Restorative Justice is becoming increasingly more popular. Its relevance has expanded beyond the criminal justice system and schools into C-suites and corporate board rooms across the country. This is undeniably a good thing.
Too often our lives are treated as transactional: you do X and I do Y. We become an algorithm and stripped entirely of the complexity that is humanity. Relationships become nothing more than distractions that cloud rational thinking. This is especially true when harm happens.
In our traditional, punitive, model when harm happens the only two questions worth exploring are: 1) who did it? And 2) what is their punishment? If there is any discussion of motivation it is only to highlight the grotesque nature of whatever harm was committed and is meant to justify an increase in whatever punitive punishment has already been levied out.
Restoration rejects this entire frame. In a restorative model the questions that are asked are: 1) why did the harm happen? And 2) what needs to be done to make amends? The ultimate goals of restoration are to honor the humanity of everybody involved, and to maintain the relationships necessary for thriving healthy communities.
One look at the homepage of any media outlet or front page of any newspaper and the need for restoration is abundantly clear. While there are many reasons for America to immediately embrace restorative justice here are three :
Nurtures Relationships and Communities
A truly restorative culture means community members are invested in their community and consider it a place in which they feel welcome, valued, and respected. When something impactful or painful happens in a place we care about, we are much more likely to feel committed to restoring and repairing harm. If someone within that setting doesn’t feel as though they are part of that community, there is nothing to restore to. Therefore the first, and most fundamental aspect of restorative justice, is creating communities where everyone is seen, honored, and valued. And then, when harm happens, it makes returning to that sense of harmony the ultimate goal of everybody involved.
Therefore, a restorative culture fundamentally can’t exist without a strong sense of community consisting of authentic relationships. Effective implementation of restorative practice includes intentional and strategic community building practices. In doing so we are seeking ways to create a collective environment in which everyone has input and at least one “person” they connect with on a deeper level.
A crucial part of building community is taking account of power. Restoration recognizes and balances power dynamics. This is why it has become a staple demand in schools. Restoration fosters a culture in which a student could approach their teacher and constructively voice concerns without fearing they will be minimized or punished. Just as importantly, it gives teachers permission to own harm they may have caused in their classroom. The same goes for the board room and all spaces in-between. When we account for power and act from a place of shared power it communicates value and respect. And, because of the intentionality around community and relationship development, the relationship is strong enough to engage in a productive conversation.
We all long for inclusion, and to be valued, but because we do not currently nurture these types of communities and relationships we often lack the tools and skills necessary for creating them. Luckily, restorative practices build these exact skills.
Builds Social Emotional Intelligence:
Engaging in restoration requires participants to have, or at least develop, a certain level of emotional intelligence. An important premise of restoration is determining WHY we did what we did and how our actions impacted others. The level of reflection needed for this to authentically happen involves being able to recognize our emotions and to understand how our emotions impacted our behavior.
In our current punitive model, we don’t create space for this level of emotional intelligence to develop. For example, in an educational setting we say “you are suspended” without allowing students the opportunity to understand the emotions at play so they can develop the skills needed to address those emotions and prevent future harm from occurring. Sending students home without allowing them to develop the tools necessary to recognize and manage the emotions emerging during conflict sets them up to continue causing harm and results in them feel more alienated from their community. This is problematic considering over 3.3 million students are suspended during any given school year (Department of Education, 2014). This same dynamic exists in the “real world” as well. If conflict happens in the workplace the “boss” wields the power to suspend employees or even to fire them without ever attempting to repair or find out why conflict happened in the first place.
In a restorative model, we recognize that mistakes are made and support individuals in developing their social-emotional capacity to ensure it doesn’t happen again. We validate the very normal, and very human, range of emotions we all experience. We encourage members in being vulnerable, in developing their emotional intelligence, and in identifying and practicing coping and emotional-regulation strategies. The skills developed within a restorative setting are practical and transferable to life personally, professionally, and socially.
One of the most emotionally charged areas of life has been front and center in the public discourse for several years: race and racism. Restorative justice offers hope for productive, authentic, and sustainable progress, even here.
Racial(and every other kind of) Justice: In the last several years issues of racial justice have dominated the public discourse. Starting with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, issues of racism have been a constant in news cycles, classrooms, and kitchen tables across the country. In the last two years the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd sparked global uprisings and marked a decisive moment in the history of racial justice in this country.
Not surprisingly, this has been met with extreme pushback, and has been the site of elevated and sustained conflicts both large and small. While these conflicts are rooted in the sophisticated and complex workings of race in America, restorative justice offers an invaluable foundation and path towards making concrete and sustained progress. It acknowledges the humanity that exists within each of us and creates a space in which we can recognize, call out and challenge bias that contributes to unfair treatment of BIPOC individuals.
One of the most commonly used adages in equity and justice spaces is intent vs. impact. It requires a focus on the impact of actions as opposed to the intent behind them. This is often an extremely difficult shift for people to make, especially people with privileged identities. Because restoration is not interested in finding out “who dunnit?” and punishing them, and because restoration doesn’t believe in “cancelling” anybody, restoration diffuses much of the defensiveness that comes with conversations around race and allows us to center impact.
With this frame we can start with the understanding that racism is a real thing, and begin to authentically engage with the truths that so many Black, Indigenous, Asian, and other communities of color have been telling us for centuries. More than that though, it allows those of us that are white to take more meaningful action on both the micro and the macro level. From the micro perspective, if and when we commit racialized harm, and it is brought to our attention, we can find courage in the tenet that nobody is disposable and that there is a place for us in a multiracial community. On the macro level it allows us to move past the flimsy position that no white person was alive during slavery or to ignore the mountains of data that clearly demonstrate the existence of racism in our society. When we are not worried about being punished, or labeled a bad person we can acknowledge the larger truth and take responsibility for repairing the harm that racism has caused for so long. Not because we are guilty but because we care about community.
Restorative justice is a complete paradigm shift, and that is scary. But the other side of that fear is a world where each person is seen and valued, and where harm and conflict makes communities stronger. In a world that has been ravaged by the individualistic punitive way of being, being restorative should be a welcome change of pace.
If you are interested in learning more about restorative justice join us on Saturday January 15th, 2022 for this Free 90 minute Fundamentals of Restorative Justice session.
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Photo by Kalea Morgan on Unsplash