Restorative practices
Restorative practices is a collective term describing the various methods through restorative justice implemented
Restorative justice practices aim to build healthy communities, increase social capital, decrease crime and antisocial behaviour, mend harm and restore relationships. The terms ties together research in a variety of social science fields, including education, psychology, social work, criminology, sociology, organizational development and leadership. RP has been growing in popularity since the early 2000s and varying approaches exist.
Overview
The social science of restorative practices offers a common thread to tie together theory, research and practice in diverse fields such as education, counseling, criminal justice, social work and organizational management. Individuals and organizations in many fields are developing models and methodology and performing empirical research that share the same implicit premise, but are often unaware of the commonality of each other's efforts.In education, restorative practices, such as circles and groups, provide opportunities for students to share their feelings, build relationships and solve problems, and when there is wrongdoing, to play an active role in addressing the wrong and making things right. Schools that implement restorative practices have been found to provide safe school environments through building quality relationships and a supportive community. Further, urban educators who carry out RP have observed a decrease in disciplinary issues and absenteeism, a heightened sense of community, as well as an increase in school safety and instructional time.
For example, in criminal justice, restorative circles and restorative conferences allow victims, offenders and their respective family members and friends to come together to explore how everyone has been affected by an offense and, when possible, to decide how to repair the harm and meet their own needs. In England's Criminal Justice System, prisons use RP to stimulate positive social interactions and decrease tension when situational challenges arise. Introduced in the 1990s in some of Europe's CJS, RP has improved relationships between the prisons' residents and their relatives through restorative family interventions.
In social work, family group decision-making or family group conferencing processes empower extended families to meet privately, without professionals in the room, to make a plan to protect children in their own families from further violence and neglect or to avoid residential placement outside their own homes.
These various fields employ different terms, all of which fall under the rubric of restorative practices: In the criminal justice field the phrase used is "restorative justice"; in social work the term employed is "empowerment"; in education, talk is of "positive discipline" or "the responsive classroom"; and in organizational leadership "horizontal management" is referenced. The social science of restorative practices recognizes all of these perspectives and incorporates them into its scope.
Functions
The use of restorative practices has the potential to:- reduce crime, violence and bullying
- improve human behavior
- strengthen civil society
- provide effective leadership
- restore relationships
- repair harm
History
In the modern context, restorative justice originated in the 1970s as mediation or reconciliation between victims and offenders. In Elmira, Ontario, Canada, near Kitchener, in 1974 Mark Yantzi, a probation officer, arranged for two teenagers to meet directly with their victims following a vandalism spree and agree to restitution. The positive response by the victims led to the world's first victim-offender reconciliation program, in Kitchener, with the support of the Mennonite Central Committee and collaboration with the local probation department. The concept subsequently acquired various names, such as victim-offender mediation and victim-offender dialogue as it spread through North America and to Europe through the 1980s and 1990s.
Restorative justice echoes ancient and indigenous practices employed in cultures all over the world, from Native American and First Nations to African, Asian, Celtic, Hebrew, Arab and many others.
Eventually modern restorative justice broadened to include communities of care as well, with victims' and offenders' families and friends participating in collaborative processes called conferences and circles. Conferencing addresses power imbalances between the victim and offender by including additional supporters. In the 2010s, federal and local governments in the US, as well as community organizations, requested schools decrease suspension rates. To provide an alternative to disciplinary measures like suspension, large urban school districts, like New York City Public Schools and the Los Angeles Unified School District, started implementing RP.
A major aspect of any restorative practice is neutrality. Though restorative practice aim to resolve issues within a group, the facilitation of the resolution is supposed to remain impartial. It is, therefore, important that facilitators of any restorative practice are neutral to the situation at issue. Some researchers also classify the study of restorative practice through the concept of process and values. In this framework, process refers to the specific actions taken to repair harms and/or build community. Values refer to the overarching principals that guide those actions and that differ from more traditional justice that may be punitive.
Terminology
Family group conference
The family group conference started in New Zealand in 1989 as a response to native Māori people's concerns with the number of their children being removed from their homes by the courts. It was originally envisioned as a family empowerment process, not as restorative justice. In North America it was renamed family group decision making.Restorative conferences
In 1991 the FGC was adapted by an Australian police officer, Terry O'Connell, as a community policing strategy to divert young people from court, into a restorative process often called a restorative conference. It has been called other names, such as a community accountability conference and victim-offender conference. In 1994 Marg Thorsborne, an Australian educator, was the first to use a restorative conference in a school.Circles
A "circle" is a versatile restorative practice that can be used proactively, to develop relationships and build community or reactively, to respond to wrongdoing, conflicts and problems. Circles give people an opportunity to speak and listen to one another in an atmosphere of safety, decorum and equality. The circle process allows people to tell their stories and offer their own perspectives.The circle has a wide variety of purposes: conflict resolution, healing, support, decision making, information exchange and relationship development. Circles offer an alternative to contemporary meeting processes that often rely on hierarchy, win-lose positioning and argument.
Circles can be used in any organizational, institutional or community setting. Circle time and morning meetings have been widely used in primary and elementary schools for many years and more recently in secondary schools and higher education. In industry, the quality circle has been employed for decades to engage workers in achieving high manufacturing standards. In 1992 Yukon Circuit Court Judge Barry Stewart pioneered the sentencing circle, which involved community members in helping to decide how to deal with an offender. In 1994 Mennonite Pastor Harry Nigh befriended a mentally challenged repeat sex offender by forming a support group with some of his parishioners, called a circle of support and accountability, which was effective in preventing re-offending.
Circles can be both proactive and reactive. Proactive circles aim to create a positive classroom or environmental climate as facilitators solicit the expression of opinions and ideas in a safe environment. Reactive circles, often called restorative circles, work in conjunction with proactive circles. When a specific behavior or incident impacts individuals in the class or group, restorative circles aim to restore the climate and culture of the group through conflict resolution. Sometimes specific restorative conferences may transpire, which are direct and individual conferences between specific parties to discuss and resolve troubling behaviors and emotions.
Difference between restorative justice and restorative practices
The notion of restorative practices evolved in part from the concept and practices of restorative justice. But from the emergent point of view of restorative practices, restorative justice can be viewed as largely reactive, consisting of formal or informal responses to crime and other wrongdoing after it occurs. Restorative practices also includes the use of informal and formal processes that precede wrongdoing, those that proactively build relationships and a sense of community to prevent conflict and wrongdoing.Other terminology
The term restorative practices, along with terms like restorative approaches, restorative justice practices and restorative solutions, are increasingly used to describe practices related to or derived from restorative conferences and circles. These practices also include more informal practices.Use of restorative practices is now spreading worldwide, in education, criminal justice, social work, counseling, youth services, workplace, college residence hall and faith community applications. Notably, restorative practices can and do serve as reactionary tools in these settings but have also been successful when implemented as proactive pedagogy.