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nothing. The whole idea in the retributive system is to say you’re not guilty and not own up. Pretty soon, you start believing the denial, and reality recedes into the back corner. But real restitution comes when the person acknowledges his misdeed and receives reassurances that his apology is accepted. That restores his individual dignity.”
Forgiveness not required
Marty Price, director of VORP Information and Resource Center in Camas, Wash., explains it’s important to note that a rapid decision to not hate the offenders and to forgive them, as Ward-Kaiser did, is atypical. “Most folks are likely to have a retributive reaction, and they may or may not choose to go beyond that,” he explains. It can take years, if ever, for crime victims to come to a point of releasing their anger and hatred or to forgive their offenders. For true healing to occur, Price warns it’s important to not impose any guilt or to push offenders to take that step.
Many RJ and VORP mediators have seen victims of even violent crime forgive their offenders, sometimes quickly but more often after a long time, even years. However, true forgiveness must arise within the person; it cannot be imposed from outside. “If you try to facilitate it,” warns Price, “that makes it more likely it won’t occur.” Thus, forgiveness is never a stated goal of RJ or VORP.
Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz agrees. Director of the Mennonite Central Committee on Crime and Justice, she says this about forgiveness and crime victims: “We have too often used the ‘forgive and forget’ language rather than the ‘forgive and remember’ language when working with crime victims. We need to give them permission to remember, which will hopefully mean being with them as they struggle to reconstruct their lives, because they cannot forget.”
She recalls a 20-year-old case where the offender got life in prison and the victim was unwilling to meet with him but asked Amstutz to relay the message that she forgave him after all those years. Amstutz doesn’t know how or why the woman reached her decision, but says it was equally powerful for the inmate to hear those words. “It was a dream come true,” she says, “and something he never expected to hear.”
There’s another reason why RJ does not require forgiveness. Some victims who are unable to forgive feel guilty because their religion tells them they must. Kay Pranis, a Restorative Justice planner at the Minnesota Dept. of Corrections, explains this. “There’s a whole lot of baggage around forgiveness related to how faith communities have approached it and have placed it as a burden on people who are hurting,” she says. “It directs them to forgive without first hearing their pain. They are told it’s what you are to do to honor God, but they are not held in their pain, and it becomes another wound for people.”
Community is also healed
One major failing of the traditional justice system, say RJ proponents, is that it ignores restoration of the community. Crime affects entire communities in webs that can stretch far beyond the original participants. Restoring victims and offenders goes a long way to restoring their communities. If, for example, an early RJ intervention with juvenile offenders causes them to back away from crime, the community becomes a safer place in the present and also in the future. In cases like drunk driving fatalities, decisions like Avila’s to continue speaking about the impact of his actions reduces the possibility of other such accidents.
Says Pranis, “Restorative Justice has the potential to reshape the relationships of both victims and offenders to they world they live in, particularly around the possibilities for relationships – relationships that allow truth to be told, and change to be fully acknowledged, and knowing there is a way forward. This is powerful not just for the victim and offender, but for the community.”
Amstutz, Claassen, and others are working to bring RJ to all areas of society, including schools and workplaces. Creating a safe space to work out disputes early on prevents more harm later and does not require punitive responses that often alienate the offender, says Claassen. “Restore and be reasonable – that will ultimately bring us together,” he says.
Pranis believes RJ is “more important for community-building than for resolving individual crime events,” but it’s the mediation that brings people together and can change the nature of their relationships in a positive manner. “Isolation, disconnection, no sense of reciprocity with the larger community – if we could change this, people would be less likely to do harm to others,” she says.
Forgiveness not required
Marty Price, director of VORP Information and Resource Center in Camas, Wash., explains it’s important to note that a rapid decision to not hate the offenders and to forgive them, as Ward-Kaiser did, is atypical. “Most folks are likely to have a retributive reaction, and they may or may not choose to go beyond that,” he explains. It can take years, if ever, for crime victims to come to a point of releasing their anger and hatred or to forgive their offenders. For true healing to occur, Price warns it’s important to not impose any guilt or to push offenders to take that step.
Many RJ and VORP mediators have seen victims of even violent crime forgive their offenders, sometimes quickly but more often after a long time, even years. However, true forgiveness must arise within the person; it cannot be imposed from outside. “If you try to facilitate it,” warns Price, “that makes it more likely it won’t occur.” Thus, forgiveness is never a stated goal of RJ or VORP.
Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz agrees. Director of the Mennonite Central Committee on Crime and Justice, she says this about forgiveness and crime victims: “We have too often used the ‘forgive and forget’ language rather than the ‘forgive and remember’ language when working with crime victims. We need to give them permission to remember, which will hopefully mean being with them as they struggle to reconstruct their lives, because they cannot forget.”
She recalls a 20-year-old case where the offender got life in prison and the victim was unwilling to meet with him but asked Amstutz to relay the message that she forgave him after all those years. Amstutz doesn’t know how or why the woman reached her decision, but says it was equally powerful for the inmate to hear those words. “It was a dream come true,” she says, “and something he never expected to hear.”
There’s another reason why RJ does not require forgiveness. Some victims who are unable to forgive feel guilty because their religion tells them they must. Kay Pranis, a Restorative Justice planner at the Minnesota Dept. of Corrections, explains this. “There’s a whole lot of baggage around forgiveness related to how faith communities have approached it and have placed it as a burden on people who are hurting,” she says. “It directs them to forgive without first hearing their pain. They are told it’s what you are to do to honor God, but they are not held in their pain, and it becomes another wound for people.”
Community is also healed
One major failing of the traditional justice system, say RJ proponents, is that it ignores restoration of the community. Crime affects entire communities in webs that can stretch far beyond the original participants. Restoring victims and offenders goes a long way to restoring their communities. If, for example, an early RJ intervention with juvenile offenders causes them to back away from crime, the community becomes a safer place in the present and also in the future. In cases like drunk driving fatalities, decisions like Avila’s to continue speaking about the impact of his actions reduces the possibility of other such accidents.
Says Pranis, “Restorative Justice has the potential to reshape the relationships of both victims and offenders to they world they live in, particularly around the possibilities for relationships – relationships that allow truth to be told, and change to be fully acknowledged, and knowing there is a way forward. This is powerful not just for the victim and offender, but for the community.”
Amstutz, Claassen, and others are working to bring RJ to all areas of society, including schools and workplaces. Creating a safe space to work out disputes early on prevents more harm later and does not require punitive responses that often alienate the offender, says Claassen. “Restore and be reasonable – that will ultimately bring us together,” he says.
Pranis believes RJ is “more important for community-building than for resolving individual crime events,” but it’s the mediation that brings people together and can change the nature of their relationships in a positive manner. “Isolation, disconnection, no sense of reciprocity with the larger community – if we could change this, people would be less likely to do harm to others,” she says.
