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The Lens - December 2023
City of Iowa City sent this bulletin at 12/05/2023 10:00 AM CST
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December 2023 |
The Lens is the City’s newsletter to expand conversations on equity, inclusion, belonging, and access.
Upcoming Lens Webinars
Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years Presented by Bill Bigelow at noon on Thursday, Jan. 25,
2024. Bigelow is the curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools magazine and co-director of the Zinn
Education Project. He is the author or co-editor of many Rethinking Schools publications.
“We need to listen to a wider range of voices. We need to hear from those whose lands and rights
were taken away by those who “discovered” them. Their stories, too often suppressed, tell of of 500
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years of courageous struggle, and the lasting wisdom of native peoples. Understanding what really
happened to them in 1492 is key to understanding why people suffer the same injustices today.”
– Editors of Rethinking Columbus
Preregistration is required. You can register at this link.
Reforming Property Law to Address Devastating Land Loss Presented by Professor Thomas W.
Mitchell at noon on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024. Mitchell is a law professor and national expert on
property issues facing disadvantaged families and communities.
Preregistration is required. You can register at this link.
“There are many different aspects of property law and land use law … that have disserved
disadvantaged communities but that have been understudied and undertheorized. If we can get teams
of people to start looking at … those issues in a proactive and sustainable way, the work could
generate a much bigger impact.” - Professor Thomas W. Mitchell
2024 Black History Calendars
We have a limited number of complimentary 2024 Black History
calendars for community members. The calendars are available,
while supplies last, from 8 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.,
Monday through Friday in the Equity and Human Rights Office at
City Hall, 410 E. Washington Street. Please note the Office is
closed from noon – 1 p.m. daily. We can also send one to you via
standard mail - just drop us a note at humanrights@iowa-city.org.
The 2024 calendar features: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Sit-In
Movement, Wilma Rudolph, Simone Leigh, Thurgood Marshall, Bill
Russell, Robert L. Johnson, Cicely Tyson, Bessie Coleman, Elijah
McCoy, Frederick Douglass, and Ella Fitzgerald.
What is Restorative Justice?
In this country, society’s response to
wrongdoing is typically retributive: our justice
system focuses on punishment. A different
philosophy, however, is gaining traction.
In the 1970s, Howard Zehr began to develop
what has become known as “restorative
justice.” Known as the “grandfather” of restorative justice, Zehr directed the first formal victim-offender
conferencing program in the U.S., and currently directs the Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice at
Eastern Mennonite University. In the 50 years since Zehr began thinking about a new (or rather, very
old) approach to addressing crime, restorative justice has grown into a worldwide philosophy and
academic discipline with very practical applications. New Zealand’s entire juvenile justice system, for
example, is restorative.
What is it?
Traditional Western legal thought is concerned with identifying who is responsible for a crime and how
that person should be punished. Zehr noticed this leaves many needs unmet. First, victims often feel
ignored, neglected, even abused by the process. Crime is viewed as an action against the state - a
violation of laws - rather than a violation of the victim and the community. Second, offenders are not
only punished, but alienated and not given support to become better-functioning members of society.
Third, the traditional justice system completely ignores communities.
In contrast, restorative justice is entirely focused upon needs and relationships. In this sense, it is very
old. Many traditional cultures practice forms of restorative justice. Numerous African societies, the
Maori, the Navajo, and Buddhists, for example, all have a word that represents the sense of living in
harmony with each other, of being connected in a web of relationships that must not be disrupted.
When harm is done, it not only damages individual relationships, but also disturbs the well-being of the
entire community. Therefore, crime creates an obligation to make amends not only to the specific
victim, but also to the community. In addition, the community has an obligation to the wrongdoer: to
support their efforts to repair the damage and to reintegrate them into the community.
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The “who” and the “how” are important
True to its focus on relationships and needs, modern restorative justice can take many forms. Different
situations may call for different processes. Processes must be responsive to the situation and follow a
set of basic principles. The principles are these:
Crime is a violation of people and relationships.
Wrongdoing creates obligations.
The central obligation is to repair the harm, to the extent possible.
The primary concern is for healing for all - the victim, the offender, and the community. This does not
imply a lack of consequences, but the focus is not on punishment for punishment’s sake. The goals of
restorative justice include allowing those most affected by the harm to make key decisions, making
justice more healing for all involved, and reducing recidivism. When effective processes are used,
victims are highly involved; offenders come to understand how their actions affected not only the
victim, but also the community and themselves; offenders take responsibility and concrete actions to
make amends; and everyone gains a sense of closure and reintegration into the community.
To achieve this, practitioners of restorative justice must keep several central questions in mind. The
primary question is, who has been harmed? Although the obvious and primary answer is the victim,
restorative justice takes a wider view and asks also how the offender may have been harmed and how
the offender’s experiences may have led to who they are or what they have done. It also considers
how the community may have been harmed. Incidentally, restorative justice practitioners avoid using
the terms victim and offender, as they are too stereotypical. They prefer “those who have been
harmed” and “those who have caused harm” as more accurate and less judgmental labels. However,
we will use victim and offender here for brevity.
Once those who have been harmed are identified, the next question is, what are their needs?
Restorative justice considers the needs of all involved. Victims need information. Too often in the
criminal justice system, victims are secondary to the machinery of conviction and punishment. They
are not familiar with the legal system and are often not told what is happening and why. This leads to
victims feeling lost, angry, and re-victimized. Similarly, they need information from the offender,
answers to questions they may have about the event. All restorative justice processes seek to give the
victim as much clarity as possible.
Victims also need to tell their stories. Testimony in court is often dry and limited to the facts. Victims
may present a victim impact statement at sentencing, but this is limited and without interaction with the
offender. Part of the trauma of crime is that it upsets a victim’s sense of themselves and their place in
the world. Describing the full impact of the experience is therapeutic.
Another thing crime takes from victims is their sense of control. Crime disrupts a person’s control over
their body, their possessions, their emotions, their environment. Being involved in the process can help
a victim regain that sense of control.
Finally, victims need restitution or vindication. Victims need to be made whole to the extent possible.
Some crimes can’t be made right. A murdered child is gone forever. But even in these cases, some
sense of closure can be gained when an offender takes full responsibility for their actions and
recognizes the extent of the harm done. Although an apology cannot change what happened, it can
bring a measure of relief as an acknowledgment of the harm done.
Offenders need true accountability. Facing what one has done, being confronted by the full effects of
one’s actions, and taking an active role in making amends is often harder than simple punishment.
Offenders also need to experience a personal transformation - they need to heal from whatever
caused them to create harm, often need treatment for addictions, and often need help enhancing their
personal competence, whether in soft skills, such as dealing with stress and anger, or with concrete
skills such as job training. Offenders also need support to re-integrate into the community. An example
is those convicted of sex offenses. They are often released with little support, ostracized by their home
communities and feared by communities where they are not known. When they participate in
restorative justice practices such as support and accountability circles, their rates of recidivism decline.
Communities also have needs. In modern society, “the community” is often amorphous, but can be
viewed as those with a stake in the situation besides simply the victim and offender - family, friends,
neighbors, co-workers, fellow students - whoever is in some way connected to and affected by the
harm.
Core approaches
After identifying who has been harmed and what their needs are, restorative justice goes on to ask
what obligations the harm has created, who has a stake in the situation, what is the cause, and what is
an appropriate way to address and remedy the harm, which includes attention to preventing further
harm. While restorative justice processes are fluid to allow for individual circumstances, there are
several primary forms these processes take: victim/offender conferencing, family group conferencing,
and circles.
Victim/offender conferencing is just what it sounds like - a meeting between those who have harmed
and those who have been harmed. Sometimes a surrogate may take the place of an individual if it is
inappropriate or impossible to be involved. A trained facilitator always guides the process. The parties
work together to identify the harm and its effects, and a signed restitution agreement is often - but not
always - the result.
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Family group conferencing expands the participants to the families of both the victim and offender, and
may include de facto family, such as partners or roommates. The process follows that of
victim/offender conferencing, but widens the scope. The families participate in crafting the agreement
and in ensuring it is fulfilled.
Finally, circles may be used for several different purposes. In a circle process, participants sit in a
circle, with an object designated the “talking piece.” Passing the talking piece allows each person a
chance to speak uninterrupted in turn. A facilitator assists. Circles have been used to determine
sentencing, resolve ongoing conflicts, promote healing, provide support, and assist in accountability.
While these processes are the standard, restorative justice exists on a continuum. There are many
programs that incorporate elements of restorative justice without being exclusively so. For example,
some programs bring together groups of victims and offenders who are not involved in the same
harms. Still, these groups serve an important healing function, as they allow victims to tell their stories
and offenders to understand consequences in general. Fundamentally, restorative justice is concerned
with restoring balance and harmony where it has been disturbed.
Learn more
Those interested in learning more about restorative justice can visit the Zehr Institute website or read
any of Howard Zehr’s books and articles, especially The Little Book of Restorative Justice, from which
the information for this article was obtained.
Questions?
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