Restorative Justice Program Comes to Armstrong High

There has been a hiatus in my blogs, as getting the program described below up and running has been my primary focus for the past several weeks. The article below was written by Rudolph Hickman after he observed a day of training that we gave for school staff. It was published on Aug. 26, 2011 at Examiner.com. My thanks to Rudy for his permission to share his thoughts on the program with you!

Restorative Justice Program Comes to Armstrong High

By  Rudolph Hickman

We have all heard the saying “It takes a village to raise a child”.  While almost all would agree with the sentiment of this axiom, there are probably only a few who know how to give life to its spirit in a public school setting.  September 6th marks the first day of school for students in the Richmond area.  Along with the anticipation, acclimation and re-adjustment that accompanies the return to school for some students there will be conflict as well. 

Whether generated by student’s allegiance to their ‘hood’, old feuds, or the host of other reasons people engage in behaviors that generate conflict, one thing is certain – the conflict will come and it must be addressed and resolved in a manner that does not put the entire school community in peril.

Armstrong High School, now Armstrong/Kennedy, has always been a school on the cusp of change.  Indeed during its day of being one of two segregated High Schools in Richmond (Maggie L. Walker was the other), Armstrong has a storied tradition of producing some of the city’s most esteemed political, business, athletic and community leaders.  In 1979, Armstrong High and Kennedy High were combined to create the Armstrong/Kennedy High School Complex.  The schools were later merged in 2004 due to dwindling populations and given the name Armstrong to reflect the school’s stellar community history.

Just as is the case in other locales where economics have precipitated the merger of schools and a departure from the concept of neighborhood schools, Armstrong has had its challenges in combating and resolving the conflicts that can be associated with having vast numbers of students from different neighborhoods and community cultures occupying the same space.

This year, however, Armstrong is implementing The Restorative Justice Program which is designed to address and resolve conflict in a more community oriented way.  According to literature handed out at a meeting yesterday, the pilot program seeks to change the typical school culture in which conflict is addressed by a few administrators in a punitive way, to a more holistic approach that involves the entire school community or village.

This approach, advocates say, allows the collective school community to be active participants in regulating the behavior of its members and meting out justice in a way that does not alienate the offender and weaken the well-being of the community overall.  Restorative justice also provides opportunities for the involved parties, parents, school administrators and facilitation specialists to discuss the causes of the conflict and jointly develop an appropriate punishment for the offense.

“Restorative justice”, says Sylvia Clute, Program Coordinator of Armstrong’s Restorative Justice Program, “gets to the core issues involved in the conflict and offers the promise of healing and hope by allowing the entire school community to participate in conflict resolution”.  This inclusiveness, Clute says, has great potential for strengthening the community at large.

Partners in the implementation of this new approach to resolving debilitating conflict are The Richmond Public Schools; The City of Richmond’s Department of Justice Services; Restorative Youth Services of Virginia and The Communities In Schools Department staff at Armstrong. During this first year of operation, the program will target all 9th graders; Performance Learning Center students; transfer students; and students who are returning to school after having been suspended, expelled or released from juvenile correctional facilities.

As the clock ticks down to the first day of school, staffs of the various implementing agencies including volunteers are putting the final touches on the program in anticipation of positively impacting the overall strength of Armstrong’s school community and greatly reducing the number of conflicts, violent altercations, and interventions by members of the juvenile justice system and the courts.

Hopefully, one day very soon, when we hear the phrase “It takes a village to raise a child”, we will think of Armstrong’s Restorative Justice Program and have a better sense of how to give meaning to this concept.

 * * * * * * * * * *

More on the Armstrong program to come . . . . 

Is Absolute Accountability a Good Thing?

In the blog that I posted on 7-14-11, Cutting Off Your Nose to Spite Your Face, I cited George Friedman’s article, Libya and the Problem with the Hague. He argues that, when atrocities are taking place, deciding how to respond can present a difficult moral dilemma. Is it better to grant amnesty to the perpetrator in return for an end to the violence or to pursue the perpetrator until he can be held accountable for all of crimes he has committed, even though this means more innocent people will be harmed before this occurs?  

In South Africa, this dilemma was resolved in favor of amnesty. A negotiated political process provided for the transfer of governmental authority to black South Africans, but a part of the agreement provided for a non-judicial truth commission to review events and for prosecutions to be severely limited.

Friedman asks if that South African agreement were entered today, “with the [International Criminal Court] in place and ‘Spanish magistrates’ loose, how likely would it be that the white government would be willing to make the political concessions needed to transfer power? Would an agreement among the South Africans have trumped the jurisdiction of the ICC or another forum? Without the absolute certainty of amnesty, would the white leadership have capitulated?”

Today, International Criminal Court indictments may be used to legitimize bombing campaigns by Western countries as humanitarian intervention, but they leave little room for negotiated settlements. Friedman asserts that an independent judiciary that is impervious to political realities can create catastrophes in the name of justice. He asks, “If it means that thousands must die because the need to punish the guilty is an absolute, is that justice? Just as important, does it serve to alleviate or exacerbate human suffering?”

In his article, Friedman shares a poignant, personal application of this moral dilemma:

Consider a hypothetical. Assume that in the summer of 1944, Adolph Hitler had offered to capitulate to the allies if they would grant him amnesty. Giving Hitler amnesty would have been monstrous, but at the same time, it would have saved a year of war and a year of the holocaust. From a personal point of view, the summer of 1944 was when deportation of Hungarian Jews was at its height. Most of my family died that fall and winter. Would leaving Hitler alive been worth it to my family and millions of others on all sides?

In the case a tyrannical dictator, granting amnesty means the tyrant escapes punishment in return for his abdication and the end of atrocities. It allows people who would have died to live. On the other hand, we believe that punishment is necessary to deter others from doing the same. Friedman argues that this is a false hope.

Men like Gadhafi, Milosevic, Karadzic and Hitler grow accustomed to living with death long before they take power. . . . Such leaders constitute an odd, paradoxical category of men who will risk everything for power, and then guard their lives and power with everything. It is hard to frighten them, and harder still to have them abandon power without guarantees.

Friedman observes that it is those who seek absolute accountability who regard themselves as committed to humanitarianism. He sees this as a misconception. Are there times when forgiving tyrants is the better course of action? 

Vengeance: Cutting Off Your Nose to Spite Your Face?

When we extract our pound of flesh in response to a heinous wrong that is on-going, believing this is necessary to deter others from ever doing the same thing, we confront a moral dilemma. Is it better to grant amnesty to the perpetrator in return for an end of the crimes being committed or to pursue the perpetrator until he is held accountable for all of the past crimes he has committed, even though this means that more innocent people will be harmed before this occurs?  

In a recent Stratfor report, Libya and the Problem with the Hague, George Friedman explains why this is one of the great moral dilemmas of our militarily sophisticated age. He uses Libya as an example of where this moral dilemma is being confronted today.

While western nations expected Moammar Gadhafi’s regime to wither in the face of a substantial opposition movement and NATO’s broadside attack, the opposite has occurred. While the civilian population is being uprooted, injured and many innocent people are being killed, there is presently no end to the destruction in sight. Gadhafi’s faction has been stronger and more cohesive than imagined and his enemies weaker and more divided.

Friedman contends that, under the circumstances, this is not unusual. It has been a characteristic of what we often call “humanitarian wars,” those intended to remove a repressive regime and replace it a representative democracy.  

It was hoped that the present Libyan government would lose its control and this would lead Gadhafi to enter negotiations to concede control. Friedman contends that the existence of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which became operational in 2002 in The Hague, Netherlands, is a major reason why this is not going to happen.

“The ICC has jurisdiction, under U.N. mandate, to prosecute individuals who have committed war crimes, genocide and other crimes against humanity. Its jurisdiction is limited to those places where recognized governments are unwilling or unable to carry out their own judicial processes.” This leads to an unintended consequence.

“Rather than serving as a tool for removing war criminals from power, it tends to enhance their power and remove incentives for capitulation or a negotiated exit.” Friedman argues that what happened to Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia under similar circumstances is a major disincentive for Gadhafi to negotiate. Gadhafi has been indicted by the ICC, as Milosevic had been when the civil war in Serbia was at a similar standoff.   

Friedman points out that Gadhafi did not manage to rule Libya for 42 years without substantial support. No doubt, most of Gadhafi's henchmen are also guilty of serious war crimes and crimes against humanity. The same was true of Milosevic.

Despite NATO attacks, as long as Milosevic refused to cede his authority, there were enough loyalists in the government who feared that, if Milosevic sank, they would sink in the same ship, that they formed a united front, determined to stay in control as long as possible. What did they have to lose? The end of the Milosevic regime in Serbia was a one-way ticket to the ICC for him and possibly his supporters.

In fact, this is what happened after a nominally pro-Western government took control. It issued an arrest warrant for Milosevic and sent him to The Hague to be prosecuted. “The Milosevic case illustrates the inherent risk an indicted leader will face when the government falls in the hands of the opposition.” Gadhafi is no doubt aware of what happened in Serbia.

What about a political agreement that Gadhafi receive amnesty in return for an end of the atrocities? The problem, according to Friedman, is that there is no political authority Gadhafi can deal with that can hold the ICC in abeyance. As with American courts, the ICC's authority is independent of the usual political process, which is needed to ensure its independence.

The result is that the political process is rendered moot by making amnesty impossible. As the ICC was a product of the United Nations, perhaps the UN Security Council could negotiate a binding agreement for amnesty, but the complex political situation that exists within the Security Council makes that unlikely.

Friedman concludes, “So the domestic political process is trumped by The Hague’s legal process, which can only be trumped by the UNSC’s political process. A potentially simple end to a civil war escalates to global politics.”

Today the ICC is not the only authority that can claim jurisdiction in crimes against humanity. It was a Spanish magistrate, a minor figure in the Spanish legal system, that claimed jurisdiction over Augusto Pinochet, a former brutal dictator of Chili. Pinochet had left power pursuant to at carefully negotiated political process, but was extradited to Spain from Britain where he was visiting.

Instead of undermining men like Gadhafi, the apparatus established to hold him accountable aborts the possibility of a political process ever solving the problem without a clear military victory. This means the only resolution is a fight to the deadly end – at a high cost to the civilians who are caught in the crossfire.

Friedman argues that so long as political authority is trumped by judicial authority, nations are denied the authority to negotiate binding agreements that transfer control from dictators to representative democracies before the fighting ends. In the meantime, civilians suffer in the name of bringing wrongdoers to justice (i.e., punitive justice).

Is the need for vengeance in such circumstances like cutting off your nose to spite your face? What is the better moral choice?

Afrocentric Justice: Unitive Justice by Another Name?

Dr. Morris Jenkins, an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Toledo, uses culture as a frame through which to consider the issue of justice. Through this lens, he distinguishes between Afrocentric justice and Eurocentric justice.

In an article in VOMA Connections titled Afrocentric Restorative Justice, Jenkins compares the cultural aspects of Eurocentric justice to Afrocentric justice. 

Group Dimension	Eurocentric Model of Justice (The current legal system)	Afrocentric Model of Justice (Culturally Specific)
Cosmology (Worldview)	Control of others. Decisions should be made by a third party (i.e. Judges and legal system).	All parties make decisions equally. Community has the  same voice as offender and victim.
Axiology (Values)	Individualistic/Materialistic. What benefits the individual is important.	Communal Orientation. Relationship with the community is primary.
Ontology (Nature of People)	Humans can be good or bad. Humans who are bad need to be punished	Humans are naturally good. Community should support everyone.
Epistemology (Source of Knowing)	Self; validation through the scientific method. Strictly secular.	Spiritual Source is primary.

                                                Reprinted with the author’s permission

I find that these two models align with what I call punitive justice and unitive justice. (For a chart of the differences between these two, see Unitive and Punitive Justice Reflect States of Mind.)

What Jenkins calls Afrocentric justice and what I call unitive justice are found in many traditions. Each of the major religious traditions teach about this model of justice, some calling it the Golden Rule, others calling it lovingkindness, steadfast love, hesed in Judaism or, as in Islam, wishing for others what you wish for yourself.

According to Jenkins, not all restorative justice models qualify as Afrocentric.  He has a category that he calls the Enculturated model of justice. I believe that he uses this term to describe the model of restorative justice that remains linked to the criminal courts.

                                           

Enculturated Model of Justice (Usually culturally sensitive but not culturally specific)

Individual involved in the “process” make decisions. Victim needs and offender responsibility dominate.

Quasi-individualistic. Relationship between victim and offender is primary.

Humans are good, but there are some bad “seeds” that need to be treated or rehabilitated.

Self and spirit is secondary.

Jenkins describes the importance of looking at justice through the lens of culture as follows:

“After exploring a social problem through an Afrocentric lens, the remedy or solution of the problem should be grounded in an "African-centered” approach. The primary focus is not retribution for the criminal act, the rehabilitation of the offender to a perfect Eurocentric citizen, or even the compensation of the victim. The Afrocentric approach does not ignore these concerns; however the liberation of the community is its primary concern. A true understanding of one's culture is needed to achieve emancipatory literacy: the ability to conceptualize the world in ways consistent with one’s history and to apply that knowledge as one’s personality and situation requires.”

If Jenkins is correct, for those who are seeking to introduce a restorative model of justice into an African American community, framing the new model as Afrocentric justice may be helpful. However, it seems that the model needs to meet the criteria for unitive justice in order to qualify as Afrocentric justice.

Restorative Youth Services of Virginia

With the introduction of each new restorative justice service provider, the field becomes stronger. Richmond, Virginia now has its second restorative justice organization, Restorative Youth Services of Virginia (RYSOV). It was founded on April 14, 2011 and received its 501(c)(3) status in record time, on March 10.

RYSOV’s services will be based on a model of justice that assumes humans are naturally good and that the community should support everyone. This model is known by several names, including restorative community, Afrocentric justice and unitive justice. 

Dr. Morris Jenkins, an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Toledo, calls this model of justice Afrocentric justice. In my book, Beyond Vengeance, I call it unitive justice. Each of the major religious traditions teach about this model of justice, some calling it the Golden Rule, others calling it lovingkindness, steadfast love, hesed in Judaism or, as in Islam, wishing for others what you wish for yourself.  

As it is compatible with this model of justice, in its programs, RYSOV will primarily use the Restorative Circle process created by Dominic Barter in the poor neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is a non-directive, non-judgmental process for engaging conflict, designed to get at the underlying conflict dynamic and heal the brokenness that often gives rise to conflict.

To prepare its facilitators, one of RYSOV’s first projects will be to have Duke Duchscherer offer Restorative Circle training in Richmond the weekend of July 29-31. He has facilitated training in Restorative Circles and Nonviolent Communication in India, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Spain, Canada and the United States. 

The first major undertaking by RYSOV will be to implement a whole school restorative program at Armstrong High School in Richmond’s East End. This program, funded by a Title II grant, is being done in collaboration with the Richmond Public Schools, the Richmond Department of Justice Services and Communities in Schools – Richmond.

Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz, nationally acclaimed restorative justice expert and author, will advise on the program design and assess its compliance with best practices. James and Marian Payne, founding donors to the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University, are advisers to RYSOV on how to incorporate restorative practices into a school setting. They are both educators and James taught curriculum to graduate students for many years.

Jim Mustin, well-known in Virginia for his years of experience in the fields of restorative justice and corrections, is the Circle Facilitation and Training Coordinator for RYSOV. Donna Chewning, who also serves as the Restorative Justice Program Coordinator for the Roanoke Valley, is the Assistant Program Coordinator. Volunteer facilitators are being trained to provide Restorative Circles at the school.

I am the Program Coordinator for the Armstrong program and will be at the school full time beginning in the fall. I gave up my trial practice in 2003 and feel like I am, at last, on a path that is in harmony with my present understanding of justice. 

Creating Statutes to Deliver Restorative Justice

Many U.S. state codes, as yet, make no reference to restorative justice. Then there are several states with statutes that refer to restorative justice as a process that may be provided under various circumstances, without going into detail. However, a small but growing number of state statutes establish a comprehensive system for providing restorative justice services. Here is a sampling of the diverse approaches being taken by some states.

Colorado recently enacted one of the most comprehensive U.S. restorative justice systems so far. Title 19, Art. 2, Part 2, Sec. 19-2-213. Restorative justice coordinating council  provides for a "restorative justice coordinating council" to be established in the state judicial department within the office of the state court administrator. This council is to “support the development of restorative justice programs, serve as a central repository for information, assist in the development and provision of related education and training, and provide technical assistance to entities engaged in or wishing to develop restorative justice programs.”

The Colorado general assembly declared that its intent is “to establish a juvenile diversion program that, when possible, integrates restorative justice practices to provide community-based alternatives to the formal court system that will reduce juvenile crime and recidivism, change juvenile offenders' behavior and attitudes, promote juvenile offenders' accountability, recognize and support the rights of victims, heal the harm to relationships and the community caused by juvenile crime, and reduce the costs within the juvenile justice system.”

Vermont’s Tit. 28 Sec. 2a titled “Restorative justice” provides that it is the policy of that state “that principles of restorative justice be included in shaping how the criminal justice system responds to persons charged with or convicted of criminal offenses. The policy goal is a community response to a person's wrongdoing at its earliest onset, and a type and intensity of sanction tailored to each instance of wrongdoing.”

Vermont’s approach to implementation is less formal than that of Colorado. It charges law enforcement officials with developing and employing restorative justice approaches whenever feasible and responsive to specific criminal acts, court diversion, sentencing, and people who are in the correctional system. These restorative justice programs are to encourage “participation by local community members, including victims, when they so choose, as well as public officials, in holding offenders accountable for damage caused to communities and victims, and in restoring offenders to the law-abiding community.”

Vermont’s policy objectives are to:

(1) Resolve conflicts and disputes by means of a nonadversarial community process.

(2) Repair damage caused by criminal acts to communities in which they occur, and to address wrongs inflicted on individual victims.

(3) Reduce the risk of an offender committing a more serious crime in the future, that would require a more intensive and more costly sanction, such as incarceration.

  

Florida’s Stat. Ch. 985.155, titled “Neighborhood restorative justice,” authorizes the state attorney to establish Restorative Justice Boards consisting of five volunteer members, of which: two are appointed by the state attorney; two are appointed by the public defender; and one is appointed by the chief judge of the circuit. These boards have jurisdiction to hear all matters involving first-time, nonviolent juvenile offenders who are alleged to have committed a delinquent act within the geographical area covered by the board.

The Florida state attorney may also establish Neighborhood Restorative Justice Centers for the purpose of operating a deferred prosecution program for first-time, nonviolent juvenile offenders. If the state attorney refers a juvenile matter to a Neighborhood Restorative Justice Center, the board is required to convene a meeting within 15 days after receiving the referral.

The participation by a juvenile in Florida’s deferred prosecution program through a Neighborhood Restorative Justice Center is voluntary. A condition precedent is that the juvenile “must take responsibility for the actions which led to the current accusation. The juvenile and the juvenile’s parent or legal guardian must waive the juvenile’s right to a speedy trial and the right to be represented by a public defender while in the Neighborhood Restorative Justice program.” However, this waiver and acknowledgment of responsibility is not to be construed as an admission of guilt in future proceedings.

Kansas has taken a more limited approach that those described above. Kan. Stat. 38-2346, titled “Immediate intervention programs,” provides that “each county or district attorney may adopt a policy and establish guidelines for an immediate intervention program by which a juvenile may avoid prosecution. In addition to the county or district attorney adopting policies and guidelines for the immediate intervention programs, the court, the county or district attorney and the director of the intake and assessment center, pursuant to a written agreement, may develop local diversion  programs that permit cases to be referred by the county or district attorney or the intake and assessment worker, or both, to youth courts, restorative justice centers, hearing officers or other local programs as sanctioned by the court.”

In each state having a restorative justice statute, there was no doubt a small number of committed people who devoted untold hours toward reforming the criminal law policy. All in all, these statutes represent a good start toward a significant modification of our concept of justice, from proportional revenge to restoration.

Unacknowledged Victims of State Executions

When the state executes an offender, many people see it as justice done. A harm has been answered with a proportional measure of harm. But for Susannah Sheffer, that is not the end of the matter. Sheffer is the project director for the international nonprofit, Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights (MVFHR). She works closely with survivors of homicide victims and the families of the executed, and has studied the impact of state executions on the attorneys who handle the habeas corpus appeals. She says that many of these attorneys had never been asked about the emotional impact of representing clients on death row before she contacted them.

Walter C. Long is a criminal defense attorney who has represented Texas death row inmates in their final appeals for many years. He founded the nonprofit Texas After Violence Project, an oral history project designed to listen empathetically to people directly affected by criminal violence and state executions. He is now a graduate student in psychology, studying trauma systems.

Sheffer’s and Long’s workshop at the recent 14^th IIRP International Restorative Justice Conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia focused on victims of the death penalty who go mostly unrecognized: the families of the executed and the defense attorneys who handle their death penalty appeals.

For the families of the executed, the period of bereavement begins before the death. The trauma includes shopping for a casket for a loved one who is going to be murdered - before it happens. The exact date and time of their death is known. If a stay of execution is granted at the last minute, there is joy over the victory that is often followed by the execution that was merely delayed. Then there is the death certificate that describes the cause of death as homicide. We ambiguously identify the perpetrator of this murder as “the state.” Who killed their son, daughter, brother or father for “the state”?

We rarely consider the impact on the children of the executed. How do you explain to the children that the “state of Texas” killed their dad? How does this impact their future relationship with the state? How to they reconcile being told that killing is wrong, but it was okay for “the state” to kill their dad?

Misty was 14 when her dad was charged with a capitol offense and 28 when he was executed. There were no victims’ advocates ready to help her. Misty tried to commit suicide after her father’s execution.

Among the Texas After Violence Project's reports of stories located at the University of Texas’ Human Rights Documentation Initiative is a video of Jamaal, Napoleon Beazley’s younger brother. After Napoleon was put on death row for a crime he committed at age 17, Jamaal lost his parent’s attention during the years they were consumed with Napoleon’s appeals. Every weekend for 7 or 8 years Jamaal and his parents visited his brother on death row. Napoleon was executed three days before Jamaal graduated from high school. After that, Jamaal’s father seemed to pull away, which Jamaal speculates is because of the pain of losing one son, and not wanting to be hurt that deeply again. The family’s grief was in essence “disenfranchised” because the loss could not be openly mourned or socially acknowledged. There was no space for the mitigation of Jamaal's loss.

There is little space for the family members of the executed to discuss their grief. They face the question, do you hold a funeral, and if so, who should attend? They are innocent people who often feel ostracized.

What can be done about this? If we recognize the family members of the executed as victims, how will we define the framework for meeting their needs; is it state violence, a human rights violation, a murder? Who should provide counseling: school counselors, therapists, victim rights advocates, human rights activists?

Long briefly described what it is like to handle a couple of rounds of habeas corpus appeals. A direct appeal attorney reviews the trial transcript. The habeas lawyer looks for errors that are mainly located outside the transcript, for example ineffective assistance of trial counsel or state misconduct. Sometimes the case may be re-investigated for innocence. If a stay of execution is secured, sometimes even a few months later the execution may nonetheless proceed.

As the attorney charged with trying to stop the execution, he developed a sense of responsibility to prevent it. While he intellectually knew that his client’s death was not his fault, Long described it like seeing someone tied to the railroad tracks when the train is coming, and being powerless to stop it. Sometimes he spent the last hours before the execution with family members: a hysterical mother, a sobbing brother. After an execution he sometimes experienced nightmares or panic, feeling like the bedroom door was locked and he couldn’t get out.

Sheffer described signs of recurring trauma that she had found in defense attorneys she had interviewed:  hyper arousal, insomnia, depression, panic upon seeing a film depicting an execution, or periods of disassociation when they couldn’t be around people, even their friends. Even when such symptoms subside, she said, attorneys reported "an abiding sadness that never goes away."

Sheffer has interviewed 20 post-conviction attorneys who had lost at least one client to execution, and described this as unexplored territory - they are suffering in ways that haven't yet been attended to. These attorneys are expected to continue to practice law right away, and many do, but they may remain traumatized for months after the client is executed. Many do not recognize the trauma they have experienced - another unrecognized victim of state executions.

The position of MVFHR is that the death penalty is a human rights violation. Articles 3 and 5 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights protect the right to life, and the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhumane, or degrading punishment or treatment. They assert that human rights supercede government policies, and thus, the death penalty should be abolished by all nations.