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restorative justice
What Good is an Apology?
Restorative justice requires many steps, but it begins with acknowledgement of the crimes committed
Jun 11, 2015
I'm a white man who has worked with Native Americans as a journalist and documentary filmmaker since 1977. Mostly, I have worked on exposing problems--environmental injustice, destruction of sacred places, hidden history. Finding long-term solutions has seemed overwhelming and elusive. But four decades of experience have clarified my understanding of our nation's biggest obstacle to moving beyond the historical injustices confronting the cultures that share this land. There is a shadow in the American closet that will forever prevent healing and reconciliation--unless and until that shadow is recognized and acknowledged. The theft of country, the massacres, the inhumanity of forced boarding school captivity, the denial of historic trauma, and the ongoing injustice, racism and inequality will hold us back as a society until we collectively accept our painful history and change course. Opening the door to let the shadow out will require an apology.
"If the destruction and genocide that occurred are not acknowledged, people suffer from the fact that what happened is invisible, and we remain unable to fully heal."
--Winona LaDukeTwo instructive stories came to light while filming our new film series, Standing on Sacred Ground. These stories help describe elements of the shadow.
In 1851, treaty negotiations with tribal leaders in northern California resulted in the signing of the Treaty of Cottonwood Creek, which promised a 25-mile by 25-mile reservation on the Sacramento River south of Redding. You can imagine how the Wintu and other native leaders who signed the treaty felt as the white negotiators returned to Washington--something like: "Well, at least now we have a treaty and all the land that has been taken will yield the security of a protected homeland." But there would be no reservation. Within weeks of the treaty signing, California squatters and military personnel moved onto the promised land. Due to opposition by California politicians and the U.S. Senate, the Cottonwood Treaty was sealed in a closet in the Senate and locked away, unratified and then forgotten by Washington. The now landless Wintu never forgot--not when they were hunted by newcomers, not when their children were taken away to Christian boarding schools, and not when the U.S. drowned their sacred sites in the waters behind Shasta Dam.
In Alberta, Canada, across the street from the site of Fort Chipewyan's residential Indian school, is a dirt road that disappears into a forest of darkness. While we were filming the tar sands segment of Standing on Sacred Ground, our Dene guide pointed at the grassy road and said, "That's where they secretly buried the aboriginal children who died. Some were beaten. Some ran away in the winter and didn't survive. Some babies were conceived, born and discarded."
More than any place we filmed, the historic trauma of residential schools was profoundly unsettling in Canada--and right on the surface. Everyone talked about it, and it was clear that deep wounds were nowhere near healed. (Most Americans do not understand that the exact same thing was occurring in the United States with equally devastating cultural and personal consequences.)
These crimes and treaty violations are finally being addressed. With the release last week of the Truth and Reconciliation Report, Canada took a major step toward deeper acknowledgment of this historic trauma, and that's a good thing. But this pain goes deep and spans the entire planet. How do we recover? Restorative justice requires many steps.
In June 2008, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper gave a widely publicized speech to parliament and indigenous leaders, and made an official, public apology to survivors of the country's residential school system. It was well-received by many First Nations people, and some said it helped them feel a sense of healing.
Four months before that, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologized in parliament to Australia's Aboriginal people for laws and policies that "inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss." He was apologizing for the treatment of "Stolen Generations" of children uprooted from family and country and placed in missions or white Christian homes. Scores of Aboriginal people attended the ceremony and were shown on television with tears streaming down their faces. "Sorry Day" is commemorated every year.
Both the Canadian and Australian apologies were essential first steps on a longer path.
Last week's Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission report details a century (1883-1996) of forced residential schooling for First Nations' children that resulted in more than 6,000 deaths. The report was 6 years in-the-making and 6,750 people testified. It speaks truth to power and illustrates how an apology is a process that slowly unveils hidden history: "The Canadian government pursued this policy of cultural genocide because it wished to divest itself of its legal and financial obligations to aboriginal people and gain control over their lands and resources," the report says. "A just reconciliation requires more than simply talking about the need to heal the deep wounds of history. Words of apology alone are insufficient; concrete actions on both symbolic and material fronts are required."
Several U.S. presidents have offered apologies for historic wrongs. In 1988, President Reagan made a formal statement when he signed the Japanese Internment Apology law, which carried with it financial restitution. In 1993, President Clinton apologized to Native Hawaiians for the 1893 overthrow of their queen and their nation, and during a 1997 press conference, Clinton said that the government was sorry for its role in the Tuskegee syphilis experiment on African Americans. But for the twin sins of stealing a continent from America's First People and the brutal enslavement of countless souls, there have been no apologies from the United States government.
While filming Standing on Sacred Ground, we interviewed leading aboriginal thinkers from around the world about the importance of apology. Reflecting on Nelson Mandela's wisdom and experience, Anishinaabeg activist Winona LaDuke revealed the cost of the unrecognized shadow: "If the destruction and genocide that occurred are not acknowledged, people suffer from the fact that what happened is invisible, and we remain unable to fully heal."
An apology is just a first step, but it's a necessary first step. The time has come for our American president to lead us in speaking the words, "I'm sorry."
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Humanizing Justice Systems: Effective Alternative Approaches
Jun 05, 2015
Our criminal justice system in America is broken. Our so-called "tough on crime" laws have led to us being the most incarcerated nation in the developed world - disproportionately affecting minorities and some of our most already hard hit communities. A deeply disconcerting fact (pdf): the United States incarcerates a higher proportion of African Americans than South Africa did at the height of apartheid. Yet at the same time, we have some of the highest levels of violence and crime. It is clearly not an effective strategy, and is largely destructive.
Pew research has shown that if you are locking up more than 500 people per 100,000, you are actually adding to crime because we are disrupting and destabilizing so many families and communities that cannot easily recover. The national average across the US is around that rate, but there are many communities around the country that are at 2000 or even 4000 per 100,000. This is devastating to these communities. We must do better, and we can do better.
While it is encouraging to hear the swiftly growing chorus of elected leaders, from both sides of the aisle, speaking about the need for criminal justice reform -- particularly in the wake of Ferguson, Baltimore, etc. -- we have much work to do to move our federal, state and local laws away from these largely ineffective strategies towards more progressive models that can bring healing and repair to lives and to our communities.
We are seeing a plethora of cost-effective and evidence-based approaches to implementing justice in society that focus more on healing harm done, rather than simply punishing it. These approaches are proving to work better than our current methodologies. A couple of encouraging examples:
After the Longmont Community Justice Partnership (in Longmont, Colorado) implemented its Community Restorative Justice Program, recidivism rates dropped to less than 8% in its first three years (pdf). National averages can reach 65% recidivism rates, or higher.
In a West Philadelphia High School, within two years of implementing a Restorative Discipline program, incidents of assault and disorderly conduct dropped more than 65%.
The following empowering strategies and programs are proving to be quite effective in the realm of humanizing justice:
Early Intervention: Engaging at risk youth early and providing them with support needed to be successful in life can build them into strong, productive members of their communities before they fall into cycles of violence, incarceration, and despair. This can be accomplished through mentoring programs, at home family support, after school programs, and many other positive interventions.
Restorative Justice: We seek approaches to justice that provide an effective process and container for the development of understanding between offenders and victims as well as the wider community. It provides the conditions, guided by victims, for the possibility of healing, forgiveness and restoration. The nature of a restorative process guided by victims' needs allows for offenders to come to terms with the human cost of their actions and attempts to right the wrong together with all stakeholders. This often is freeing to victims, as well, and a key aspect of their own ability to move forward. In laying the foundations for empathy, restorative justice can and has radically changed lives, prevented crime and recidivism, and rebuilt communities. Working programs in the US have shown astounding success in reducing recidivism, saving time and judicial expense, while preventing incarceration and its associated costs.
Smarter Sentencing Act: The Smarter Sentencing Act would reduce a variety of mandatory minimums to reduce unjustifiable disparities in sentencing and to reduce sentences for low risk offenders.
Trauma-Informed Justice and Courts: An increasing body of evidence tells us that the majority of people in jails and prisons have experienced trauma that has scarred their minds and hearts. They may have survived rape, assault, or childhood sexual abuse, or they may have witnessed violence done to others. The experiences that trauma survivors have in the criminal justice system, far from leading them to positive changes in their lives, often add new trauma and deepen their wounds. Many will never be able to break out of the narrow trajectory that constricts their futures unless the justice system and their communities can help them to focus on the root problem: trauma, its lasting effects in human lives, and the need to begin the healing process.
Smarter Sentencing Act: The Smarter Sentencing Act would reduce a variety of mandatory minimums to reduce unjustifiable disparities in sentencing and to reduce sentences for low risk offenders.
Creating a trauma-informed environment within the juvenile justice system is especially important considering research has demonstrated that many of the youths involved in the juvenile justice system have been exposed to traumatic events.
Smarter Sentencing Act: The Smarter Sentencing Act would reduce a variety of mandatory minimums to reduce unjustifiable disparities in sentencing and to reduce sentences for low risk offenders.
Prisoner rehabilitation and re-entry support: When incarceration is necessary, it is critical that offenders are treated with essential human dignity and given the best chance possible to return to their communities as full members of society, with life skills, job skills and equal opportunities for employment. We support programs in prisons that provide life-skills, that teach inmates emotional literacy, how to better communicate, resolve conflict and deal with emotional and psychological issues. These support modalities have been shown to help transform lives.
Prisons must also be places that provide support and education to prisoners so they are able to care for themselves through productive employment upon release. Returning citizens must have access to supportive programming upon release to ease their transition and to prevent recidivism.
Community Policing: Community policing is, in essence, a collaboration between the police and the community that identifies and solves community problems. All members of the community become active allies in the effort to enhance the safety and quality of neighborhoods through communication.
Diversionary Approaches: Pre-trial and pre-charge diversion support approaches allow low risk offenders to move into programs that address their behavior without saddling them with a conviction, having life-long ramifications, or sending them to a prison where they are often driven further into a harmful lifestyle.
Juvenile Justice: The Juvenile Justice system must take into account the differences in brain development between youth and adults, and treat youth differently. The juvenile justice system needs to provide support in the community whenever possible, reserving incarceration, which is far more harmful to youth than adults, for only the most extreme cases if at all.
Mediation: Mediation is a form of alternative dispute resolution, a way of resolving disputes between two or more parties with concrete effects. Typically, a third party, the mediator, assists the parties to negotiate a settlement. Mediators use various techniques to open, or improve, dialogue and empathy between disputants, helping the parties reach an agreement.
All of the above are in play to various degrees in communities around the nation. They have not reached anywhere near the scale that is needed. Here are a few policy proposals that could help in the short term to move us more swiftly towards these approaches.
Youth PROMISE Act:The Youth Prison Reduction through Opportunity, Mentoring, Intervention, Support and Education (Youth PROMISE) Act would reduce youth violence by enabling inclusive groups of local stakeholders to determine the needs of their own communities and to address those needs with a suite of accountable, evidence based programs. It is locally controlled, accountable, saves money, and it works.
Redeem Act: The Redeem Act would make sealing and expungement simpler for people returning from incarceration, and would remove legal obstacles preventing them from accessing the social support structures critical to helping them reintegrate into society.
Second Chance Re-authorization Act: The Second Chance Act was first passed in 2007, and has used evidence based reentry programs to help those returning from incarceration reintegrate into the community. It has reduced recidivism and saved significant amounts of money.
Full Funding for Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention Act: This is essential in ensuring that state juvenile justice programs offer the young people involved the supports necessary for successful rehabilitation and re-entry into their communities.
Smarter Sentencing Act: The Smarter Sentencing Act would reduce a variety of mandatory minimums to reduce unjustifiable disparities in sentencing and to reduce sentences for low risk offenders.
This "Humanizing Justice Systems Peacebuilding Cornerstone" is part of a new national initiative from The Peace Alliance entitled Be the Movement! Take a Step for Peace: In Your Life, In Our Communities, among Nations. You can learn more about humanizing Justice here, including: statistics on what is working and where the challenges are, links to great organizations and programs around the nation as well as ways you can get invovled to help make it happen.
Smarter Sentencing Act: The Smarter Sentencing Act would reduce a variety of mandatory minimums to reduce unjustifiable disparities in sentencing and to reduce sentences for low risk offenders.
It is time for us to embark on a new course forward, towards a justice that repairs harm done, instead of simply punishing. It's more sane, more effective and more humane.
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Juvenile Justice and the War on Teens
Jun 04, 2015
"Fundamental to this process is the idea of 'collective responsibility' . . ."
The study, released earlier this year, is called: "What Can the Cook County Juvenile Court Do to Improve Its Ability to Help Our Youth? A Juvenile Justice Needs Assessment."
Compiled by two Chicago institutions, the Mansfield Institute for Social Justice and Transformation at Roosevelt University and the Institute on Public Safety and Social Justice at Adler University, it's a well-documented plea for sanity.
Its fundamental finding will hardly be a surprise to anyone involved with the juvenile justice -- or any other kind of justice -- bureaucracy. Despite the enormous investment by governments at every level in court and penal systems, they don't work. That is to say, they make matters worse:
"In 2012, there were 29,822 juvenile arrests in Cook County. . . . While court intervention is intended to reduce the likelihood of future offending, research findings suggest that, in fact, the opposite is true.
". . . when compared to youth with comparable risk factors of adverse behavior and/or delinquency histories, but no juvenile court involvement, youth who appeared in court and received mild sentences (such as counseling, community service or restitution) were still 2.3 times more likely to incur adult criminal records; youth placed on probation were 14 times more likely to incur adult records; and, youth placed in a juvenile correctional institution were 38 times more likely to have adult records."
In other words, when kids start to go astray, the official reaction -- at a cost of multi-billions of dollars a year nationally -- is to push them further astray, intensifying the suffering of all involved, and, of course, wrecking whole communities. And, since the era of "zero tolerance" and "tough on crime," matters have only gotten worse.
Bureaucracies are nothing if not self-justifying, so there's no chance of core change emerging from the system itself: no chance of awareness that the principles of punishment and domination are antithetical to healing. Yet until a certain level of awareness enters the court system, what is called juvenile justice should more accurately be called a bureaucratic war on young people -- in particular, young people of color.
According to the study, pushing teenagers into the penal system: A) disrupts their connection to school, in particular, any special-ed services they might be entitled to; B) exacerbates any mental health issues they might have, increasing their risk of suicide; and C) increases their acceptance of criminal thinking and, what is obvious to everyone except the keepers of the system, substantially increases the likelihood that they'll break the law again and be back in court.
"Furthermore," the study points out, "participants identified the paradox of not being able to receive any preventative services for themselves and/or their children without first becoming involved with the juvenile justice system."
The fundamental lack of awareness that is manifest in the Cook County juvenile justice system cannot be tweaked into sensible behavior. Change to the system must be profound. The study all but cries for "a fundamental shift of mindset."
"Specifically needed," it states, "is a universally held agreement among court personnel and all juvenile justice stakeholders about the young people they serve. This process would be aimed at creating a shift in the mindset about how young people become touched by the system in the first place, including how particular communities of young people are systematically being prepared for the prison pipeline versus productive adulthood."
The system, whether it knows it or not, fits into America's "historical context of racism and social class exclusion and oppression."
The study proceeds to envision something extraordinary: a juvenile justice system that disconnects itself from the context of racial, class and economic domination and is not merely accountable to but works in crucial partnership with the communities it serves. More and more Chicago neighborhoods, for instance, are developing restorative justice and other mentoring programs that give young people a chance to express themselves fully and build peaceful relationships with one another. Juvenile Court, instead of breaking kids' ties with their communities, should facilitate the strengthening of those ties.
"Fundamental to this process is the idea of 'collective responsibility,' that this shift will require those both inside and outside of the system taking collective responsibility and that both must come together in order for our youth to succeed.
"The philosophical shift," the study continues, "could be steeped in the concept of Ubuntu, a South African term which reflects the ideas of connection, community and caring for all. It is stated in South Africa's Interim Constitution created in 1993: 'There is a need for understanding but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not for retaliation and need for ubuntu but not for victimization.'"
Ubuntu . . . a word and idea from tribal South Africa. I've heard it translated as: I am because you are. Desmond Tutu describes the concept as "the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself."
Knowing this, the court will now come to order.
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