). Nor had peace education courses, anger manage-
ment workshops, or anti-bullying seminars been offered.
course for all form one, two, and three students within the regular time
of formal curriculum. In this way, each student will receive a total of 21
hours of peace education in the academic year, a first for Hong Kong.
Table 2.1 shows the outline of the peace education curricula. The pro-
gram consists of four major parts such as self-understanding, emotional
control, problem-solving skills, and interpersonal communication skills
(Wong and Lee, 2005).
In summary, our works have involved a number of steps aimed at
promoting restorative justice in Hong Kong. Aside from publishing re-
search results, we have:
REFERENCES
Apple Daily (1999), Four Offenders Were Sentenced to Life Imprisonment, A2,
January, 31 (in Chinese).
Arora, C.M.J. (1994), Is There Any Point in Trying to Reduce Bullying in
Secondary Schools? Educational Psychology in Practice, Vol. 10, No. 3,
pp. 155-62.
Bazemore, G. and Umbreit, M. (1997), Balanced and Restorative Justice for
Juveniles: A Framework for Juvenile Justice in the 21st Century, Center
for Restorative Justice and Mediation: St. Paul, MN.
Braithwaite, J. (1989), Crime, Shame and Reintegration, Cambridge University
Press: Cambridge, UK.
Hopkins, B. (2004), Just Schools: A Whole School Approach to Restorative
Justice, Jessica Kingsley: London.
Limper, R. (2000), Cooperation Between Parents, Teachers, and School Boards
to Prevent Bullying in Education: An Overview of Work Done in the
Netherlands, Aggressive Behavior, Vol. 26, pp. 125-35.
Lo, T.W.; Wong, S.W., and Maxwell, G. (eds.), (2005), Alternatives to Prose-
cution: Rehabilitation and Restorative Models of Youth Justice, Marshall
Cavendish: London.
McCold, P. (2003), Primary Restorative Justice Practices, in A. Morris and G.
Maxwell, (eds.), Restorative Justice for Juveniles: Conferencing, Media-
tion, and Circles, Oxford University Press, pp. 41-58.
Mediation Services (2001), Victim Offender Mediation: Deepening Our Prac-
tice Manual. Mediation Services in Canada: Manitoba, Canada.
Ming Pao Daily (1999), Teen Gangsters Sexually Assaulted a 13 Year Old Girl
for 3 Hours, A3, February 5 (in Chinese).
———(2001), A Form-Two Boy Chopped His Classmates, A6, November 8
(in Chinese).
O’Connell, T.; Wachtel, B., and Wachtel, T. (1999), Conferencing Handbook.
The New and Real Justice Training Manual. The Piper’s: Pipersville, PA.
O’Moore, A.M. and Minton, S.J. (2005), Evaluation of the Effectiveness of an
Anti-Bullying Program in Primary Schools, Aggressive Behavior, Vol. 31,
pp. 609-22.
Oriental Daily (1999), The Gang Involved in Burning the Dead Body Found
Guilty of Murder, A1, January, 28 (in Chinese).
Rigby, K. (1996), Bullying in Schools: What to Do About It, Jessica Kingsley:
London.
30 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
Wong, D.S.W.; Lok, P.P; Lo, T.W., and Ma, S.K. (2002), A Study of School
Bullying in Primary Schools in Hong Kong, Department of Applied Social
Studies, City University of Hong Kong: Hong Kong (in Chinese).
Wong, D.S.W.; Ngan, M.H.; Cheng, H.K., and Ma, S.K. (2007), The Ef-
ectiveness of Restorative Whole-School Approach in Tackling Bullying in
Secondary Schools, Department of Applied Social Studies, City Univer-
sity of Hong Kong: Hong Kong.
Zehr, H. (1990), Changing Lenses: A New Focus of Crime and Justice, Herald:
Scottsdale, PA.
3
____________________________
Introduction
“They are too young,” exclaimed a prisoner, not too old himself, as I
visited the inmates (18 altogether) in the local prison, and we all had
coffee and cakes together.
34 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
“Norway is the model: Ask about health, child care, social equality,
and Norway leads the world. Ask about juvenile justice, and much
of the world leads Norway. As a practicing social worker in Nor-
way, I set out to discover progressive treatment of children in
trouble by a progressive country. My journey at first led me no-
where, for I was told there was no mechanism for controlling young
lawbreakers’ behavior. This system was so progressive that there
was no system at all. Then some social workers from the “social
office” introduced me to a world hidden from public view, to a pro-
cess that is punitive, arbitrary, and an instrument of social control. It
is a process that has largely gone unexamined, either by foreign or
native observers” (Van Wormer, 1990: 57).
Youth Justice and Restorative Justice in Norway 39
aim of the NMS is to bring the disputant parties together in order for
them to express emotions and narrate the act or case of dispute once
more in order to come to a common conclusion on their own premises—
whatever that may be. Thus they are their own problem-solvers without
the help of experts on legal or criminal or youth matters. In cases of
juvenile delinquency of a minor nature, as determined by the police, the
agreement between the parties may cause the police to withdraw the
legal claim. Thus the juvenile may solve his or her problem himself or
herself by good conduct, i.e. self-governance.
Criminologist Sturla Falck warns of an unintended consequence of
restorative justice: the use of the NMS does not prejudice the right of the
state to prosecute alleged offenders. This might open “the way for
twofold criminal prosecution for the same offense” (Falck, 2004: 8).
My own research interests lie in this field of restorative justice as a
new and possibly more democratic solution to the contemporary cre-
dibility problems of the criminal justice system. The linguist Hasund
and I are working on a research project called “Conflict Regimes” based
upon a trial project launched by the Ministry of Justice, “mediation as
supplement to punishment in serious cases of violence” (Hydle, 2004;
Hydle and Hasund, 2003). Our findings up to now are that parties in
dispute may reach a considerable degree of satisfaction and improve-
ment in self-esteem and vitality. The dialogues that they develop during
meetings may change their views about themselves and others. This has
happened even in prisons. There is reason to believe that NMS used in
prison may improve the possibilities for a successful rehabilitation, i.e.,
the NMS may function as a supplementary punishment for some, and for
others it may be a way to improve their living conditions on their own
premises.
Future Trends
In this chapter my aim has been to trace the changes in governmental
tasks and principles constructed during the last two decades in Nor-
wegian juvenile justice practices. Such practices include medical—
psychiatric measures, schooling, child protective care, police practices,
and criminal legal procedures, punitive procedures—or the lack of such
practices. I have here emphasized just a few of these measures, proce-
dures and practices. One issue which needs more emphasis in particular
is the intersection between the CPS, the prison services and the psy-
chiatric care for juveniles. The Child Care Expert Committee (NOU,
2000: 12) describes this intersection as particularly problematic in Nor-
way, the case which I have described in the beginning of the chapter
may serve as a general and typical example.
44 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
How did the emphasis on “criminal act” shift into “risk of criminal
act”—in what practices may this shift be observed? In general, especi-
ally within certain state policy practices such as medical care, education,
immigration policy or poverty policy (Sending, 2002), we may trace the
contemporary Norwegian “reform-state” emerging from the nation-state
in the 19th century, through the intermediary “planning-state” in the 20th
century (Newman and Sending, 2003). New public management and
risk control are supposed to be forceful tools for guiding the population
in the reform-state—or rather, that each individual governs him/herself.
There are important tasks ahead for researchers as well as for policy
planners in order to draw careful social, cultural and political charts of
juvenile justice. Practices should be followed carefully in order to eva-
luate the foreseen as well as unforeseen consequences of reforms. Such
reforms, as well as the results thereof, should be seen against the pers-
pective of the UN convention on children’s rights as a new cornerstone
in the Norwegian society.
The punitive, treatment-oriented, and educational caring practices
have emerged to dominate during different periods in the 20th century,
especially with regard to those practices called crime prevention, devi-
ance prevention or sickness prevention. The ideologies of punishment
were overthrown by pedagogical ideas. The professionals were first and
foremost concerned with the pedagogical treatment of the criminal
within the person. The focus upon crime control is to a certain extent
displaced from the states’ punishment of the deviant to what every sin-
gle citizen may do in order to free him/her-self from criminality. Today
offenders are offered courses in managing stress, violence and unac-
ceptable sexual desires as well as courses in self-recognition within the
prison walls. Correspondingly the focus within medical fields is dis-
placed from hygiene where the categories are bacteria, virus contami-
nation to risk where the categories are lifestyle, predispositions and
genes. These strands of thought are spreading to other societal sectors,
e.g. the criminal justice system and the psychiatric system, where one
kind of therapy is a bed in a more-or-less locked room, and the admi-
nistration of narcoleptics or sedatives or both. (I watch the prison guards
distribute such every night to their young and healthy, but diagnosed as
sick, inmates).
Youth Justice and Restorative Justice in Norway 45
REFERENCES
Benneche, G. (1967), Rettssikkerheten i Barnevernet [The Legal Protection in
the Child Care Services], Universitetsforlaget: Oslo.
———(1979), Taushet: Vern eller Maktmiddel [Silence: Care or Tool of Coer-
cion], Institutt for Journalistikk: Oslo.
Falck, S. (1998), Juvenile Delinquency in Norway. Three Papers on: Sanctions,
Alternatives, Age of Criminal Responsibility and Crime Trends, NOVA
Skriftserie, January.
———(1999), Barnevernet Mellom Hjelp, Straff og Hjelpeløshet [The Child
Protective Services between Aid, Punishment, and Helplessness], Scan-
dinavian Research Council for Criminology: Copenhagen.
———(2004), Restorative Justice: A Giant Leap or Just Another Tool for the
Criminal Justice System? Paper presented at the European Forum for
Victim-Offender Mediation and Restorative Justice, 3rd Bi-Annual Con-
ference on Restorative Justice in Europe, Budapest, Hungary, October 14-
16.
Hagen, G. (2001), Barnevernets Historie: Om Makt og Avmakt i det 20. Århun-
dre [The History of the Child Care Services: On Power and Powerlessness
in the 20th Century], Acribe Forlag: Oslo.
———(2001), Murder Without Motive. An Anthropological Study of a
Criminal Case, disseration, Department of Social Anthropology, Faculty
of Social Sciences, University of Oslo.
Hydle, I. (2004), Prosjektet Megling i Voldssaker ved Konfliktrådet for Hordal,
Evalueringsrapport, Høgskolen i Agder, Oslo.
Hydle, I. and Hasund, K. (2004), Evaluating a Norwegian Restorative Justice
Project: Mediation as Supplement to Punishment in Serious Violence
46 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
Background
In the wake of the dot-com boom at the end of the 1990s, a local go-
vernment in Silicon Valley found themselves with enough money to
experiment on a new program they had heard about called Restorative
Justice. Funding was provided for a few selected neighborhoods to
create the Restorative Justice Project (RJP), a collaborative between
community-based organizations (CBO) and the Santa Clara County
probation department. RJP was successful, and later expanded to more
neighborhoods. One of the initial grants was awarded to an Asian
American CBO in Santa Clara County, serving predominately Asian
neighborhoods in East San Jose and Milpitas.
The Community
In East San Jose, there was a high concentration of young Asian Ameri-
cans. According to the US Census Bureau, in 2000, 26 percent of Santa
Clara County residents were Asian American. In fact, San Jose has one
of the highest proportions in the nation of Asian residents (29 percent)
(Barnes and Bennett, 2002). This concentration of Asian American
youth translated to a number of juvenile offenses. For example, Asian
gang violence plagued the neighborhoods: the local high school had
experienced such a stabbing in the summer of 1999. Also unique to the
area was C-Town, short for Cambodia Town because of the high con-
centration of Cambodian refugees. Milpitas, a neighboring city, is a
diverse community wherein Asians constituted 52 percent of the popu-
lation (Census 2000). The Filipino population was the largest Asian
group at 15 percent. Youth served by this project lived in suburban
communities which lacked resources and activities for young people.
Youth reported that they engaged in certain risky activities (e.g., mari-
juana use, and graffiti) because they were bored.
Understanding that each community was unique, Santa Clara Coun-
ty selected CBOs based on their knowledge and ability to serve the
selected communities. The Asian American agency (referred to as the
Agency) selected to implement RJP in these two locales was a substance
abuse agency. RJP was an intervention effort the Agency provided
alongside other prevention, intervention and treatment efforts for youth
Restorative Justice Principles in an Asian American Community 49
and adults. Although the program was designed to address the justice
issues that arose with each youth, the Agency offered an expertise in
substance use that played an important role in serving many of the RJP
youth. Even a large portion of the youth receiving non-substance cita-
tions reported experimentation with illicit substances.
In 1997, when this agency began implementing RJP, the Santa
Clara County Public Health Department reported high rates of alcohol,
tobacco, and other drug usage among Asian American and Pacific
Islander (AAPI) youth. They reported that 15 percent of females, and 19
percent of males among AAPI high school students in Santa Clara
County were regular smokers. Nearly half of AAPI high school students
and over a quarter of middle school students had tried smoking. More
than one in ten AAPI middle school boys, and 6 percent of AAPI middle
school girls in Santa Clara County were smokers. In spite of state laws
prohibiting the sale of tobacco to anyone under the age of 18, 17 percent
of AAPI students bought their cigarettes at a store, more than any other
racial/ethnic group (Santa Clara County Public Health Department,
1999). Over half of AAPI Santa Clara County high school students had
tried at least one alcoholic drink, and almost a quarter were current
alcohol users. Among AAPI middle school students, 28 percent of girls,
and 45 percent of boys had tried alcohol (Santa Clara County Public
Health Department, 1997). While AAPI youth in Santa Clara County are
generally less likely to use illegal drugs than other groups, 16 percent of
AAPI high school females and 28 percent of AAPI males had tried
smoking marijuana. These high rates of usage reflected the need for
intervention services in Santa Clara County.
Program Design
This implementation of RJP was founded on restorative justice princi-
ples of community protection, competency development and accoun-
tability. RJP worked to balance these three elements. Community pro-
tection occurred because these juveniles were carefully monitored.
Competency development took into account an asset-building
approach, with the goal of changing behaviors by improving functional
skills. Finally, accountability was an important element, ensuring that
50 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
the youth and community were able to make amends. In this way, offen-
ders, victims, and communities worked together to restore justice (Van
Ness and Strong, 1997).
Consistent with the Restorative Justice framework, RJP adopted a
Positive Youth Development (PYD) approach to building competencies
among the youth. Using the 40 Developmental Assets defined by the
Search Institute (Search Institute), RJP focused on the existing strength
of each youth, while working toward increasing the number of assets
possessed by each youth. By engaging youth in positive activities, youth
had less time to engage in drugs and criminal activities. Meanwhile, by
building their confidence abilities, each youth was more likely to de-
velop productive habits and make a valuable contribution to the com-
munity, thereby reducing the likelihood that they would re-offend (Butts
et al., 2005).
Youth cited for nonviolent offenses were diverted into the project
with the promise that the citation would be erased from their record. The
condition was that they admitted their guilt and waived their right to a
trial. Common offenses included possession of marijuana, graffiti, and
petty theft. Youth and their parents would present themselves before a
Neighborhood Accountability Board (NAB), a rotating group of neigh-
borhood volunteers. These NAB meetings were central to the Project.
The NAB meetings enabled the youth, the community, and when-
ever possible the victims, to begin the restorative work necessary to
ensure justice while providing an opportunity for youth development
and community empowerment. The final outcome of the meetings was a
contract, developed with the input of the youth, their families, and NAB
members. In the process, youth were provided the opportunity to tell
their story, and were expected to listen and learn how their actions may
have affected their victim and the community. In many cases, such as
graffiti, the community was considered the victim. The NAB members
spent time learning about the youth’s strengths and interests so that the
team could develop an individualized contract. The contracts balanced
two objectives: ensuring that the youth pay reparation for their crime
while also developing the youth’s talents and assets to prevent future
crimes.
Restorative Justice Principles in an Asian American Community 51
(1) the youth workers became familiar with the different social services
they would refer their youth and families to,
Restorative Justice Principles in an Asian American Community 55
(2) the staff at these sites would become familiar with the new youth
workers and the Restorative Justice Project, and
(3) the youth workers also learned about the strengths and challenges
faced by these other model programs that served Asian and other
immigrant youth families.
new program, there was work in clearly establishing the role of the
worker as distinct from that of Probation Officer.
A second challenge was that, while meant to produce individua-
lized contracts based on the strengths and interests of each youth, many
were often plagued by generic requirements. The time constraint of the
NAB meetings (i.e., an hour) only allowed the community volunteers a
shallow grasp of each youth before negotiating the contract. Minimum
requirements for certain citations were imposed. For example, graffiti
cases were automatically required a minimum number of hours of
graffiti clean-up with the same community program. There were other
common elements, such as referral to the empowerment class, and com-
munity service completed at the same community center. The Probation
Department was faced with many competing obligations. They imposed
these requirements with the intention of achieving fairness by standar-
dizing contract requirement. However, this standardization directly con-
tradicted with the PYD and RJP principles of tailoring each contract to
the unique needs and strengths of each youth.
Finally, work was severely limited by the amount of time allocated
for each youth to complete their contract. This time limit began with six
months, but was revised to take into account the time it took Probation
to process the paperwork for each youth. Youths were expected to com-
plete contracts in four months. Again, this ran counter to the purpose of
RJP and to the goal to understand and create individualized contracts
through a personal understanding of each youth. With mandatory mini-
mums and a very short time to work with each youth, the ability of RJP
workers to effectively intervene with the youth was seriously hampered.
For instance, with the limit of 3 to 4 months to encourage youth to fulfill
their contract by building on their strengths, at times it became difficult
or unrealistic for a contract to be fulfilled. Although youth workers
moved as quickly as possible to assist each client in meeting their re-
quirements, it often took up to a month to help each youth establish the
relationships with community organizations and programs necessary to
meet contract requirements. Additionally, using a Stages of Change
framework for behavior change, the youth were often only in the pre-
contemplation or contemplation stage, and were not always prepared to
change his or her behavior (MacMaster, 2004). If services could not be
Restorative Justice Principles in an Asian American Community 57
extended long enough for each youth to move beyond the contemplation
stage of change, the likelihood that they would re-offend was increased.
These limitations often constrained the work of the youth worker,
but also reflected the struggle to balance the realities of the Probation
Department with the philosophy of restorative justice. While the youth
workers were able to implement RJP principles successfully, they were
constantly working against these limitations.
community, the challenges may have been greater. The shame played a
role in the parents’ inability to collaborate, and their adherence to power
dynamics where the youth worker was the authority figure. Consequen-
tly, there was in inherent tension between RJP and Asian cultures. Had
the project been able to successfully recruit more Asian members, it may
have created more initial tension and stress between the youth and
parent, consequently exacerbating any strains already present in their
parent-child relationships.
Conclusion
Cultural competency is an elusive skill. Identifying and cataloguing va-
lues and scripts for the Asian culture and comparing how those differ
from American culture is nearly impossible; many of these values and
scripts are followed subconsciously and operate almost invisibly. The
agency serving East San Jose and Milpitas was able to hire young youth
workers of Asian descent who could instinctively react to Asian families
appropriately. For example, these individuals knew to remove shoes
when entering the home, and could find the appropriate balance between
deferring to elders while still playing the role of authority. However,
there are several ways in which RJP principles and Asian cultural values
appear to contradict.
First, in implementing future RJP models with Asian clients, at-
tention should be paid to the power dynamics between youth workers
and families. Although the worker was prescribed as a collaborator for
this project, it was the role of authority figure that often enabled parents
to respond in a more productive manner. It was helpful prior to NAB
meetings for the youth workers to meet with and empower both the
youth and the parent(s) by fully explaining the process, and encouraging
them to think of meaningful ways for the youth to build restitution in a
manner that builds upon their strengths.
A second issue at hand is the concern of publicly airing what is a
private family matter. Efforts to understand the youth can come dan-
gerously close to criticizing parents in public. Attention needs to be paid
to the sensitive situation and the sensitive ego of the parents during these
NAB meetings. Educating NAB members about this would be crucial in
60 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
REFERENCES
Barnes, J.S. and Bennett, C. (2002), The Asian Population: 2000, US Census
Bureau: Washington, D.C.
Butts, J.; Mayer, S., and Ruth, G. (2005), Focusing Juvenile Justice on Positive
Youth Development, Chapin Hall Center for Children: Chicago, IL.
Love, M.B.; Gardner, K., and Legion, V. (1997), Community Health Workers:
Who They Are and What They Do, Health Education Behavior, Vol. 24,
No. 4, pp. 510-22.
MacMaster, S.A. (2004), Harm Reduction: A New Perspective on Substance
Abuse Services, Social Work, Vol. 49, No. 3.
Santa Clara County Public Health Department (1997), Health Status Report: A
Platform for Action for the Year 2000, Santa Clara County Public Health
Department: Santa Clara, CA.
———(1999), Santa Clara County’s Children Youth: Key Indicators of Well-
Being, Search Institute, 40 Developmental Assets for Adolescents, Santa
Clara County Public Health Department: Santa Clara, CA.
Tulare County Probation Department, Tulare County Juvenile Justice Coordina-
ting Council (2007), Comprehensive Multi-Agency Juvenile Justice Plan,
Tulare County Probation Department: Tulare, CA.
Van Ness, D. and Strong, K.H. (1997), Restoring Justice, Anderson: Cincinnati,
OH.
5
____________________________
face of victims, so the survivors come to see the human face of offen-
ders.
Minnesota has infused gender-specific programming within its
juvenile and adult institutions, programming that is built on restorative
justice principles. The Minnesota Department of Corrections further-
more employs restorative justice planners to train people at the county
level for diversionary conferencing, emphasizing above all a spirit of
dialogue and healing. Burns (2001), a researcher at the Center for Resto-
rative Justice and Peacemaking, describes a process that is a combi-
nation of victim-offender conferencing, panels, and healing circles.
Meetings held in a circle format at the women’s prison at Shakopee
were conducted with five crime victims, members of the Parents of
Murdered Children support group, six inmates, two facilitators, a neutral
advocate, and an observer. Participants who did not know each other
before the meetings signed up for certain nights when they would tell
their personal stories. Before the conferencing, the victims had favored
harsh penalties for such female offenders, but afterwards they saw them
as persons who too had been victimized in their own way. A great deal
of empathy and remorse was expressed in these exchanges.
In Battering Situations
Restorative practices in the realm of domestic violence have always
started at the grass roots level; it is time argue Grauwiler and Mills
(2004) to expand our efforts to include the needs of women who avoid
the criminal justice system. Community-based interventions are required
that rely on community support of the survivor rather than do on cri-
minal prosecution of the victimizer.
A postmodern view of justice has developed which, according to
Presser and Gaarder (2004), has called into question the ideology of
absolute justice, and policies such as forcing the victim to testify in open
court against her partner or spouse who assaulted her. Research in the
1990s, as these writers further inform us, found that battering victims
who have a say in legal or less formal proceedings may feel more em-
powered to get help, if not to terminate the abusive relationship. Women
of color often see both the courts and social services as adversaries ra-
Restorative Justice and Offenses Against Women 67
family, as well as the offender and individuals from his support system.
Power imbalances are addressed in various ways, such as limiting the
right of the offender to speak on his own behalf, and including com-
munity members in a sort of surveillance team to monitor the offender’s
compliance. Braithwaite and Daly see the potential to use such methods
safely by including them in a “regulatory pyramid,” utilizing intervene-
tions of escalating intensity in refractory cases.
While more conventional interventions such as imprisonment may
still be used for offenders who do not respond, these researchers see
community involvement in decisionmaking, as well as in rituals invol-
ving expressions of remorse and ultimate community reintegration, as
potentially more beneficial. The survivor and other members of the com-
munity are given voice, and are able collectively to bring social pres-
sures to bear on the offender to change his behavior. In this way, the
community is both protecting the victim and offering the option of reha-
bilitation to the offender.
Other reports involving successful community conferencing in ca-
ses of severe family violence have come from traditional Canadian
Native community ceremonies. These are unlike traditional mediation
methods used with divorcing couples in that community involvement
changes the balance of power. Griffiths (1999), for example, presents
the case of a Canadian aboriginal sentencing circle which took up the
case of a man who, when drunk, beat his wife. Seated in a circle, the
victim and her family told of their distress, and a young man spoke of
the contributions the offender had made to the community. The judge
suspended sentencing until the offender entered alcoholism treatment
and fulfilled the expectations of the victim and of her support group.
The ceremony concluded with a prayer and a shared meal. After a
period of time, the woman who had been victimized voiced her satisfac-
tion with the process.
This case, as Griffiths explains, was clearly linked to the criminal
justice system. Others may be handled more quietly, by tribal members.
Griffiths concludes on a note of caution: victims must play a key role
throughout the process to ensure that their needs are met and that they
are not re-victimized. This is a process we can expect to be hearing
much more about in the future. The emphasis on restoration rather than
Restorative Justice and Offenses Against Women 69
Rashmi Goel (2005) believes that restorative justice options are ill-
suited to application among immigrant South Asian communities for
domestic violence cases. Her reasoning is that women from South Asian
culture might be placated by the familiar values of community, cooper-
ation, and forgiveness into seeking restorative justice solutions and ulti-
mately into staying in an abusive situation. Restorative justice is based
on the premise that participants are equal and can speak freely in a con-
sensus-based proceeding.
But in the South Asian (Indian) cultural tradition, such an assump-
tion cannot be made. Tradition portrays the husband as the sole source
of status and support; and Indian women are apt to feel responsible for
pain inflicted by the husband. The exact opposite argument is made by
Grauwiler and Mills (2004). Their recommendation is for what they call
Intimate Abuse Circles as a culturally sensitive alternative to the crimi-
nal justice system’s response to domestic violence. Such Circles are
especially helpful, they suggest, to immigrant, minority, and religious
families where it is more likely that the family will remain intact. This
model acknowledges that many people seek to end the violence but not
the relationship. Such restorative processes help partners as well who
would like to separate in a more amicable fashion than through standard
avenues.
In Situations of Rape
If criminal justice treatment of victims of crime in general leaves much
to be desired, treatment of rape victims is unconscionable. Three main
failings of the conventional system are discussed by Braithwaite and
Daly (1998). The first of these is the low rate of accountability in the
system due to a lack of reporting by victim-survivors, and the low
prosecution rate even when a charge is filed related to perceived lack of
credibility of victims of any crime involving sex. In addition, there is the
awareness by authorities of the low conviction rate in rape cases even if
the case does come to trial. Secondly, rapists who are sentenced to
prison are often guilty of repeated offenses that they got away with;
these habitual rapists are highly likely to re-offend upon release. Third,
women are re-victimized under cross-examination by defense attorneys
Restorative Justice and Offenses Against Women 71
nity, a cycle of sexual abuse had been perpetuated for generations. Be-
cause the problem was community wide, if the victims had gone through
normal channels, virtually all the male members of the community
would have been removed. The process of circle sentencing was thus
chosen as the pragmatic and culturally sensitive approach to an almost
overwhelming situation. In the circle, offenders acknowledged the truth
of their behavior.
Healing Contracts and a concluding Cleansing Ceremony provided
a spiritual dimension to the proceedings. Strong community pressures
followed the sessions to keep the offenders in treatment. The process
was empowering for all the parties involved, and instead of being divi-
sive, pulled the community together for concerted action toward social
change.
Sometimes there is not satisfaction, however, following the hand-
ling of serious cases through circles, as Ross (1998) suggests. Com-
plaints have come from women that Aboriginal justice had been too
lenient in a number of cases and that the victims’ interests had not been
represented in the decisions that were reached.
It is for this reason that Rubin (2003), in her examination of wo-
men’s experiences in restorative processes in Nova Scotia, cautions
critics from being overly positive in assessing these alternative forms of
justice, in ignoring family and community roles in the reinforcement of
male control of women. Her recommendations include close attention to
women’s safety concerns and guarantees for their safety in domestic
violence situations.
74 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
REFERENCES
Belknap, J. and Holsinger, K. (1997), Understanding Incarcerated Girls: The
Results of a Focus Group Study, Prison Journal, Vol. 77, pp. 381-405.
Braithwaite, J. and Daly, K. (1998), Masculinity, Violence and Communitarian
Control, in S. Miller (ed.), Crime Control and Women, Sage: Thousand
Oaks, CA.
Burns, H. (2001), Citizens, Victims, and Offenders: A Restoring Justice Project,
Center for Restorative Justice and Peacemaking: St. Paul, MN.
Chesney-Lind, M. (1997), The Female Offender: Girls Women and Crime,
Sage: Thousand Oaks, CA.
Frisch, L. (2003), The Justice Response to Woman Battering, in A. Roberts
(ed.), Critical Issues in Crime and Justice, Sage: Thousand Oaks, CA.
Goel, R. (2005, May), Sita’s Trousseau: Restorative Justice, Domestic Violence,
and South Asian Culture, Violence Against Women, Vol. 11, No. 5, pp.
639-65.
Grauwiler, P. and Mills, L. (2004), Moving Beyond the Criminal Justice Para-
digm: A Radical Restorative Justice Approach to Intimate Abuse, Journal
of Sociology Social Welfare, Vol. 31, No. 1, 49-62.
Green, Ross G. (1998), Justice in Aboriginal Communities: Sentencing Alterna-
tives, Purich: Saskatoon, Canada.
Griffiths, Curt T. (1999), The Victims of Crime and Restorative Justice: The
Canadian Experience, International Review of Victimology, Vol. 6, pp.
279-94.
Hatch Cunningham, Alison and Griffiths, Curt T. (1999), Canadian Criminal
Justice, Harcourt: Oxford, UK.
Koss, M. (2000), Blame, Shame, and Community: Justice Responses to Vio-
lence Against Women, American Psychologist, Vol. 55, No.11, pp. 1332-
43.
Langhunrichsen-Rohling, J.; Huss, M.T., and Ramsey, S. (2000), The Clinical
Utility of Batterer Typologies, Journal of Family Violence, Vol. 15, No.1,
pp. 37-53.
Presser, L. and Gaarder, E. (2004), Can Restorative Justice Reduce Battering?,
in B. Price and N. Sokoloff (eds.), The Criminal Justice System Women:
Offenders, Prisoners, Victims, Workers, McGraw Hill: New York.
Ross, R. (2000), Searching for the Roots of Conferencing, in G. Burford and J.
Hudson (eds.), Family Group Conferencing: New Directions in Commu-
nity-Centered Child Family Practice, Aldine de Gruyter: New York.
Restorative Justice and Offenses Against Women 75
Over the last 20 years, many communities in the United States have
initiated a restorative justice approach. Restorative justice is being used
in misdemeanor and criminal proceedings, as an alternative for youth in
the juvenile justice system, as well as civil and domestic disputes in-
cluding child welfare cases. Restorative justice has not replaced the tra-
ditional criminal justice system due to limited knowledge of outcomes.
Equally important, information about this approach is not widely known
among local citizenry unless the citizen has direct experience in the
restorative justice process.
Though restorative justice exists in most states, there is still a great
deal of experimentation underway while the models used vary. Com-
munities are testing out the methodology of restorative justice and exa-
mining the effectiveness of this orientation. Is restorative justice actually
able to achieve the overarching goals of the United States justice system?
Is order restored through the restorative justice process?
78 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
Is restorative justice able to heal the damage arising from harm, both
harm(s) to a victim(s) and harms that are perpetrated upon the commu-
nity as a whole? Do communities regain their much needed community
safety when criminal or civil concerns are brought to resolution through
restorative justice? This chapter introduces some of the ideas and per-
ceptions of community members who participate in a restorative justice
conferencing process in a Colorado community. Some of the informa-
tion presented emerged from a case study done by the author and gra-
duate social work student (Jaeckel, 2005).
ting with the perpetrator of the offence, the arresting officer(s), the
county attorney, and friends/or family members who may provide
support for the victims and/or the offenders. In the conferencing meeting,
the trained facilitator initiates a process of fact finding and reflections
about the illegal experience that occurred. How the criminal action af-
fected all parties is examined. Listening to the stories of all parties helps
identify both direct and indirect impacts of this wrongful action.
Through the restorative justice process, the harms are identified,
repairs to those harms are explored, and a contract that provides clear
remediation to the victim and community is agreed upon and written
into a formal agreement. Including the community voice by requiring
community members to be “one of the regular members” in community
justice restorative conferencing promotes and strengthens communities.
The community component of a community justice restorative group
conference offers a unique perspective, a perspective that offers the
offender a deeper sense of the commonalities that exist in communities.
An equally unique goal of restorative justice and group conference pro-
cess is to let the offender know that the community members are there to
provide support for the offender and to show that the community cares
about the actions of all the members of their community.
who may not have been intimately involved in the specifics to be able to
speak what is in their hearts and on their minds.”
When he was asked if the restorative justice conferencing process
was adequate, Rupert’s responded, “I thought it went well beyond ade-
quate. I thought it was excellent, actually a very moving experience for a
participant and community member … You feel changed as a person
having gone through that, and I felt that the offenders were dealt with
great respect by the facilitators and equally so the parents and all the
other people involved. There is a real sense; you come away with a
sense of a process that respected the dignity of everyone there.” The
emotion in his voice was evident. He felt deeply about this aspect of
restorative justice.
Since previously Rupert had been involved in three other com-
munity group conferences he had experienced outcomes that were not as
positive as in this current group conference situation. Rupert was able to
express what he perceived as potential limitations in a restorative justice
approach. He said, “One instance was where there were two offenders
and one did not want to participate and did not accept responsibility for
what he had done. In that case the conference ended without a contract,
without an agreement, and there was a sense of disappointment that we
all felt but that was the right outcome. “He goes on to clarify that “In the
end, this group conference was a positive experience, helping the youth
to recognize the importance of community involvement along with the
prerequisites of attending a restorative justice conference. These prere-
quisites include: full acceptance of responsibility in both an emotional
and verbal sense by all those involved in the conference, particularly the
offender(s).”
Rupert felt that this family group conference strengthened his sense
of community as well as for others in the experience. He remarked,
“There was a sense of community among the members who were seated
there, coming from different places; parents, teachers, victims, offenders,
community members and facilitators. We were all coming from different
perspectives and we were there spending time together because of the
common goal which was to participate in this community endeavor.
That’s a way that community cohesiveness is built and I felt it power-
fully.”
86 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
the alarm, and afterwards what happened. “I remember one of them [the
young women in the room] telling how scared she was when the police
came and she had to call her home. Each of the girls had an opportunity
to open up and share feelings. It was a safe place to do that. Every one
of us had an opportunity to talk about how we felt. That’s part of the
healing process, and that was important to all of us.”
When asked about the adequacy of the group conference, Maggie
felt that the restorative justice group conference process was more than
adequate. She says, “It was excellent. I think that this is a very valuable
program tool. It is an experience that a lot of young people do not have
the opportunity to go through. In my role as a parent, in the conference
that I was involved in prior to this one, not one of those kids offended
again, it was a very … tense, moving, an impacting experience for those
kids involved in that.” Because Maggie shares the “school community”
with the young women in this restorative justice conference, she was
able to reflect on how these young women changed over the next several
months because of this experience. She described the young women as
being more receptive to interacting with other students and adults. One
of the girls even changed the way that she dressed and the make-up that
she wore. Maggie says, “Her whole persona softened.”
Maggie described the restorative justice process as an opportunity
to obtain “closure to an event that impacted the school community.” Her
reflections are in this statement. “There was an opportunity for the girls
to repair the harm and make retribution in a lot of different ways and
they have not done anything like this since.” Building on that thought,
she stated, “I think it can be a life changing experience.”
Maggie is “glad, as a member of the community, that there is a
program like this helping kids to not only see the harm but to repair it
and to feel like they’re being heard; that the kids are not just “ bad kids.”
This is one of those programs that tries to make sure that kids walk away
with their self-esteem intact, and that’s really important. I don’t think
that the court system is concerned with that.” She ends the discussion
saying, “I think the [restorative justice conference] is a really important
place for us as a community to put our resources rather than just the
court system. I really think or wish that all first time offenders would
have the opportunity rather than just going through the court system.”
88 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
Leila understood her role was “to witness the process and reflect
back to the girls [offenders] my feelings as if I was representing the
community.” When asked if the community members were presented as
important to the group conference process, she replies, “yes, yes, (pause)
that’s the strength of how I thought it would work, that everyone would
come in being equal in capacity, sharing exactly what their emotions
were. I felt like I was an equal player.” She related how the facilitation
process even in the early moments of introductions served to provide
information and bring about healing.
In contrast to the other two community members, Leila left the con-
ference feeling frustrated because she saw a piece of the puzzle that
others gave little attention to. Leila says, “I thought that the emphasis
was put in the wrong place in a lot of ways. I felt like the girls were
really the victims of a much larger problem endemic in the school
systems. Maybe the perpetrator was the hierarchical system, the school
that used the girls’ “boredom in the classroom” as the reason that they
ended up getting into trouble. Why were they bored? The school offi-
cials also said the girls were kind of pushed by their classmates. So, I
question who the real offender(s) was in this situation.”
Leila viewed her role as a community member as important to the
process. She says, “To have someone there as a microcosm of the
macrocosm, saying, ‘I as a community member feel this way.’ Then you
represent to the girls, ‘think about the whole community, how this has
effects beyond your parents, beyond your family, beyond your school
and into the whole community.’ So I think it’s real important to be
there.”
When asked how she felt regarding the facilitation that brings in the
communities concerns and interests, Leila saw the value of the remedia-
tion process. She said, “I was impressed by how the remedy seemed so
far reaching but it went right into it at a large level. It was not perfect,
but I can see, despite the endemic problems in the school, it was still
apparent to the girls what was happening. I think they were taken along
into something that was cosmic to the process.”
Another insight that emerged for Leila showed her connecting with
the girls at their own level. She says, “I bet those girls had not gotten
that much attention in a long time. If that in itself creates healing and a
Vital Voice for Restorative Justice: The Community Members 89
step forward then the community and the families are really quite for-
tunate. In some way, it was kind of good that they did that, because in
their early age they did something that helped them understand that their
‘right actions’ can get the right kind of attention rather than the wrong
kind of attention. She continues, “if it was adequate to fixing the pro-
blems, yes, the conferencing is invaluable. If it met the challenge, yes. I
think that by the amount of attention and caring that these girls got it
was adequate. I think that any other way it would have been handled
they would have never really understood the effects of their actions, so it
was adequate in showing them that.”
ving justice. While they did not all share the same perspectives, each
respondent did express that they achieved personal growth and satis-
faction from being a part of the restorative justice process.
The original question that spurred the process of interviewing com-
munity members focused on how restorative justice helps in repairing
harms to a community, strengthening the culture of the community and
bringing justice to the offenses committed. The narratives provided by
these community members appear to support the concepts of “repairing
harms,” “strengthening the culture of the community,” and “providing
justice” for offenses committed. These narratives support the ideas and
theories of proponents such as Jonestone (2002) and Kurki (1999). The
respondents all felt that their roles were important to the process, even if
they themselves did not believe their personality or personal beliefs and
perspectives coincided with the others present in the conference. Each
believed the process to repair the harms to the community and felt that
the offenders and the other participants had a chance to grow from this
experience. There were some differing thoughts on whether all of the
underlying harms were repaired, but they believed that the specific
offense for which we were brought together and received restitution.
The varying perspectives of each community member are beneficial
to this process. Though the interviews with these members could pro-
vide only a glimpse into the perspectives and views of these people,
their ideas are valuable. Each of these community members brings a
different perspective to the conference, to their roles, and to the com-
munity at large. This is representative of the make up of a community—
not all people believe the same things, are impacted the same ways, and
care about the same issues or have the same goals. This is the beauty of
a restorative justice conference. Within the conference are very different
people who are there to achieve the same goal. Each community mem-
ber has a completely different make up than the person across the circle
from him or her. This is consistent with real life. This is inherent in the
assumptions that underlie restorative justice.
Vital Voice for Restorative Justice: The Community Members 91
REFERENCES
Bernstein, D. (1998), Longmont Restorative Justice Project Report, Longmont
Restorative Justice Project: Longmont, CO.
Burford, G. and Hudson, J. (2000), Family Group Conferencing: New Direc-
tions in Community-Centered Child and Family Practice, Aldine de Gruy-
ter: Hawthorne, NY.
Erlich, J.; Rothman, J., and Tropman, J. (2001), Strategies of Community Inter-
vention, Peacock: Itasca, IL.
Evans, D. (1997), Using Partnerships to Build Communities, Penman: Cleve-
land, TN.
Jaeckel, M. (2005), Finding the “Community” in Restorative Justice: A Case
Study, thesis, Colorado State University, School of Social Work, Fort
Collins, CO.
Johnstone, G. (2002), Restorative Justice: Ideas, and Values, Willan: Devon,
UK.
Kurki, L. (1999), Incorporating Restorative Justice and Community Justice Into
American Sentencing and Corrections, Hillman: New York.
Siedler, M. and Title, B. (1996), Longmont Community Justice Partnership:
Building a Better Community One Circle at a Time, Teaching Peace:
Longmont, CO.
Zehr, H. (2005), Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice, Herald:
Scottdale, PA.
7
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COMMUNITY REPARATIONS
KATHERINE VAN WORMER
and processes of the criminal justice system. Such is the case in Ver-
mont. Vermont’s radical restructuring of its corrections philosophy and
practices stems from influences of the communitarian movement and to
personalist philosophy generally (Hudson and Galaway, 1990; Thor-
valdson, 1990).
In 1991, Vermont decided to overhaul its system, setting up re-
parative boards statewide to focus on repairing the damage to the victim
and community. Composed of volunteers, the reparative group is char-
ged with ensuring that low-risk nonviolent offenders are made aware of
the impact of their behavior on members of the community. Vermont, in
fact, is the first state to implement such conferencing on a statewide
basis and the first to institutionalize the restorative justice philosophy.
The goal is to have all offenders pay back their victims even if they
are in prison (Van Wormer, 2004). Treatment is provided for the victim
and to meet the offender’s needs as well. As with all restorative justice
programs, the goal is to reduce the harm the offender has done to the
victims and community and to reintegrate the offender into the com-
munity. Preliminary studies from Vermont show that more than 80
percent of the 4,000 plus offenders who entered the mediation process
have completed it successfully, and that they are less likely to reoffend
than those who enter probation (Bazemore and Umbreit, 1998).
This model involves a “reparative programs” track designed for
offenders who commit non-violent offenses and who are considered at
low risk for reoffense. This track mandates that the offender make
reparations to both the victim(s) and to the community. A reparative
probation program such as Vermont’s directly engages the community
in sentencing and monitoring offenders, and depends heavily upon
small-scale community-based committees to deal with minor crimes
(Sinkinson and Broderick, 1998). Reparative agreements are made bet-
ween perpetrators and these community representatives, while citizen
volunteers furnish social support in order to facilitate victim and com-
munity reparation.
This model involves members of the community in meting out
justice. Unlike other forms of restorative justice, the process is more
formal with the “chairperson” guiding participants through a questioning
process. The victim’s role has been minimal in the past although this
Community Reparations 95
led by former forced labor victims of the Japanese Army’s war of in-
vasion. Lawsuits against Japanese corporations are pending. Chinese
victims of biological warfare, aerial bombing, and the Nanjing massacre
are also demanding reparations.
The abduction of 13 Japanese citizens by North Korea in the late
1970s and early 1980s has caused a public furor in Japan at the same time
that North Korea awaits compensation for Japan’s war atrocities. In China,
the extensive persecution of vast numbers of teachers and professors at
the hands of Red Guard students during the 1960s Cultural Revolution is
being brought to light by books such as Victims of the Cultural Revolution
by Wang Youqin (2004). The website, www.chinesememorial.org, bears
the slogan, “We will never forget you.”
In the United States, the priest sexual abuse scandal, which has taken
the Catholic Church by storm, lends itself to the possibility of reparations.
Restorative justice principles as opposed to seeking retribution, are highly
relevant to the needs of both the perpetrators and survivors of clergy
sexual abuse. In one case, at least, from the diocese of Providence, Rhode
Island involving lawsuits by 36 people who were sexually abused as
children by priests, and awards were provided in varying amounts propor-
tionate to the severity of the abuse. What is remarkable about the case is
that it was resolved not adversarily but through marathon mediation ses-
sions. Survivors were treated with empathy by the church representatives;
instead of attacking the victims’ stories, compassion was shown and
apologies offered. Consistent with the principles of restorative justice, the
emphasis was on helping the victims, the church, and the community to
heal from the wrongs that had been done (Carroll, 2002).
Conclusion
On the international stage, the thrust for a restorative vision has been
embraced through the role of the United Nations. Following consultation
with non-governmental organizations, the UN, through its Commission
on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, approved a Canadian reso-
lution that encourages countries to use the basic principles of restorative
justice and to incorporate restorative justice programming in their crimi-
nal justice processes. These principles or guidelines were formulated by
Community Reparations 99
the world into warring camps, the challenge for the future will be to try
to somehow undo the damage that has been done, that always is done in
wartime, to heal the wounds of individuals, families, and nations.
REFERENCES
Bazemore, G. and Schiff, M. (2001), Understanding Restorative Community
Justice: What and Why Now?, in G. Bazemore and M. Schiff (eds.), Re-
storing Community Justice: Repairing Harm and Transforming Commu-
nities, Anderson: Cincinnati, OH.
Bazemore, G. and Umbreit, M. (1998), Balancing the Response to Youth Crime
Prospects for a Restorative Juvenile Justice and the Juvenile Court: Ex-
ploring Victim Needs and Involvement in the Response to Youth Crime,
International Review of Victimology, Vol. 6, pp. 295-320.
BBC News (2007), Japan Refuses Sex Slave Apology, British Broadcasting
Company, newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.
Carroll, M. (2002), $13.5 Million Settlement in Rhode Island Clergy Abuse,
The Boston Globe, www.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse.
Daly, E. and Sarkin, J. (2007), Reconciliation in Divided Societies: Finding
Common Ground, University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia, PA.
Duke University (2007), News Communications: Remembering Greensboro,
Duke News, www.dukenews.duke.edu/2007/02/Greensboro.
Heffernan, K.; Johnson, R., and Vakalahi, H. (2002), Ho’okele: A Pacific Is-
land Approach to Aging, paper presented at the Baccalaureate Program
Directors Conference, Pittsburgh, October 23-25.
Hudson, J. and Galaway, B. (1990), Community Service: Toward Program De-
finition, Federal Probation, Vol. 54, No. 2, pp. 3-9.
Hurdle, D. (2002), Native Hawaiian Traditional Healing: Culturally-Based In-
terventions for Social Work Practice, Social Work, Vol. 47, No. 2, pp.
183-92.
RJ, Restorative Justice (2002), United Nations Crime Commission Acts on Ba-
sic Principles, www.restorativejustice.org.
Sinkinson, H.D. and Broderick, J.J. (1998), A Case Study of Restorative Justice:
The Vermont Reparative Probation Program, in L. Walgrave (ed.), Re-
storative Justice for Juveniles: Potentialities, Risks and Problems, Leuven
University Press: Leuven, Belgium.
Sullivan, D. and Tifft, L. (2001), Restorative Justice: Healing the Foundations
of Our Everyday Lives, Willow Tree: New York.
Community Reparations 101
Almost fifty years after the United States Government violated the hu-
man and civil rights of Japanese Americans and infringed their funda-
mental Constitutional rights, actions were taken by the US Federal Go-
vernment to officially apologize, provide monetary compensation, and
establish a community education fund. Although these actions do not
fully compensate for the magnitude of wrongs inflicted against persons
of Japanese ancestry, based solely on their ancestry, at least it addresses
the wrongs by taking some form of symbolic restorative action.
On August 10, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Li-
berties Act, which authorized the government to provide a $20,000
lump-sum payment to all eligible persons who were adversely affected
104 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
Background
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Execu-
tive Order 9066, which led to the en masse exclusion of more than
120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast of the United
States (Asahina, 2006; Hayashi, 2004; Kashima, 2003; Muller, 2001;
Robinson, 2001). This affected the entire State of California, western
halves of Oregon and Washington, portions of Arizona, and Alaska
(Hata and Hata, 2006; Hayashi, 2004; Takahashi, 1980, 1978, 1998,
2007). In addition, many were picked up from Hawaii and Latin Ameri-
can countries and forcefully detained.
This Executive Order was given legitimacy and it was strengthened
by legislative actions and judicial decisions, all of which were rendered
after Executive Order 9066 was signed. For example, Public Law 503,
passed by the US Congress, made it a crime to not comply with orders
emanating from Executive Order 9066. Further, the courts, including the
US Supreme Court, rendered several decisions that supported restric-
tions, exclusions, and incarcerations imposed under Executive Order
9066. Most famous among the Supreme Court cases involved Mitsue
Endo, Gordon Hirabayashi, Fred Korematsu, and Minoru Yasui (Chin,
2002; Robinson, 2001; Takahashi, 1980).
Restorative Justice
In this chapter, restorative justice relates to and applies the theory of
justice whereby actions are taken to repair or rectify wrongs, injustices,
or harms. While full and complete redress or restoration is usually not
Japanese American Redress for Exclusion, Restriction, Incarceration 105
citizens …
3. recommend appropriate remedies (CWRIC, 1982, Part 1, Personal
Justice Denied: 1).
wrongs that occurred, but they can send symbolic messages that re-
cognize and acknowledge injustices and prevent their duplication. For
some, a symbolic form of restoration may be more important than tan-
gible and compensatory measures. For others, just saying sorry “isn’t
enough” (Brooks, 1999).
What is important is that, the restoration should be consistent with
the forms that are utilized by people and governments within the context
where the wrongs occurred. In most cases, multiple types of restoration
should be pursued, to honor and respect the diversity of victims involved.
The implications for restorative justice are expansive. Not only
does it impinge on the directly affected victims, but it also influences
organizations, institutions, communities, and societies. Injustices and
wrongs directed at any one component of society reverberate and affect
all.
When wrongs or injustices occur or are meted out, the perpetrators
should be held responsible and accountable. Whether the wrongs occur
on an individual, group, organizational, institutional, or governmental
level, all must be responsible for rectifying the wrong and attempting to
restore rights. While one can never undo what has already occurred, one
can take action to at least symbolically acknowledge the severity of the
situation and institute actions to acknowledge the wrongs or injustices,
restore principles and standards of justice, and institute measures to pre-
vent any future repeat of the same.
Governments should exist to protect the human rights of and ensure
social justice for all its residents and citizens (Sowers and Rowe, 2007).
If it fails in these duties and responsibilities and institutes injustices and
wrongs, governments should (as a minimum) do the following to at least
work toward restorative justice:
REFERENCES
Asahina, R. (2006), Just Americans: How Japanese Americans Won a War at
Home Abroad: The Story of the 100th Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat
Team in World War II, Gotham: New York.
Brooks, R.L. (1999), When Sorry Isn’t Enough: The Controversy Over Apo-
logies and Reparations for Human Injustice, New York University Press:
Japanese American Redress for Exclusion, Restriction, Incarceration 111
New York.
Chin, F. (2002), Born in the USA: A Story of Japanese America, 1899-1947,
Rowman Littlefield: Lanham, MD.
Hata, D.T. and. Hata, N.I. (2006), Japanese Americans and World War II:
Mass Removal, Imprisonment, and Redress, Harlan Davidson: Wheeling,
IL
Hatamiya, L.T. (1993), Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans and the Pas-
sage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, Stanford University Press: Stanford,
CA.
Hayashi, B.M. (2004), Democratizing the Enemy: The Japanese American
Internment, Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.
Kashima, T. (2003), Judgment Without Trial: Japanese American Imprison-
ment During World War II, University of Washington Press: Seattle, WA.
Muller, E.L. (2001), Free to Die for Their Country: The Story of the Japanese
American and Draft Resisters in World War II, University of Chicago
Press: Chicago, IL.
Robinson, G. (2001), By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of
Japanese, Americans, Cambridge, Harvard University Press: Cambridge,
MA.
Sowers, K.M. and. Rowe, W.S. (2007), Social Work Practice and Social Justice:
From Local to Global Perspectives, Brooks/Cole: Belmont, CA.
Takahashi, R. (1978), “Military Necessity”: An Effective Rhetorical Tool for
Policy Implementation and Social Change, paper, University of Pittsburgh:
Pittsburgh, PA.
———(1980), Comparative Administration and Management of Five War Re-
location Authority Camps: America’s Incarceration of Persons of Japa-
nese Descent During World War II, dissertation, University of Pittsburgh:
Pittsburgh, PA.
———(1998), Japanese American Activists Speak: What the Insiders Know
About Redress (Videotape), San Francisco State University’s Edison Uno
Institute: San Francisco, CA.
———(2007), US Concentration Camps and Exclusion Policies: Impact on Ja-
panese American Women, in G. Kirk and M. Okazawa-Rey (eds.), Wo-
men’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives, Mayfield: Mountain View, CA.
Takezawa, Y.I. (1995), Breaking the Silence: Redress and Japanese American
Ethnicity, Cornell University Press: Ithaca, NY.
US Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, CWRIC
(1982), Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime
112 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
Compatibility Between
Restorative Justice and
Chinese Traditional Legal Culture
STEPHEN CHI-KONG LEE
Background
Chinese traditional legal culture, which has a profound impact on pre-
sent-day justice, has a long history. The legal spirit contained in ancient
legal practices still persists today.
As early as ancient China the notions such as the non-lawsuit, rule
of rites, education and persuasion were integral to Chinese traditional
legal culture. Modern forms of restorative justice have been developing
over the last 20 or 30 years, with concerns about the material, emotional
and social needs of victims and helping offenders reintegrate into the
community to prevent recidivism. Moreover, restorative strategies in
China, as elsewhere, provide offenders with an opportunity to take
responsibility for their offense, strive to create an effective community
useful for the rehabilitation of offenders and the prevention of crime,
and providing an alternative to the expensive cost and slow actions in
the existing criminal justice system (Wang, 2005). Restorative justice
guides offenders in providing reparations and restitution to victims by
means of apologies, community services, living assistance and so on.
Ideally, offenders are forgiven by victims, their family and other com-
munity members, and are reintegrated into the community at the same
time as victims are restored.
Though no special legal systems in traditional legal culture of an-
cient China were as specific and comprehensive as restorative justice, a
large number of ideas and practices of restorative justice can be seen in
various legal notions and legal systems in different periods of Chinese
history. Compatibility of ideas and compatibility of systems are descri-
bed respectively as follows:
Compatibility of Ideas
Placing a premium on the “doctrine of the mean” and peaceful reso-
lution of conflict, Chinese traditional legal culture, being built on prin-
ciples of Confucianism, historically pursued a society where the indivi-
dual should live in harmony with Heaven and Nature. This philosophy is
consistent with restorative justice’s emphasis on restoring breaches in
relationships with victims and the community. Several typical ideas in
Chinese traditional legal culture are described as follows:
Restorative Justice and Chinese Traditional Legal Culture 115
Non-Lawsuit
One of the important features of Chinese traditional legal culture, non-
lawsuit, which means settlement of disputes without litigations, legally
reflects Confucianist ideas. Confucius was the first person who put
forward and systematically demonstrated thinking of non-lawsuit solu-
tions. “In hearing litigations,” he said, “I am like any other person. What
is necessary is to cause the people to have non-lawsuit.” Confucius’s
quest can be read as a search for non-lawsuit remedies between people.
His belief was a state can be stable and orderly only through moral go-
verning and ritual educating.
The philosophy of non-lawsuit brought about stabilization of re-
gime, courtesy of people, the flourishing of morality and the harmony of
society, and has had a profound impact on Chinese judicial tradition.
A reaction has set in China to the rising cost of litigation and over-
loading of the judicial system. The litigation explosion was criticized for
only alleviating the symptoms and failing to effect a permanent cure to
social problems. From the perspective of restorative justice, the mo-dern
criminal judicial system, which is mainly about retributive justice,
places its emphasis on punishing offenders and neglects the interests of
victims and the community (Wang, 2005). Since restorative justice pro-
vides a new pattern of disputes and resolution without the necessity for
litigation, this approach is compatible with the theme of non-lawsuit in
Confucianism.
The goal pursued by Confucianism—harmonious order—necessari-
ly implies a minimization of hostile litigation, which is also the goal of
restorative justice. Mending broken relationships and the prevention of
crime and violence are themes of both belief systems.
Rule of Rites
China is well known as a kingdom of amenity, and Chinese traditional
society is commonly called “the society of rite law.” Undoubtedly, rites
play a decisive role in Chinese traditional legal culture as was done
historically. With the succession and development of the “rite law” since
Western Zhou Dynasty and Chou Kung’s view of “bright virtue and
careful punishment” in substance, Confucian legal thought put forward a
116 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
set of legal ideas protecting the “rule of rite,” advocating the “rule of
morality” and valuing the “rule of man.” “Rites were transformed into
behavioral norms that ultimately evolved into behavioral norms based
on state power and codified into law. The combination of rite and law
comprises the most essential feature of the Chinese Legal System and
unique Chinese legal culture” (Zhang, 2005: 3). The Chinese notion of
the rule of rite has even been recognized in the West. Joseph Needham
(1990), for example, considers Chinese rites comparable to what is cal-
led natural law in the West.
Chinese sub-administrative structure, where “Li Zhang,” “Ting
Zhang” and “Zu Zhang” are responsible for “educating people through
rites and mediating disputes,” has been derived from tradition. With the
education and prevalence of the key qualities of Kindness, Justice,
Etiquette, Wisdom, Faith, Fealty, Filial Piety, Morals, and Righteous-
ness, the lives of people were improved generally. These qualities were
useful not only for social control by authorities but also for preventing
crime. Chinese traditional society correspondingly placed great em-
phasis on education rather than punishment, under the guidance of the
notion of rule of rite. Those who carried out the system said, “Offenders
should be responsible for the damage they caused, at the same time they
can be saved through persuasion, education and healing by diverse
people in the society” (Wu, 2005). Confucianism like restorative justice,
values the positive effect of education. In ancient China, however,
Confucian education was hierarchical with clear boundaries between
teacher and learner.
Confucianism’s strong emphasis on education is revealed in the
words of the Master: “To put the people to death without having edu-
cated them—this is called cruelty.” Confucius advocated alternating
leniency with severity—”Morality-Primary, Punishment-Secondary” in-
stead of excluding the application of penalties completely. Similarly,
restorative justice is future oriented and strives to resolve existing
problems such as how to restore the damage caused by an offense and
how to prevent future criminal conduct (Liu, 2005).
Restorative Justice and Chinese Traditional Legal Culture 117
Compatibility of Systems
Ancient Chinese law had several distinguishing features. The most im-
portant two of these are the “Bao-Gu” system and mediation system.
(1) The “Bao-Gu” system restores the victim’s feeling of security and
dignity by helping the victim obtain compensation.
(2) The direct consequence of “Bao-Gu” is that the offender’s responsi-
bility is lightened or mitigated, which facilitates his or her reinte-
gration into the society. Similarly, restorative justice advocates that
the offender should take responsibility for the consequence of his or
her offense. If the offender can restore the harm by his or her
positive action, he or she will be recognized and forgiven by the
society and other interested parties so that the sense of shame can be
eliminated.
(3) The “Bao-Gu” system establishes the base of non-lawsuit practice,
so that the social relation that had been broken by the offense can be
restored. This helps reinforce social stability in the community and
alleviates the conflict between the offender and the victim.
(4) The application of the “Bao-Gu” system, like restorative justice, can
spare financial resources of criminal justice system, especially in
reducing the costs of imprisonment.
2. Mediation
Under the culture of ancient China, with harmony as its central theme,
citizens are encouraged to cultivate the social values of “The Golden
Mean,” “non-lawsuit” and “Precious Peace.” Accordingly, the tradition
of resolving disputes by mediation emerged. As noted by American
scholar Gilbert Rozman (1988), the legal system of ancient China pro-
moted the solution of conflict by efficient non-legal means when pos-
sible. Standard rules for alleviating conflict were set down.
As an efficient mechanism of resolving disputes in ancient China,
the traditional mediation system, through a long period of transference
and accumulation, has formed its own characteristics as follows:
Restorative Justice and Chinese Traditional Legal Culture 119
ties were not allowed to bring the dispute directly to the govern-
ment; otherwise they would be punished. Official mediation today is
similarly mandatory, requiring a hearing. The mediator, who pre-
sides over the mediation, can use any means such as imposing
penalties to force the parties to accept the mediation in order to
avoid disputes. The primary manner of mediation is instruction.
Because the instructors are highly respected in China, listeners are
in a subordinate position—local officials over civilians, the clan
leader or county gentlemen over villagers, elders over youth—so
these relationships are clearly hierarchical. The respect engendered
by position provides respect to the process.
Conclusion
Harmony is considered desirable at all times and all over the world; a
harmonious society is a beautiful society and a harmonious life is a
beautiful life. Harmony can only be realized on the basis of order and
Restorative Justice and Chinese Traditional Legal Culture 121
REFERENCES
Chen, H. (2001), Mediation, Lawsuits, and Justice: Reflections on Modern
Liberal Society and Confucian Tradition, Modern Law, Vol. 3.
Huang, Z. (1998), Civil Judgment and Civil Mediation: The Expression and
Practice in Qing Dynasty, China Social Science: Beijing.
Lee, S.C.K. (ed.) (2005), Forum on Restorative Justice, Qun Zhong: Beijing.
Liang, Z. (2002), Seeking Harmony in the Natural Order, China University and
Political Science and Law: Beijing.
Liu, D. (2005), Restorative Justice and Its Use for Criminal Justice Reform of
China, in P. Wang and S.C.K. Lee (eds.), Forum on Restorative Justice,
Qun Zhong: Beijing.
Needham, J. (1990), History of Science Thought, Science: Beijing (in Chinese).
Rozman, G. (1988), The Modernization of China, Jiangsu People’s Press:
Nanjing (in Chinese).
Wang P., (2005), Look at Criminal Justice in the Third Eye, in P. Wang and
S.C.K. Lee (eds.), Forum on Restorative Justice, Qun Zhong: Beijing.
Wu, D. (2005), Another Way to Justice: A Preliminary Research on Restorative
Justice, in P. Wang and S.C.K. Lee (eds.), Forum on Restorative Justice,
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University and Political Science and Law: Beijing.
Zhu, X. (1987), Explanations on Four Books, China Bookstore: Beijing.
10
____________________________
This chapter examines the Timor Leste Truth and Reconciliation Com-
mission in the context of restorative justice. Following a brief discussion
of social work and restorative justice in relation to violence, Truth and
Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs) will be introduced as an inter-
vention for social welfare. The historical background of Timor Leste
will be presented, with an overview of the Timor Leste Truth and Re-
conciliation Commission (CAVR). Special emphasis is placed upon the
Community Reconciliation Process (CRP) as the key restorative justice
feature of the Timor Leste Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Criti-
ques of the CAVR and the CRP will be presented with a discussion on
evaluating the restorative justice and reconciliation efforts in Timor
Leste in light of recent developments.
124 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
1991 Santa Cruz massacre, in which the military killed over 250 people
in a peaceful funeral march, increased international pressure on Indo-
nesia (Philpott, 2006). Timorese independence activists Jose Ramos
Horta and Bishop Carlos Belo won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996, endo-
wing the movement with more prestige and recognition (Nevins, 2005).
After the resignation of the Indonesian President Suharto in 1998,
the new government allowed East Timor a referendum on independence.
Despite widespread intimidation by the Indonesian military, 98.6 per-
cent of registered voters participated in the referendum, voting over-
whelmingly (78.5 percent) for independence. The Indonesian military
funded and armed Timorese militias to intimidate people into voting
against independence, which recruited young, illiterate, and disaffected
men through coercion, the distribution of drugs, and promises of re-
wards and honor (Burgess, 2004; CAVR, 2005; Philpott, 2006).
The militias then massacred civilians and displaced roughly three
fourths of the population; thousands were killed, hundreds of women
raped, and the land was left in smoking ruins. About one third of the
population was transported into Indonesian West Timor (Burgess, 2004;
Govier, 2006; Philpott, 2006). An estimated 70 percent of the infra-
structure was destroyed, and over 60,000 houses were burnt (Burgess,
2004). UN peacekeeping forces secured peace quickly once deployed,
and then faced the gargantuan task of reconstruction and managing the
transition to independence (Philpott, 2006). On May 2002, Timor Leste
finally became an independent state, when an elected government assu-
med power from the UN. The new government changed the country’s
name from East Timor to the Democratic Republic of Timor Leste.
Many Timorese who had supported the Indonesian administration
feared returning home. This included militia members, their families,
and those who had favored integration with Indonesia (Lubis, 2003;
Babo-Soares, 2004). There was a widespread prediction that the victims
of the 1999 referendum violence would seek revenge upon their neigh-
bors who would now lack the protection of the Indonesian military.
Predominantly rural, the basic social unit of Timor Leste is the village,
where victims and perpetrators would have to be part of each other’s
daily lives. Unresolved anger coupled with close proximity made the po-
tential for renewed violence high (Burgess, 2004).
Community Reconciliation and Restorative Justice in Timor Leste 129
The CRP hearings were very emotional, and could last all night and
into the next day. Hearings could only be discontinued if the perpetrator
failed to answer a question, or if it became evident that a more serious
crime had been committed. Ceremonial lisan rituals such as the shared
act of chewing betel nut and drinking palm wine closed the proceedings
and signaled to the community that both sides were reconnected in a
peaceful relationship with each other (Babo-Soares, 2004). These rituals
cemented the binding agreement and restored social balance by reaccep-
ting the offender into the community (CAVR, 2005).
The CRP lasted 21 months, during which time 1,500 perpetrators
filed statements, of whom 1,371 were ultimately reintegrated in 217 hea-
rings. As a community based practice, the CRP involved an estimated
30,000 to 40,000 people. At first, perpetrators and communities were re-
luctant to participate in the unfamiliar CRP, due to confusion about the
hearings and their relationships to the CAVR and the criminal justice
system. The CAVR launched a public education and socialization pro-
cess, with local leaders encouraging local people to adopt the hearings.
They filmed one hearing to show other villages. Word of mouth proved
instrumental; as news of those that had participated in a CRP traveled
the number of willing and eager participants grew. After the CRP was
concluded, more perpetrators requested that the hearings continue. As
education and actual experience with CRP were crucial to gaining
village acceptance, the socialization process could have been initiated
earlier to counter the initial wariness and to prevent the demand that
came too late (CAVR, 2005, Pigou, 2004).
The CRP made a significant contribution to reconciliation in Ti-
mor-Leste by reintegrating perpetrators into their communities. Both
Timorese and international staff of the CAVR viewed the CRP as a
resounding success (Burgess, 2004). In follow-up interviews with par-
ticipants, 90 percent reported satisfaction with the CRP. Perpetrators and
victims indicated that the CRP contributed to the maintenance of peace
and order, settled past divisions, and ensured the stability of their com-
munities despite predictions of revenge. Participants stated that the CRP
restored dignity to both parties, and ended rumors and suspicions about
who did what during the violence by establishing the truth of the offen-
ses (CAVR, 2005; Ximenes, 2004).
Community Reconciliation and Restorative Justice in Timor Leste 135
without violence and is a hopeful sign for reconciling the divided poli-
tical factions (The Economist, 2007).
tions for its social welfare (JSMP, 2004; Pigou, 2004; WB, 2003). There
is a critical need to balance spending on transitional justice mechanisms
with interventions for social development to achieve fundamental social
change; a common complaint after the South African TRC was that
“you can’t eat reconciliation” (Abu-Nimer et al., 2001; Ntsebeza, 2000).
One CRP participant voiced this dilemma, “We talk and talk from mor-
ning to night and then come home and we are still hungry,” (JSMP,
2004: 27). The UN transitional authority cost nearly US $600 million, at
a time when donor aid and bilateral assistance to Timor Leste was only
about $260 million (Philpott, 2006). Timor Leste has seen some revenue
from oil reserves discovered in the Timor Sea which could fund social
investments, but as yet the money remains in the government treasury
(The Economist, 2007).
By acting as socio-legal interventions, often compensating for de-
veloping legal systems, TRCs don’t go far enough to promote the mater-
ial social welfare of post-conflict societies (Roht-Azziara, 2004). Along
with the documentation of human rights abuses, TRC investigations
could function as a social needs assessment, to better determine what
interventions and provisions are needed to rebuild the country. Housing,
food, health, education, employment could be assessed in light of the
aftermath of violence, and targeted with specific interventions for social
development (Cox and Pawar, 2005; Midgley, 1995). Attention to struc-
tural inequalities and the material deprivation of victims of mass vio-
lence are necessary for improving inter-group relations and contribute to
justice and reconciliation efforts (Daly and Sarkin, 2007; JSMP, 2004;
Nevins, 2005; Pigou, 2004). Restorative justice can be part of a larger
paradigm of social justice that accounts for collective responsibility, so-
cial welfare, and social change.
Conclusion
The core contribution of the CAVR to the field of restorative justice is
the Community Reconciliation Process (CRP), with its emphasis upon
victim and offender mediation and dialogue within the indigenous
conflict resolution framework of Timor Leste. The CAVR was charac-
terized by decentralization; this incorporation of grassroots elements is
140 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
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Rights Court in Jakarta, International Center for Transitional Justice: New
York..
142 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
Cotton, J. (2006), Timor Leste: A Candidate for State Failure?, lecture given to
the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley,
October, 25.
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Reconstruction: Programs and Strategies, in D. Cox and M. Pawar (eds.),
International Social Work: Issues, Strategies, and Programs, Sage: Thou-
sand Oaks, CA.
Daly, E. and Sarkin, J. (2007), Reconciliation in Divided Societies: Finding
Common Ground, University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia, PA.
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11
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On hot summer days the beach offered needed escape from the intense
heat of New York City. Sculpting sand castles and talking about digging
to China helped pass the time. As an American-born Chinese this talk
about touching China was more than a passing fancy—it was an uncon-
scious yearning to connect with my parents’ homeland. This yearning
took on fuller meaning when I began visiting China in 1982, and heard
stories of Chinese that when they were young talked of digging to
America. This mutual desire to connect was uncanny given the vast
distance separating China from the West in terms of history, language,
values, culture and ethnic identity. This article examines the East-West
divide through the lens of ethnic diversity. The goal is to inform cul-
turally competent social work practice in international settings.
146 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
fact that there is only one human “race” (that is to say, there is only one
“race” of humans today, the homo sapiens sapiens).
In this chapter, the concept of “race” is understood as “an arbitrary
socio-biological classification created by Europeans during the time of
worldwide colonial expansion, to assign human worth and social status,
using themselves as the model of humanity, for the purpose of legitimi-
zing white power and white skin privilege” (Barndt, 1991). This under-
standing recognizes the European origins of the “race” construct and its
subsequent misuse to dominate groups who were different from who
was doing the classification, with all its horrifying historical and con-
temporary outcomes.
The act of classification is an expression of power. Naming is more
than simply applying a descriptor to an object—it is the exercise of con-
trol over another and shaping of an identity. Who classified who is criti-
cal in the establishment of power and privilege in society. Unfortunately,
the history of the “race” construct involved subordination, segregation,
hatred and the oppression of individuals perceived as inferior (Fredrick-
son, 2002). Europeans not only developed the concept of “race” but
used the construct to justify their own white skin privilege.
1. Justice requires that we work to restore those who have been injured.
2. Those most directly involved and affected by crime should have the
opportunity to participate fully in the response if they wish.
3. Government’s role is to preserve a just public order, and the com-
munity’s is to build and maintain a just peace.
ment, and the senseless murder of Vincent Chin, to name a few (Ava-
kian, 2002).
One strategy to include an Asian perspective in the discourse on
ethnic relations is by way of the Opium War. An international incident
in the 19th century, the Opium War involves elements pertinent to resto-
rative justice. The war was actually two separate conflicts over the
illegal smuggling of opium into China by British merchants. The First
opium war was 1839 to 1841 and the Second was 1856-1858. Opium
played a major precipitate role in both wars. The narcotic was used as a
ploy to reduce Great Britain’s trade debt with China and to subdue its
people. The Qing government disliked both British reasons and made
earnest attempts to eradicate the addictive and ruinous drug. “Race” also
played an important role in edging the two empires into battle. Ever
since Western merchants and missionaries arrived, the Chinese had
mixed feelings about foreigners being among them.
On the one hand, the Chinese considered all things foreign as cul-
turally inferior and subordinate. On the other hand, Western ideas were
recognized as uniquely different and a force to be reckoned with.
The Canton System of Trade represented China’s attempt to control
the spread of Westerners by confining them to a single location. In 1759
the Qing Emperor decreed that all foreigners could only trade and reside
near the southern port city of Guangzhou (also known as Canton). The
British resented having to submit and kowtow to Qing authorities and
schemed of alternative routes to trade. Historical exceptions to China’s
haughty attitude were the Jesuits because of their novel ideas about sci-
ence and salvation.
Arrival of the British however presented a wholly different set of
challenges. The British came with a trading aggressiveness and military
might unfamiliar to Qing rulers. In addition, the British greatly admired
China’s goods and resources, particularly Chinese porcelain, silk, tea
and spices. British merchants hoped the Middle Kingdom would privi-
lege them with free trade and mobility. China refused to open its ports to
foreigners other than at Guangzhou—setting the stage for social discord
and political duress. Today, the Opium Wars offers students of social
work important lessons for contemporary practice, especially as China
embarks on developing social work education (Beijing, 2006).
Ethnic Relations in East-West Perspective 151
the other side of the world no less. The Treaty of Nanking in 1842 ended
the first Opium War forcing China to open five treaty ports to foreign
trade—Ningbo, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Amoy, and Shanghai. China was
also forced to concede large areas of these cities as foreign concessions
with extra-territorial rights. The policy exempted foreign subjects from
Chinese law even though they were staying in China. By the late 19th
century at least 80 treaty ports were conceded to foreign nations, inclu-
ding the entire island of Hong Kong to the British.
The preparation for this trip was methodical and stressful. Every effort
was made to prepare the travelers for the pending culture shock;
assigned readings helped assure that a cognitive base existed prior to
departure. Group meetings outlined the sights and sounds that awaited
our arrival and there was a review of essential language and signs. It
proved to be much easier to prepare for the trip than to properly
prepare for the overwhelming differences that would challenge our
westernized comfort level.
ses, factories, hospitals, orphanages, and schools all over China. Many
of these structures still stand providing students with striking physical
evidence of Western semi-colonial rule in China. The course interpreted
these structures as symbols of past Western aggression and imperialism.
To appreciate what it took to build these structures in a foreign land,
imagine rows of Chinese pagodas lining Fifth Avenue in New York City,
or Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles—would not one ask how
pagodas got there and who built them? The same holds true for out-of-
place Western-style buildings on Chinese soil. Walking along the Bund
in Shanghai, or leafy Shamian Island in Guangzhou, one is struck by the
juxtaposition of Western architecture in China. One student observed:
The Opium war and the saga of Colonization are two key subjects
that continue to influence the nation’s history and its people … What
this trip demonstrated was a new version of oppression; a revelation that
it has very little to do with the present and very much to do with the
legacy of the past. The infrastructure that supports “racism” and cultural
disparity is as solid and durable as Egyptian pyramids … Of particular
note was the observation that “racism” seems to originate from the out-
side, introduced and imposed by foreigners; however, it is perpetuated
and solidified from the inside once the seed is planted.
The major writing assignment for the course was an 8 to 10 page
analysis on ethnic relations based on student travel experiences in China.
The writing guidelines were:
“After studying the Opium War, I can see how different groups of
people have gone to extraordinary lengths to achieve the power and
privilege which they felt is owed to them … We can learn from the
history of the Opium War, and in the future we must let go of the
beliefs of superiority and inferiority based on an individual’s skin
color … Looking back I realize that I learned more about myself as an
individual than I had expected … Overall it felt like the Chinese
people thought that I was better than they were, and I really disliked
that feeling. I think this was the most upsetting realization that I had
during our trip to China. I do not want to make a person feel inferior to
me because of my ethnic background or county of origin, and I do not
want to accept privileges or respect because of it either.”
“I admit that prior to the trip the information that I knew about China
and about the Chinese people was very limited and was mostly from
movies and friends.”
occasions female students in 2005 and 2006 had the following similar
experience:
In a city the size of Guangzhou, I would have thought that the
population would be used to seeing “foreigners,” especially with such a
British presence throughout the country. Nonetheless, wherever we went,
we were always asked to be in pictures with families or individuals, and
I’m even in some home videos. Eventually, one of the girls had enough
courage to ask me what time it was. After telling her the time, she turned
to walk away and then turned to face me again. It was apparent that she
was hesitant about what she wanted to say, but the moment got the best
of her. She smiled as she told me that my skin looked soft. This struck
me as amusing since to me, Americans perceive the complexion of
Asians as something close to perfect. But to this little girl, my fair
complexion was worth finding the courage to talk to a stranger. After
telling the little girl thanks, she ran off to meet her friends. They strag-
gled behind me most of the way, and when they realized my group was
leaving, they made sure to come over to me and tell me that it was nice
meeting me.
Conclusion
One need not dig by hand all the way to China to have a cross-cultural
encounter. Fortunately, modern day travel quickens face-to-face experi-
ences to advance learning. The primary benefit of a travel course to
China is the experience of relationships.
The relationships gained in China taught students how the “race”
construct functions in society, historical consequences of the Opium
War, and the value of restorative justice to heal broken relationships.
These are important qualities to possess in order to effectively practice
social work in an international setting. Moreover, genuine cross-cultural
encounter requires an open heart and mind. An open heart respects
human dignity and differences. An open mind is intellectually honest
about any differences, especially if it involves historical wrongs. A
critical analysis of Sino-Western history and willingness to look beyond
oneself are also are requisites to advance restorative justice. These qua-
lities were present among the two student groups enabling them to
Ethnic Relations in East-West Perspective 161
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New York.
12
____________________________
of the offense as well as the criminal history of the offender are general-
ly the most decisive factors in determining who is a suitable candidate
for restorative justice. Violent offenders usually require special consi-
deration with respect to restorative justice programs.
Although most contemporary restorative justice literature is written
in the advanced industrial Western context, this approach to conflict-
resolution is not new: its genesis can be traced to pre-colonial societies,
such as the Maori in New Zealand and Native Indian cultures in the US
and Canada, in which restoration of peace in the community was the
primary concern as opposed to the punishment of the offender (Van
Ness, 2007; Weitekamp, 1999; Weitekamp and Kerner, 2003). Furthe-
rmore, global developments in international law, responses to mass
crimes, and justice in transitional societies have been neglected in main-
stream restorative justice literature that has been mainly focused on the
recent expansion of intra-state restorative justice programs within Wes-
tern countries. This chapter is an attempt to bridge the aforementioned
gap.
ning the justification and conduct of wars and standards that define the
most basic human rights. Standards pertaining to both these strands of
justice have attained a measure of universal recognition over the past 50
years. After World War II, the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals were
established to prosecute major war criminals. Despite a number of legal
failings, 2 Nuremberg and Tokyo trials have been viewed as moving
beyond “victor’s justice” which was crucial to addressing the sorrow of
Holocaust victims and helping to remove the collective guilt from the
two nations (Chomsky et al., 2002; Popovski, 2000). The Nuremberg
principles—most notably, the principle of individual accountability that
maintains crimes are committed by individuals, not by abstract entities,
and that only by punishing those who commit such crimes can interna-
tional law be enforced—were consequently developed into instruments
of universal law, such as the 1948 Genocide Convention, the 1949
Geneva Conventions, and the 1977 Additional Protocols.
With the birth of the United Nations after World War II, new in-
struments to promote peace and human rights were formulated. For the
first time, human values shared by many political, cultural, and religious
traditions were brought together. The most important document in this
regard is the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights that put forth
the basic rules and freedoms for all peoples without discrimination.
Human rights include civil and political rights (such as the right to life,
liberty, security, freedom from torture, prohibition of slavery, right to
vote, and right to fair trial) and socio-economic and cultural rights (such
as right to an adequate standard of living, right to education, right to
health, the right to work, right to social security, right to join a labor
union, and right to practice one’s cultural and religious beliefs etc). 3
Human rights are seen as universal rights, the denial of which sows the
seeds of violence and conflict within and between societies and nations.
While there are no legal mechanisms to enforce the Declaration,
states that ratify it are supposed to adopt measures to ensure that the
treaty is implemented on the national level, and to make themselves
available to be scrutinized by the international community. The ideal of
universal human rights does not replace domestic protection of indivi-
duals; rather the attempt is to make the attainment of human rights more
effective within national systems. While these instruments and prince-
Restorative Justice in International Relations: A Gandhian Approach 169
In any case, the ICC is not fully operational and its effectiveness in
ensuring justice remains to be seen. Moreover, the refusal of some
countries, most notably the United States, to ratify the ICC raises
important concerns about international justice. The United States claims
that, given its “special global responsibilities,” it must protect its more
than two hundred thousand troops permanently stationed in 40 countries
from “politically motivated charges” (Johnson, 2000). Johnson further
points out that the US specifically objected to the inclusion of war
crimes such as rape, forced pregnancy, torture and the forcible recruit-
ment of children into the military, and maintained that the ICC should
concern itself only with genocide.
This raises the question of whether individuals from powerful coun-
tries enjoy impunity even as these countries try to forcibly “police” the
rest of the world and claim to advance “justice” and “human rights” in
less powerful countries. Critics have questioned the hypocrisy inherent
in the fact that ICC instruments of international justice apply to the most
powerful individuals of poor transitioning countries but not to the
lowest-ranking soldier of the United States, Russia, and China (Call,
2004).
In case of tribunals, members of some ethnic groups of the former
Yugoslavia and Rwanda view the ICTY and ICTR as tools for ethnic
persecution rather than prosecution, as a conspiracy to “punish the main
enemy of NATO, the United States, and the West” (Call, 2004: 105). In
the case of Rwanda, the ICTR was located outside the country. As a
result only a small percentage of the hundred thousand perpetrators were
tried, and after nine years of its operation, only twelve convictions and
one acquittal were granted (Call, 2004). As Minow (1998: 87) suggests,
prosecutions are “slow, partial, and preoccupied with the either/or sim-
plifications of the adversary process.” Local perceptions of these tribu-
nals are that they are expensive, and they favor groups that are allied
with the West.
In contrast to those who support prosecutions for war crimes, ge-
nocide, and crimes against humanity, several scholars and advocates of
human rights have called attention to pragmatic approaches such as
those of reconciliation and restitution, broadly termed as restorative
justice, to secure justice in transitioning societies. Proponents of this
172 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
tice can be served by granting amnesty to those who disclose their role
in committing human rights violations was perceived by many to be
intriguing (Dyzenhaus, 1999). Before Mandela was released from prison
in 1990, the National Party government commenced negotiations that
demanded a blanket amnesty for all crimes committed during apartheid
rule in exchange for surrendering power (Roche, 2006). The African
National Congress (ANC) objected to this demand and in the meantime
had begun campaigning for a South African equivalent of the Nurem-
berg trials. However, a series of secret meetings between ANC and
National Party leaders eventually led to a compromise of establishing a
commission that would grant amnesties on a limited basis. Observers
questioned the possibility of achieving reconciliation when gross human
rights violators are allowed to go free after disclosing their crimes (Dy-
zenhaus, 1999).
Its founders argued, however, that the SATRC was not just a poli-
tical compromise; it was a project for “national unity and reconcili-
ation.” Justice was not absent; rather it was present in a different form
(cf Llewellyn and Howse, 1999). The Commission’s chairman, Arch-
bishop Desmond Tutu, emphasized that the SATRC had reawakened a
distinctive African approach to justice: “there is another kind of justice,
restorative justice, which was the characteristic of traditional African
jurisprudence. Here the central concern is not retribution or punishment
but, in the spirit of ubuntu, the healing of breaches, the redressing of
imbalances, the restoration of broken relationships” (quoted in Roche,
2006: 229). Consequently, the restorative justice model has been in-
creasingly used to foster and justify truth commissions. Recently, these
have been established in East Timor and Sierra Leone (Minow, 1998)
and have been proposed for other conflict-ridden regions such as Nor-
thern Ireland and Iraq (Roche, 2006).
Truth commissions are similar, yet significantly different from re-
storative justice practices used in domestic crime. Akin to domestic re-
storative justice, TRCs shun formal prosecution, encourage victim parti-
cipation, and use a hearing process that is less constricting than cour-
troom proceedings. However, unlike domestic restorative practices,
TRCs do not provide for meetings between individual victims and offen-
ders. In the case of the South African TRC, individual mediations were
Restorative Justice in International Relations: A Gandhian Approach 175
The review of literature for this chapter drawn from the fields of
peace research, conflict studies, international law, human rights, and
international security suggests that many Western scholars still perceive
that most wars and violent conflicts in “weak” or “failed” states are
intra-state affairs (cf Barkan, 2000; Hayner, 2001; Lederach, 1997; Po-
povski, 2000; Power, 2002; Snyder and Vinjamuri, 2004; Villa-Vicencio,
1999/2000; Vinjamuri and Snyder, 2004). For instance, Lederach (1997:
9, 13) writes “the majority of wars and protracted intermediate conflicts
are still located in the developing countries of the South,” and that “the
lines of contemporary armed conflict are increasingly drawn along eth-
nic, religious, or regional affiliations rather than along ideological or
class lines.”
Even the most famous writings on genocide and war crimes (cf
Hayner, 2001; Power, 2002) have paid scant or no attention to the
historical and contemporary implication of the West in “intra-state”
wars of the “developing” South. At best, the indictment has been about
Western/US inaction in cases of mass crimes (cf Power, 2002). For
example, most literature and even the proceedings of the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) have shied away
from fully accounting for NATO’s war over Kosovo (cf Blum, 2005;
Vest et al., 2000).
While Milosevic was considered to be responsible for the death of
250,000 people in former Yugoslavia, Western media failed miserably
to investigate and provide an honest account of the history of Yugos-
lavia’s civil war. In his incisive analysis of the Balkans war, Parenti
(2001) writes between 1960 and 1980, Yugoslavia, a federation consis-
ting of multiple ethnic groups, including Albanians, Hungarians, Slo-
venes, Egyptians, Bosnians, Serbs, and Croats, was a prosperous country.
Economic growth was dynamic; citizens had a guaranteed right to
income and a good quality of life. The federation’s many national and
linguistic groups coexisted peacefully through a complex system of go-
vernment spanning multiple languages and semi-autonomous regions.
However, in the 1970s, Yugoslavian leaders borrowed money from the
West.
When western economies entered a recession due to the oil crisis of
the 1970s, Yugoslavian exports were blocked, leading to devastating
Restorative Justice in International Relations: A Gandhian Approach 179
tained loans from the World Bank and IMF that are based on the con-
dition that the country would implement structural adjustment programs
(SAPs), commonly known as “economic reforms,” that are designed by
these financial institutions. The “reforms” led to heightened unemploy-
ment, mass impoverishment, inflation, rising fuel prices, and price-
freezing for farm produce. The European-trained political elite, in its
quest to maintain power, deliberately channeled the resultant social
tension to foment ethnic hostilities as a means to deflect the anger of the
masses (McNally, 2006). McNally informs that more offensively while
demanding ‘adjustments’ that destroyed the livelihoods of millions of
people, the IMF and the World Bank allowed the use of their funds for
massive arms purchases that facilitated the genocide.
Similar colonial as well as post-colonial inter-state linkages can be
traced in the case of numerous conflicts in Africa, Latin America, Asia,
and the Middle East. Unfortunately, truth commissions established to
investigate atrocities in Chile, El Salvador, and Guatemala have failed to
report on the US involvement in supporting the despotic regimes, dic-
tators, and military regimes of these countries (cf Hayner, 2002: 39, for
this failure in the case of the truth commission in El Salvador). Besides
these three countries, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, the Dominican
Republic, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Mexico, and Colom-
bia have all been the playgrounds for covert and overt CIA operations.
Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been killed, tortured, or
have simply disappeared in dictatorial and military regimes propped up
in these countries (Blum, 2005; Chomsky et al., 2002; Roy, 2003).
Many of the perpetrators were trained in the infamous School of the
Americas renamed later as the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Secu-
rity Cooperation” funded by the US government (Blum, 2005; Roy,
2003; Zinn, 2003). These facts have been overlooked by the mainstream
media as well as by prominent writings in international justice and
human rights.
The injustices perpetrated by colonial powers and current Western-
dominated institutions of neo-colonialism, for example, the World Bank,
IMF, and more recently the World Trade Organization (WTO), have
come nowhere close to being on trial in international justice mecha-
nisms.5 Extant discussion of the limited application of restorative justice
Restorative Justice in International Relations: A Gandhian Approach 181
Conclusion
While restorative justice has gathered momentum in intra-state contexts,
justice on a world scale continues to be in a perplexing and undeveloped
state even in the twenty-first century. Extant literature in the global con-
text is limited to a discussion of international criminal justice in situ-
ations of wars, genocide, and violent crimes on a mass scale, while igno-
ring stark socio-economic inequalities, which is a residual of colonia-
lism as well as a consequence of contemporary global economy condi-
tions largely dictated by the West.
Restorative Justice in International Relations: A Gandhian Approach 195
Endnotes
1 Several writings on restorative justice use the term “developed” countries
instead of Western nations. However, given the arguments advanced by se-
veral critical development theorists about the contested nature of “develop-
ment” and the power of the West in marking countries as “developed”
“developping” (cf e.g. Chowdhry, 1995; Escobar, 1995; Esteva, 1992; Gold-
smith, 2001; Sardar, 1998; Tucker, 1999), I prefer to use the term Western
countries, or simply the North, to include the G8 countries.
2 The literature on the debilitating effects of the global economy is vast (cf e.g.
Hong, 2000; Johnson, 2000; McNally, 2006; Prigoff, 2000; Roy, 2004a,b;
Stiglitz, 2002).
3 Cf Chomsky, Mitchell, and Schoeffel (2002: 56-57) for a discussion on the
failings of Nuremberg and Tokyo trials.
196 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
groups, besides wiretapping, researching their past, trailing them and the
subsequent misuse of information gathered through these surreptitious
means. While domestic spying has received some media attention in the US,
awareness of the clandestine use of see-through-wall technology has been
lacking (cf Burke and Warren, 2006; Chan, 2006; Hearn, 2006; Hunt et al.,
2001; Jones, 2006; for the existence of this technology). Media, scholarly
and civil attention to the use and abuse of these technologies is called for.
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tional Affairs, Vol. 75, No.3, pp. 547-61.
Ashworth, A. (2002), Responsibilities, Rights and Restorative Justice, The
British Journal of Criminology, Vol. 42, pp. 578-95.
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Injustices, W.W. Norton: New York.
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Restorative Justice in International Relations: A Gandhian Approach 199
thesis, postulates that that the earth is a living system much like the
human body and that it has a myriad of feedback mechanisms that work
together to maintain the health and viability of the whole organism.
When the earth organism comes under threat it will respond in often
dramatic ways to insure its survival—much like the human body’s
immune system works to heal itself from injury or to rid itself of in-
vasive viruses. But, in the case of the earth the viruses are us. Human
beings have now become the single most virulent threat of the survival
of the earth by virtue of our reckless and inane ecological practices. For
Lovelock, Gaia is fighting for its very survival as rapidly increasing
human populations, unrestrained neo-industrialization, and an ever-
growing reliance on western economic models of resource extraction
and consumption threaten to upset the precise balance that had made the
earth conductive for life and human habitation. Lovelock likens the
current state of ecological health to an illness that has beset the earth and
which the organism is now preparing to resist. He writes:
ethical, and moral premises positing how humans ought to live in rela-
tionship with the rest of the natural world. Its primary normative prin-
ciple is that when natural settings are degraded by human interference,
human beings have a responsibility to restore these settings back to a
state of relative naturalness. Environmental Restoration is not without a
considerably degree of controversy. It, in fact, raises some of the most
challenging questions in the field of environmental policy and ecologi-
cal philosophy (Katz, 1997).
The thrust of this study is to suggest a critical way that the Restora-
tive Justice Movement may inform Environmental Restoration. If it is
true as Thomas Berry (1988) and others have suggested that the way we
treat the non-human world is reflected in the way we treat others in the
human world then this perceived reciprocal interrelationship may have
something to say about how we think about recreating an ecosystem
after damage has been inflicted upon it and, perhaps most importantly,
how we consider our relationship with the earth community before we
inflict damage upon it.
Table 13.1
ANCIENT PATTERN CURRENT PATTERN
Crime Injury to victims and their Violations of the law
families in the context of the
community
Parties Victims, offenders, Offenders and government
community and government
Goal Repair damage and Reduce future lawbreaking
reestablish right through rehabilitation,
relationships punishment, deterrence
and/or incapacitation
A final core theme is the belief that the formal legal justice system
is not suitable for restorative goals. The current adversarial system,
where one is a winner and the other is a loser, can never be sufficiently
reformed to allow room for the goals of restorative justice. What is
required is a complete revamping of the system that allows for less
formal face-to-face negotiations where parties are free to determine the
nature and extent of the harm done and creative ways to its resolution.
Current constraints regarding strict legal definitions, legal precedents,
coercive deterrence and safety through segregation will not provide the
scaffolding for a mediated model of victim, offender and community
response to harm.
This section has provided a brief survey of the contours of a re-
newed strategy for handling human harm in the context of the modern
Western criminalized justice systems. The Restorative Justice Move-
ment has much to offer our understanding of the relationship between
victim, offender and community before and after a harm event. It also
has, in fact, much to say to the idea of Environmental Restoration, an
environmental policy agenda which shares a similar vernacular but
which can be strengthened by a serious consideration of key themes of
Restorative Justice.
tury (Baldwin et al., 1994; Gunn, 1991). It has been the basis of many
environmental policy agendas in the industrialized world. It is premised
on a mixed array of ecological and normative standards suggesting how
humankind ought to live in relation to the natural word. Its overriding
assumption is that when harm is caused a living ecosystem it is the
moral responsibility of humans to restore that harmed place to a state of
relative dis-harm (Cowell, 1993; Jackson et al., 1995).
The Environmental Restoration Movement had its genesis in the
early years of the 20th century. As the 19th century ended, after a half-
century of rapid industrial development, population growth and west-
ward expansion, many policy makers and average citizens alike began to
realize for the first time that natural resources were finite (Worster,
1994). These sobering realities meant that unless collective action was
taken to slow resource extraction and, where possible to rehabilitate de-
graded natural systems, America would gradually, but inescapably, out-
strip the carrying capacity of its land and resources. Conservation, pre-
servation resource management and land restoration were increasingly
becoming in the public mind practices of choice for dealing with the
nation’s dwindling natural inheritance (Hays, 1972). President Theodore
Roosevelt convened the first Governors Conference on natural resources
in 1907 in order to bring together the best minds from the highest levels
of government and private industry to deal with the problem of dimi-
nishing resources. He wrote “it is evident the abundant natural resources
on which the welfare of this nations rests are becoming depleted, and in
not a few cases, are already exhausted” (cited in Jarrett, 1958: 51). This
conference became the vanguard for new reform spirit of stewardship
and reasoned action toward the natural world. It was the symbolic be-
ginning of the Progressive Era’s conservation and presservation senti-
ment (Hays, 1972).
The crux of early environmental policy was not philosophical but,
rather, very practical. The issue was how America might more efficient-
ly manage its natural resources. It became apparent to these early re-
formers that unrestrained and unfettered laissez-faire economics pro-
mised unremitting environmental damage and ultimately economic ruin
once the preponderance of natural resources were used up. This whole-
sale exploitation of nature for profit without sufficient regard for the
216 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
lue. That is, they exist for human purposes. Their continued being and
thus our efforts at conservation and restoration are only justified because
of the relative economic and survival value ecosystems have for the
human species. The earth is essentially dead matter. It is primarily, if not
exclusively, a collection of natural resources available for human ex-
ploitation and consumption (Sessions, 1995).
Secondly, homo-sapiens are related only externally to the natural
world. That is, ontologically, humans are separate from nature. They are
fundamentally different from the rest of the natural world. Of course
humans survive via biological processes like other species but, at the
level of culture, intelligence, consciousness, language and rationality are
in very real and practical senses above the natural world (Besthorn, 2001,
2002; Capra, 1996). In the hierarchical ordering of natural phenomena,
humans rank at the pinnacle of the ontological ladder. They have no
equal.
This anthropocentric bias of the human place in the natural order
leads logically to the third theme of resourceism and restoration ma-
nagement. By virtue of humanities special place in the great ordering of
beings and by virtue of their advanced skills, solutions of thorny envi-
ronmental problems are viewed as simple technicalities and fully sol-
vable within a techno-scientific framework (Besthorn, 2000; Besthorn
and Canda, 2002). Environmental solutions are human solutions which
have been technically developed and refined to better address how na-
tural resources may be better or more efficiently used. Human problem
solving of environmental concerns has been reduced to battles between
competing specialists who develop reasonable, rational and professional
technicalities of scientific expertise which are then applied to the ma-
nagement or rehabilitation of the environment.
The above topics lead to the final theme which has particular re-
levance to environmental restoration. That is, humans can, indeed have a
moral imperative, to restore and repair the natural environment. Practi-
cally, this means for example that loggers of old-growth forest have an
obligation to replant trees that have been cut. The fundamental principle
of instrumental value and economic development is not questioned.
Forests are still, by the end of each day, standing reserve for the use of
the human economic enterprise. Old growth cutting is technically and
218 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
expertly justified on the grounds that these forests can be restored quite
adequately or replaced by technologically designed and managed tree
plantations (Drengson and Inoue, 1995). Restoration forestry is seen as
the only true forestry. In a similar way, real estate developers or coal
conglomerates are obliged to restore damaged acreage in exchange for
building or mining permits.
The language and practice of restorative environmentalism and re-
source management reveal a great deal about their underlying assump-
tions. The rhetoric of restoration, conservation, and stewardship often
means in practice the economic development of resources as quickly as
technically possible. This means altering and exploiting nature to pro-
duce more or better products for human consumption. Framing human/
nature issues as technical abstractions of management and restoration
reveals the strong human-centered bias. Nature’s value still lies only in
its usefulness to humankind and change involves improvement, develop-
ment or rehabilitation of an imperfect natural world.
Environmental restoration is not without its vocal critics. Robert
Elliott published a sharp criticism of the restoration thesis in his original
article and later book entitled Faking Nature (1997). Elliott argued that
even if a perfect copy of a degraded environment could be created, it
would still have less value than the original because it would, in fact, be
a manufactured fake or forgery. Eric Katz (1991, 1997) also has been
sharply critical of the restoration movement on several grounds. One, it
is inherently anthropocentric because it considers only the human prio-
rity in its perceived moral responsibility to restore natural environments.
Secondly, restoration policy leads to a world of artifacts—a world of
things and devices that have no intrinsic value but which carry in them-
selves only human intentions and purposes. Katz has also been critical
of restorative environmental policy because it creates the false assump-
tion that natural environment can, in fact, be restored. This human-
centered arrogance, if broadly inculcated in environmental policy and
the public sentiment will lead to a human culture that has an even grea-
ter sense of its omnipotence to exploit, manipulate and manage nature.
He writes clearly that restoration policy:
The Environmental Restoration Movement as an Issue of Justice 219
“presents the message that humanity should repair the damage that
human intervention has caused the natural environment. The message
is an optimistic one, for it implies that we recognize the harm we have
caused in the natural environment and that we possess the means and
will to correct these harms. These policies also make us feel good; the
prospect of restoration relieves the guilt we feel about the destruction
of nature. The wounds we have inflicted on the natural world are not
permanent; nature can be made “whole” again. Our natural resource
base and foundation for survival can be saved by the appropriate poli-
cies of restoration, regeneration and redesign (Katz, 1997: 94).”
Katz makes the compelling argument that the real danger with the
management of nature including its restoration is that it “results in the
impositions of our anthropocentric purposes on areas and entities that
exist outside human society” (Katz, 1997: 13). In this world, the only
phenomena will be human phenomena, the only vistas will be humanly
constructed and the only voice will be the human voice.
seek out and consider the earth’s voice rather than purely human evo-
cations regarding the best course of action.
For Friskics (2001: 395), the very essence of human existence is
constituted in and defined by humanities constant involvement with a
markedly complex system of relational events. To be human is to be
related to concretized, materialized and metaphysical reality. “There can
be no thing-in-itself except as it is abstracted from the relational milieu
of actual, concrete being with others.” Relational events are not synony-
mous with relationships, as we typical understand that term. Nor, are
relational events simply cognitional associations between one human
being and another. Relational events are physical, sensorial action ex-
periences with living beings; human and non-human alike. Indeed, rela-
tional events preclude anything that might resemble a kind of effortless,
individualized meeting of two separate ego-bound selves; as is com-
monly understood within dominant western ontology (Besthorn, 2002).
There is no laying hold of the self in isolation from the matrix of our
relational bonds.
Of critical importance for the current discussion is the perspective
that relational events assume address and response. That is, when rela-
tionships are concrete, sensual experiences with other there is no possi-
bility to relate on a purely ephemeral level. Relationships are not im-
mediately in the mind but rather are in the senses, in the body, in the felt
connection between living phenomena. In this sense, selfness is much
like the Buddhist notion of self as matter, sensation in addition to per-
ception and mental formation (Friskics, 2001). Networks of relational
events take place in the context of self-speaking fellow creatures, both
sentient and non-sentient. Friskics supports this view by suggesting
hearing the world and speaking to the world was the foundation on-
tology of early Judeo-Christian culture. In truth, the ancient Hebrew
term davar, originally used to refer to word, over time came to mean act,
event or in many cases the thing that voices. Clearly, Friskics finds
linguistic recognition of the vocative character of reality, the pervasive-
ness of the voice of things—a humbling realization that things are “first
and foremost, envoiced speakers” (Friskics, 2001: 394). For the ancient
Semitic tribes, their languages of the mountains and hills as breaking
forth into song were not mere figures of speech. For them, the sense of
The Environmental Restoration Movement as an Issue of Justice 221
The chorus of frogs gurgling in unison at the edge of a pond, the snarl
of a wildcat as it springs upon its prey, or the distant honking of Cana-
dian geese veering south for the winter, all reverberate with affective,
gestured conversations and soliloquies, moving us at times to tears, or
to anger, or to intellectual insights we could never have anticipated.
Language as bodily phenomenon accrues to all expressive bodies, not
just to the human. Our own speaking, then, does not set us outside of
the animate landscape but—whether or not we are aware of it—in-
scribes us more fully in its chattering, whispering, soundful depths.
manner in which we seek and then find the native anthem that is
nature’s voice calling back to us.
ronments should be left in their degraded state. This is not the overriding
issue. Rather, the core concern is that arguments for reclamation based
on human benefit and interests alone fail to provide adequate moral and
ethical justification for the restoration of ecosystems. The moral dilem-
ma manifests itself most completely when restoration policy is consi-
dered an appropriate environmental response on purely human grounds.
In those instances, the real enticement is that the restoration thesis be-
comes a powerful justification for degrading ecosystems in the first
place because, presumable, humans can restore them to their original,
untrammeled perfection.
When the first requirement of restoration becomes the priority of
listening sincerely and intently to the voice of the earth, in all the depth
of consideration that may require, then restoration will not only be more
ethically grounded and thorough, but the decision to degrade environ-
ments will become even more cautiously considered except, perhaps, in
the case of meeting vital human needs (Naess, 1989). Hearing the voice
of the earth in questions of degradation and restoration establishes a
rival tradition of environmental policy. In this vocative perspective, all
parts of the world have the ability to speak to us and to establish
relationship with us. This view implies a radical equality among the
beings and phenomena of nature as well as a kind of universal kinship of
life in which humans do not dominate, exploit, or destroy (Katz, 1997).
Nature ceases to become simply the material of human happiness, rather,
it is intrinsically valuable in itself—a manifestation of the ineffable
spirit presence in all.
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The Environmental Restoration Movement as an Issue of Justice 225
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14
____________________________
Empowerment Theory
In October, 2004, the International Association of School Social Wor-
kers (IASSW) and the International Federation of Social Workers
(IFSW) adopted a document entitled “Global Standards for Social Work
Education and Training” (IASSW and IFSW, 2004). This document is
intended to be a living document articulating a definition of social work,
and core purposes and functions of the social work profession. The
document is designed to be used as a guide for educating and training
social work professionals where no local guidelines exist. The document
is useful in its articulation of standards that have been critically consi-
dered and that resonate with restorative justice principles in addition to
other social justice principles. The guidelines support recent scholarship
that emphasizes a historical and practical purpose of empowerment as
core to the social work profession, despite a lingering perception that the
social work is a profession that is coercive at its core with tendencies
toward colonial attitudes (Burford and Adams, 2004). The definition of
social work contained in the document states:
The challenge for social work professionals becomes how to balance the
tension between care and control, and between empowerment and co-
ercion (Burford and Adams, 2004). Braithwaite’s hybrid model, often
illustrated as a pyramid, offers one useful framework (Braithwaite,
2002a). For Braithwaite (2002b), the threat of state intervention must
remain in the background. For example, in a child welfare case in-
volving the high level of social control that might be exerted by a social
worker limiting a parent’s access to his or her child, the more prevalent
regulatory formalism approach would allow for an ultimatist (extremely
controlling) social work that threatens the parent with loss of her child.
Compare this to a collaborative social work which would work with the
parents and others within processes such as family group conferencing,
to prevent escalation of the level of state intervention. Here the assump-
tion would be that the parent is a virtuous actor open to persuasion until
her actions proved otherwise (Adams and Chler, 2004).
240 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
Transformative Spirituality
The contribution of religious ideas in understanding how restorative
justice views the person and notions of freedom, responsibility, oblige-
tion and relationship between the individual and society is a foun-
dational one. The emphasis that both restorative justice advocates and
social work professionals place on social justice means those ideas need
to be understood in their particular social and political context. In a
Western context, the religious concepts that inform understandings of
restorative justice reflect differences between indigenous or First Nation
religious traditions and a world view of persons in society as inter-
dependent, and a predominantly Christian view that makes use of Jewish
scripture that informs all “people of the book” Jewish, Muslim, and
Christian, and yet comfortably co-exists in the context of a worldview
that begins with the rights of individuals. Doing theology in an Eastern
context resonates with these tensions in that indigenous Eastern reli-
gious traditions emphasizing a less individualistic world view exist
simultaneously with Christian traditions that have been more recently
imported and that are sometimes viewed as a colonial remnant.
The distinction between Western and Eastern contexts is worth
noting. In the West, the predominant social context is one beginning
with the individual. Political and legal structures reflect that view. Chris-
tian traditions accommodate that view. Indigenous world views inform
Restorative Justice and Transformative Spirituality 241
that context, sometimes more completely than others. In the East, the
predominant social context is one which begins rooted in indigenous
traditions that include a range of understandings regarding the interde-
pendence of persons within society and family.
The example of that integration is illustrated by the example above
of a definition of the social work profession that would easily include
the value of harmony. Christian traditions are primarily viewed as part
of a colonial legacy more accepted in westernized nations. Political and
legal structures reflect that particular historical context. Only recently
have Christian traditions in the East included liberating theologies. And
yet, the most interesting feature of this co-existence is that, in contrast to
the West, doctrinal purity is not the rule. When searching for religious
sources that provide sustenance and empowerment, Asian women have
approached the many different sources that contribute to the survival of
themselves and their communities. This de-emphasis on orthodoxy and
emphasis on the elements of culture and religion that provides women,
as well as other marginalized groups, a way to claim their humanity has
been referred to as “survival-liberation centered syncretism” (Chung,
1993).
Transformative spiritualities that would sustain restorative justice
practices might reflect particular Christian doctrinal teachings such as
covenant and dignity of the human being. Likewise these spiritualities
might reflect particular indigenous doctrines such as han-pu-ri. Both
indigenous and Christian traditions must be critically appraised. In her
critique of patriarchal coercion that is a legacy of Confucian familism,
Nam Soon Kang points out that just as individualism is problematic in
the West, so communitarianism and human-relatedness might be con-
sidered problematic in the East (Nam, 2004). I suggest the over-arching
source for transformational spiritualities in the East is best described by
the life-centered movement toward survival-liberation centered syncre-
tism. To begin the dialogue, I offer the following modest examples.
China
Traditionally, the images of deity for the Chinese people included two
general categories of spirits: official and popular. Deities such as the
242 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
Spirit of Heaven and ancestral spirits are part of the official beliefs
which were prescribed by the state. The Emperor was considered the
Son of Heaven and able to communicate directly with the Spirit of
Heaven. Popular Gods such as the God of War and the God of Trade
were part of magical cults that retained an impersonal character.
Popular religion is not a religion of the book. It is a religion of the
people with a crucial political relationship to orthodox religion (Feucht-
wang, 2001). The masses of people—poor and rural, worshipped popu-
lar deities in their village temples. During the Cultural Revolution,
1966-1976, these religious elements were sacralized in a political reli-
gion in which Mao Ze-dong replaced the Emperor in ritual practices
reminiscent of those dedicated to the Son of God. Contemporary Chi-
nese citizens continue to feel normative pressure from above.
Confucianism was the dominant official religion since the Han
Dynasty co-existing over time with Buddhism and Taoism (Zuo, 1991).
The significance of Confucianism is as proscribing an ethical way of
living. Its philosophers, such as Xunzi, have a well-developed concept
of shame and honor. Norms for honor are established in light of an
affectionate concern for the well-being of one’s fellows in the com-
munity. Shame is concerned with a failure to keep one’s word regarding
actions, and avoiding excess at the expense of that community. And yet,
shame is not the same as inward-directed Western guilt. It has no
relationship to sin in the Western sense. Shame, chih, is outward directly
related to self-respect in relation to others (Cua, 2003).
This prevalent understanding of shame might provide a foundation
for restorative justice and yet, this must not be confused with the
theological concept of Christianity. The Confucian view of the human
person is an optimistic one. Antisocial thought develops before anti-
social behavior. Even behavior can be cured. Education of a person’s
way has been the traditional way. Because self-respect is connected to
relationship with others, intrusion into a person’s life is accepted. The
tradition of “greatest unity” provides a kind of autonomy in which
uniformity of mind and act is achieved. Interpretation using classical
Western theories of criminology would seem culturally anachronistic.
For these reasons, initial intervention is extra-legal. The problem
lies not in determining what constitutes community given that village,
Restorative Justice and Transformative Spirituality 243
Hong Kong
Religious practices, similar to social, political and economic policies in
Hong Kong, present the pervasive “China factor,” that is, the anxiety
related to changes that might occur during the first fifty years of the
transition between British and Chinese governments beginning in 1997.
Negotiations in 1984 resulted in an agreement between the British and
Chinese governments making Hong Kong a Special Administrative
Region (HKSAR) of China at the time it was returned to the Chinese
government in 1997.
Still, this did not reassure the Protestant and Roman Catholic Chris-
tian Churches in Hong Kong which suspected that the ideological dif-
ferences between the Chinese Communist Party and the Christian world-
view would inevitably clash resulting in the regulation of the Christian
Churches as official state churches. The thinking was that these chur-
ches would be cut off from their particular ecclesiastical structures and
doctrinal dialogue such as what happened in China. Such regulation is
viewed as oppressive by the Christian churches in Hong Kong. Relevant
to the social justice goals of restorative justice, the response of both
Protestant and Roman Catholic Christian Churches was to reaffirm their
respective commitments to social justice principles as articulated in the
teachings of the World Council of Churches 1974 Lausanne Conference
by the Protestants, and in a 1997 pastoral exhortation from the Hong
Kong prelate “March into the Bright Decade.” The result was active par-
ticipation of Christians in the promotion of democracy, particularly in
the election work during the transition period (Chan and Leung, 2000).
For those already engaged in practices that could become estab-
lished as restorative justice practices, the transition in governance was
viewed with concern that retributive practices would seep into the Hong
Kong legal justice system consistent with Chinese principles such as
“rule by the people,” the death penalty, “leniency for self-confession,
severity for resistance,” “toeing the Party line” regarding crimes against
the state, and the loss of “presumption of innocence” (Davidson and
Wang, 2000).
Today, in Hong Kong, under the Community Service Order (CSO)
program, with the consent of the offender, courts have the option to sen-
Restorative Justice and Transformative Spirituality 245
India
For social workers in India seeking to empower their clients, the religion
of their clients plays a role in the extent to which clients perceive they
have an ability to determine their own fate. In a country that is mostly
Hindu, there is an inevitability of karmic consequences in this current
life for actions of a past life. The majority of social work clients in India
are uneducated and poor, while the social workers come from middle or
upper middle class backgrounds. The class into which persons are born
has religious implications for the Hindu social worker and client in
Restorative Justice and Transformative Spirituality 247
Korea
Out of the Christian and Buddhist land of South Korea, a theology and
spirituality of the people have emerged with great possibilities for
sustaining restorative justice practices: this is minjung theology.
Minjung is the Korean word for oppressed peoples though it is a
more expansive political term and embodies groups such as the prole-
tariat. Minjung include the:
and ritual. Korean minjung theologian Hyun Young Hak describes the
experience of Han as:
Conclusion in a Sentence
In Tlaneztia In Tonatiuh (“May Your Sun Shine Brightly,” Traditional
Nahuatl greeting).
Note
Special thanks to Katherine van Wormer for this gracious invitation, to my
mentor Sue Scher, for her astute encouragement in my work of integrating
disciplines, to my colleague Kathryn Poethig who taught me it is sometimes a
good thing to get lost in China, and to my complice Marta Benavides and the
spirit of all the women I met in 1995 at the United Nations Fourth World
Conference on Women: Action for Equality, Development and Peace. To these
and all the strong women in my life I owe my chispita electrica.
250 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
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Adams, P. and Chandler, S.M. (2004), Responsive Regulation in Child Welfare:
Systemic Challenges to Mainstreaming the Family Group Conference,
Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, Vol. 31, No.1, pp. 93-116.
Aleaz, K.P. (2004), Some Features of a Dalit Theology, Asia Journal of Theo-
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ductions: Stanford, CA.
Bazemore, G. and O’Brien, S. (2003), The Quest for a Restorative Model of
Rehabilitation: Theory-for-Practice and Practice-for-Theory, in L. Wal-
grave (ed.), Restorative Justice the Law, Willan: Portland, OR.
Bazemore, G. and Walgrave, L. (1999), Restorative Juvenile Justice, in G.
Bazemore and L. Walgrave (eds.), Restorative Juvenile Justice: Repairing
the Harm of Youth Crime, Criminal Justice: Monsey, New York.
Braithwaite, J. (2000), Restorative Justice and Social Justice, Saskatchewan
Law Review, Vol. 63.
———(2002a), In Search of Restorative Jurisprudence, in L. Walgrave (ed.),
Restorative Justice and the Law, Willan: Devon, UK.
———(2002b), Restorative Justice and Responsive Regulation, Oxford Uni-
versity Press: New York.
Burford, G. and Adams, P. (2004), Restorative Justice, Responsive Regulation
and Social Work, Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, Vol. 31, No. 1,
pp. 7-26.
Chan, C.P. and Leung, B. (2000), The Voting Propensity of Hong Kong Chris-
tians, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 39, pp. 297-306.
Chen, C. and Huang, T. (2004), The Emergence of a New Type of Christians in
China Today, Review of Religious Research, Vol. 46, pp. 183-200.
Chen, X. (2004), Social and Legal Control in China: A Comparative Perspec-
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nology, Vol. 48, pp. 523-36.
Chung, H.K. (1993), Struggle to be the Sun Again: Introducing Asian Women’s
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Contursi, J.A. (1993), Political Theology: Text and Practice in a Dalit Panther
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Crawford, A. (2003), The State, Community, and Restorative Justice, in L.
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Cua, A. (2003), The Ethical Significance of Shame: Insights of Aristotle and
Xunzi, Philosophy East and West, Vol. 53, pp. 147-202.
Restorative Justice and Transformative Spirituality 251
Davidson, R. and Wang, Z (2000), The Court System in the People’s Republic
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Sociological Analysis, Vol. 52, pp. 99-110.
15
____________________________
Spiritual Dimensions
of Restorative Justice:
Teachings of the Dalai Lama
WAYNE EVENS
Other chapters in this book and other authors (Gilligan, 1996; Achilles
and Zehr, 2001; Braithwaite and Roche, 2001; Sullivan and Tifft, 2001;
Braithwaite, 2002; Strang, 2002; Christie, 2003; Harris, 2003; Mc-
Laughlin et al., 2003; Zehr and Mika, 2003; Walgrave, 2005; Sherman
and Strang, 2007) have addressed the theory practice of restorative
justice. This chapter will focus on some spiritual aspects of restorative
justice.
Restorative justice proposes a paradigm shift in the administration
of justice. The fundamental issue in the debate between restorative jus-
tice and retributive and rehabilitative justice can be seen as a debate
about effective social control. Retributive justice seeks to properly pu-
nish the offender for misdeeds, as it represents state power.
254 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
Rehabilitative justice inserts treatment into the system with the goal of
reforming the offender.
Restorative justice theorists critique retributive and rehabilitative
justice as being about state power (Braithwaite, 2002; Strang, 2002), as
being over professionalized (Christie, 2003), as being insensitive to the
needs of victims (Achilles and Zehr, 2001), as being ineffective (Gilli-
gan, 1996; Braithwaite and Roche, 2001; Strang, 2002; Harris, 2003;
McLaughlin et al., 2003).
The conflict between retributive justice and restorative justice, at its
base, is a conflict between the desire to control and the desire to reduce
suffering. State based justice is as much, or more, about state power as it
is about reducing suffering or preventing crime (Strang, 2002). By
punishing the perpetrator, retributive justice doubles the harm done; by
seeking to right wrongs done restorative justice seeks to repair the harm
done (Walgrave, 2005). It remains to be seen how effective this appro-
ach will be.
Schiff and Bazemore (2001) suggest four visions for the future of
restorative community justice. One of which is that this movement will
become a sort of footnote in the history of justice. They suggest that the
future of the movement will depend upon the vision of restorative
community justice practitioners. This chapter seeks to expand that vision
by looking at the spiritual dimension of restorative justice. It argues that
restoration needs a vision of love and compassion if it is to change how
justice is understood and delivered.
Arendt (1964) addresses the banality of evil. Neiman (2002) frames
the issue of evil as a historic not a moral problem. Gilligan (1996) notes
how ordinary the men in maximum security prisons, who have
committed extremely violent acts appear. The current system constructs
criminal acts as evil and seeks to punish the evildoer (Gilligan, 1996).
Gilligan argues that current justice with its emphasis on punishment is
ineffective in addressing the causes of crime.
Restorative justice grows out of frustration with the rule-driven
alienating system of state administered criminal justice system. Our
society seeks to be rule driven. We have substituted ethics and/or laws
for virtue. In an effort to create security, we want clear rules that tell us
what to do, and more importantly, rules that tell others what to do. The
Spiritual Dimensions of Restorative Justice 255
tends to support angry and retributive responses. If you break the rules
there is a price to be paid. The Dalai Lama (1997: 1) has taught that we
need to develop patience, which he defines as, “a certain ability to
remain firm or steadfast, to not be overwhelmed by the adverse situa-
tions or conditions one faces.” This chapter will focus on anger and hel-
ping people move beyond anger as essential to the restorative process.
Anger
Thurman (2005) points out that in both Eastern and Western traditions
anger is considered deadly to the soul. In the Buddhist tradition anger is
considered the greatest evil (Dalai Lama, 1997). Thurman (2005) ex-
plains that anger and its concomitant hatred destroy rationality and de-
personalize the person with whom one is angry.
Anger presents two problems. First, anger tends to destroy the one
feeling anger. Second, anger begets anger. Along with feeling the pain
of an injustice done, one feels the pain again, over and over, and as one
experiences anger, one plots revenge (Thurman, 2005). Anger, focuses
the mind on the object of its anger and on the desire to harm the other.
The actions taken in anger are designed to harm the other. This arouses
in the other anger that seeks retribution. Anger, thus, destroys the angry
person and human relationships (Thurman, 2005).
Thurman (2005: 12) also speaks of “organized anger.” He states,
“Culturally organized anger sets the standard for our militaristic, violent
lifestyle, modeled by heroes from Achilles to the Terminator.” He is
speaking primarily about war, but I extend his argument to the criminal
justice system with its organized “professionalism” and retributive
punishment. The system has stolen the personal element (Christie, 2003).
Many laws express “organized anger.” We are angry that people use
drugs. We pass mandatory sentencing laws to express our anger. We
rationalize that prisons are rehabilitative in the face of much evidence to
the contrary.
Restorative justice seeks to change this system. To do so, I will
argue, restorative justice must confront the anger and propose an alter-
native to anger and retribution. I suggest that patience, tolerance, and
Spiritual Dimensions of Restorative Justice 257
Since the horror of 9/11, we’ve learned a great deal about the enemy.
We have learned that they are evil and kill without mercy—but not
without purpose. We have learned that they form a global network of
extremists who are driven by a perverted vision of Islam—a totali-
tarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance, and despises all
dissent. And we have learned that their goal is to build a radical Isla-
mic empire where women are prisoners in their homes, men are beaten
for missing prayer meetings, and terrorists have a safe haven to plan
and launch attacks on America and other civilized nations. The war
against this enemy is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive
ideological struggle of the 21st century, the calling of our generation
(Bush, 2006).
Victor Chan asked the Dalai Lama if he hated the Chinese (Dalai Lama
and Chan, 2004). The Dalai Lama’s response was:
Spiritual Dimensions of Restorative Justice 259
(as the private secretary translated): “His Holiness does not have any
bad feelings toward the Chinese. We Tibetans have suffered greatly
because of the Chinese invasion. And as we speak, the Chinese are
systematically, stone by stone, dismantling the great monasteries of
Tibet. Nearly every Tibetan family in Dharamsala has a sad story to
tell; most have lost at least one family member due to Chinese atro-
cities. But His Holiness said his quarrel is with the Chinese Com-
munist Party. Not with ordinary Chinese. He still considers the Chi-
nese his brothers and sisters. His Holiness doesn’t hate the Chinese. As
a matter of fact, he forgives them with no reservation (24).
You must obey the governing authorities. Since all government comes
from God, the civil authorities were appointed by God, and so anyone
260 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
Compassion
His Holiness, the Dalai Lama (1997: 3-4) states:
Tolerance
Tolerance is accepting events as they are without becoming angry. We
may be irritated by a harm or a perceived harm, but we do not lose
ourselves to anger (Thurman, 2005). As one learns to tolerate small
discomforts, one develops the capacity to tolerate larger discomforts.
262 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
The Dalai Lama (2001) points out that all people experience frustrations
in life. If we do not develop tolerance we become discouraged and lose
some of our ability to effectively cope with issues. “Since patience or
tolerance comes from a certain ability to remain firm and steadfast, to
not be overwhelmed by the adverse situations or conditions that one
faces, one should not see tolerance or patience as a sign of weakness,
but rather as a sign of strength coming from a deep ability to remain
steadfast and firm (Dalai Lama, 1997: 1).”
Achilles and Zehr (2001) point out the wide range of emotions
victims experience. For restorative justice to be effective, we must be-
come tolerant of the anger and frustration of the perpetrators, the victims,
and the community. We must also develop tolerance for the current
system. They explain many of the needs that victims have. The Dalai
Lama repeatedly stresses that adversity can be a stimulus for growth. He
states, “Retaliation based on the blind energy of anger seldom hits the
target (Dalai Lama, 2001: 26).” Restorative justice needs to develop
interventions that help the victims understand the potential for growth.
They need to be helped to understand how their anger and frustration
only continue to harm them They also need to understand that tolerance
and compassion do not preclude strong action (Dalai Lama, 1997).
If the restorative justice project is to be successful it must also
develop a better understanding of the perpetrator. The process must
encourage the perpetrator to tell her or his story. Gilligan (1996) argues
that people engage in crime to hide a deep sense of shame and in-
adequacy. The Dalai Lama (2001) in many of his other works stresses
that people can change and grow. In the process of making the per-
petrator responsible for his or her actions, restorative justice must help
the perpetrators accept the harm they have experienced and use that to
grow.
Practitioners must help the community develop a tolerance that
humanizes both the victims and the perpetrators. The community must
also accept its responsibility for crime. The Dalai Lama encourages us to
realize that all humans have a right to be happy and overcome suffering
(Dalai Lama, 1992). Community agents need to be taught to seek the
growth and restoration of both the victims and the perpetrators. In many
Spiritual Dimensions of Restorative Justice 263
cases, the anger that drives the perpetrator grows from the actions or in-
actions of the community.
“Generally speaking, all the major religions of the world emphasize
the importance of the practice of love, compassion, and tolerance (Dalai
Lama, 1997: 1).” “In the Buddhist tradition, compassion and love are
seen as two aspects of the same thing: Compassion is the wish for ano-
ther to be free from suffering; love is wanting them to have happiness
(Dalai Lama, 2001: 17). The desire to reduce suffering is the basis of
restorative justice.
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Achilles, M., and Zehr, H. (2001), Restorative Justice for Crime Victims: The
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Penguin: New York.
Bazemore, G. and Schiff, M. (2001), Introduction, in G. Bazemore and M.
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Braithwaite, J. (2002), Restorative Justice and Responsive Regulation, Oxford
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Braithwaite, J. and Roche, D. (2001), Responsibility and Restorative Justice, in
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Christie, N. (2003), Conflicts as Property, in E. McLaughlin, R. Fergusson, G.
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Edwards, R. (1979), Contested Terrain: The Transformation of the Workplace
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264 Restorative Justice Across the East and the West
Weber, M. (1958), Class, Status, Party, in H.H. Garth and C.W. Mills (eds.),
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storative Justice: Critical Issues, Sage: London.
Index
Abram, D., 221-22. Australia, 6, 27, 96, 124, 127,
Achilles, M., 262. 135-36, 177, 210, 249.
Addams, Jane, 124.
Additional Protocols, 168. Bao-Gu system, China, 117-18.
Afghanistan, 181-82. Barnevernsnemnd, 39-40.
Africa, 3, 82, 96, 97, 125, 131, 138- Bazemore, Gordon, 12, 95, 236,
39, 146, 151, 161, 164, 169-86, 254-55.
194. Belgium, 27, 179.
African National Congress, 174. Benneche, Gerd, 36.
Ahimsa, 183, 186, 189, 194. Berniers, François, 147.
Al-Qaeda, 257. Bernstein, Joan, 106.
American Nazi Party, 97. Berry, Thomas, 209.
Anderson, Benedict, 191. Besthorn, Fred H., 5, 8, 205-06.
Androff, David, 7, 123. Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich,
Antodaya, 190. 147.
Apartheid, 3. Bolivia, 180, 187.
Arendt, H., 254. Bose, A., 182.
Argentina, 173. Braithwaite, J., 68, 70, 165, 239.
Ashworth, A., 193. Bratt, Bob, 108.
Austin, Raymond D., 234. Brazil, 180.
268 Index
WELFARE CAPITALISM
AROUND THE WORLD
Edited by Christian Aspalter, 2003
ISBN 986-80414-2-2
Hardcover, US$ 64,-- / €64,--
Contents
1. Introduction, Christian Aspalter
2. The Welfare State in Canada, Janine Brodie
3. The Welfare State in the United States, Robert P. Scheurell
4. The Welfare State in Eight Latin American Countries,
Carmelo Mesa-Lago
5. The Welfare State in the United Kingdom, Michael Lavalette
and Laura Penketh
6. The Welfare State in Sweden, Sang-hoon Ahn and Sven E. Olsson-Hort
7. The Welfare State in Denmark, Peter Abrahamson
8. The Welfare State in France, Jean-Paul Revauger
9. The Welfare State in Germany: Corporatism and the German Welfare
Model, Ingo Bode
10. The Welfare State in Switzerland, Giuliano Bonoli
11. The Welfare State in Italy, Franca Maino
12. The Welfare State in Israel, Zeev Rosenhek
13. Welfare Capitalism in Japan: Past, Recent, and Future Developments,
Christian Aspalter and On-kwok Lai
14. The South Korean Welfare State: The Impact of Political Alliances on
Welfare Politics, Sang-kyun Kim and Sang-hoon Ahn
15. The Welfare State in Hong Kong, Raymond Kwok-hong Chan
16. The Welfare State in Singapore: “Welfare Without Redistribution”
Linda Low and Christian Aspalter
17. The Welfare State in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Michael Goldsmith
and Catherine Kingfisher
CASA VERDE PUBLISHING
Contents
1. Introduction, Christian Aspalter
2. Welfare State in Chile, David E. Hojman
3. Welfare State in Brazil: Evolution, Problems and Trends of
Social Policy, Pedro Cesar Lima de Farias
4. Welfare State in Czech Republic, Vojtech Krebs
5. Pension Reform in Poland, Stanislaw Kluza and Krzysztof Ostaszewski
6. The Hungarian Welfare Model: Social Policy at the Crossroads,
Zoltan Karpati and Zsuzsa Széman
7. The Welfare State Sytem in India, Christian Aspalter
8. The Welfare State Sytem in Malaysia, John Doling and Roziah Omar
9. The Welfare State System in Mainland China, Nelson W.S. Chow
and Christian Aspalter
10. Welfare Reform in Taiwan: The Asian Financial Turbulence and Its
Political Implication, Ku Yeun-Wen
11. Welfare State in South Korea: Implications of the Economic Crisis,
Kwon Soonman
CASA VERDE PUBLISHING
NEO-LIBERALISM AND
THE AUSTRALIAN WELFARE STATE
Edited by Christian Aspalter, 2003
ISBN 986-80414-0-6
Hardcover, US$ 47,-- / €47,--
Contents
1. Introduction, Christian Aspalter
2. Welfare Capitalism in Australia, Christian Aspalter
3. Indeginous Welfare in Australia, Eileen Baldry and Sue Green
4. Poverty and Income Distribution in Australia, Ann M. Harding
5. The Australian Welfare State in Transition: Social Policy in the 1990s,
Brian Howe and Anthony O’Donnell
6. The Neoliberal Era in Politics and Social Policy, Patricia Harris
7. The Idea of “Mutual Obligation” in Australian Social Security Policy,
Pamela L. Kinnear
8. The Promise and Performance of Mutual Obligation, Cosmo Howard
9. Centrelink—A New Approach to Welfare Service Delivery?,
Richard Mulgan
CASA VERDE PUBLISHING
Contents
1. The State of Social Welfare: An Introduction, Christian Aspalter
and Surendra Singh
2. Alleviating Unemployment in Saudi Arabia, Adel S. Aldosary,
Syed M. Rahman, and Mir Shahid
3. Affordable Housing in Saudi Arabia, Adel S. Aldosary, Syed M. Rahman,
and Syed Munawer
4. The Development of Social Services in Russia, Antonina Dashkina
5. Poverty Alleviation Programs in Sri Lanka, Amarawansa Ranaweera
6. Territorial Justice in China, Christian Aspalter
7. The State of Social Welfare in Hong Kong, Ernest Chui
8. Social Welfare in Macau: A State of Transition, Samuel Y. Hui
and Dicky Lai
9. Recent Social Change and Social Policy in Korea, Kim Jinsoo
10. Social Development Policy in Asia: Taking the Examples of India,
China, Malaysia, and Japan, Surendra Singh
CASA VERDE PUBLISHING
Contents
1. Debating Social Development: An Introduction, Christian Aspalter
and Surendra Singh
2. Developmental Social Policy: Theory and Practice, James Midgley
3. Towards A More People-Centered Paradigm in Social Development,
Christian Aspalter
4. Social Development in Korea, Kim Young-Hwa
5. Social Development in Japan: A Focus on Social Welfare Issues,
Rajendran Muthu
6. Distorted Development: The Case of Post-Colonial Hong Kong,
Tang Kwong-Leung
7. Social Welfare Development in Taiwan: Class Interests and the
Politics of Social Policy, Ku Yeun-Wen and Christian Aspalter
8. Social Development in India: A Critique, Surendra Singh
9. Social Development in Bangladesh, Profulla Sarker