Restorative Justice: Do We REALLY Know What We're Doing?

Throughout the last five or so years, restorative justice has taken public school system by storm. I am not saying I'm anti RJ, but there's so much that troubles me (so, I guess, in reality, I'm not really a fan). I think restorative justice looks great on paper much in the way communism does. You're probably thinking. Woooooh. Communism? That's a stretch! Is this lady nuts? Hear me out. If you look at the true and original intention of communism, it was created to create a classless system; instant equality. Everyone was slated to have the same things which were publicly owned. On paper, it sounds great; everyone contributes and no one has better stuff than anyone else; however, the part of the equation the creators did not factor in was that of human intention. Because some humans had malicious intent and were greedy and coveted power and money, the outcome? Corruption, abuse, and the death of individual thought. Unintended consequences. Bummer, right?

On paper, the concept behind restorative justice is also great. The guilty person sits with his or her victim and they discuss the impact that the wrong doing had on the victim and the community. The offender acknowledges the harm that he or she caused, is made to see the error of his or her ways, asks the victim for forgiveness, and justice is restored. Cue in Queen's "You're My Best Friend." All is right in the world. The adults feel fulfilled and use words like "life changing" to describe the experience. I am not making light of it. Educators desperately want those watershed moments. Most of us got into this field for this very reason.

Okay, that's a beautiful picture just like the one Karl Marx tried to paint, but once again there's that big fat nuisance: human intention. Let us try to remember that we are dealing with kids, and kids are, well, kids. It always floors me when parents get all holier than thou and say, "Are you calling my kid a liar?" Yup, I am. I'm sure there's an exception out there: the Tom Brady of truth tellers. Realistically? It's not likely. I lied as a kid. You lied as a kid. Kids lie. The ultimate goal as a kid is to not get caught and to get away with whatever shit they got themselves into. Does it make them bad? NO! Is it a reflection of parenting? NO! Again, they are kids. But, man, adults can be dense at times. There is absolutely no way to measure the true intention of the offender. You are putting 100% of your faith that the offender has the truest of intentions. That he or she honestly has a vested interest in repairing the harm they inflicted and helping heal the person they hurt. So what's the big yank?

Well, the real problem is... what happens to the victim? More times than not, we are so hyper focused on "fixing" the offender that we don't realize that we are actually re-victimizing the victim. You're probably thinking, "Huh?" Many times, we offer incentives for participating in RJ. The incentive is usually a less severe punishment such as two days of in-school suspension instead of five days of out-of-school suspension. That's just an example. What kid wouldn't want a more lenient penalty? And if the kid doesn't care, the parent usually does. There's often a mentality that I go in there and say what they want me to say and it's over, right? Wrong.

For the victim, he or she has to sit before the very person who hurt them and re-live the offense. God only knows how traumatic it was to begin with. . There are so many factors of leverage one would never think of that exist in the world of kids that adults are often blind to: popularity, power, the inability to say no, fear, attention, and the list can go on for quite some time. So with this model, the victim is made to hash it all out again, many times, with the absence of pure intention. Then what? What is the real result? The offenders get what he or she wants (leniency) and the victim is made to suffer a second time. Teachers are not therapists which is a topic for a whole other article. Many times, teachers go through a brief training to become mediators, but, in my opinion, it is no where near what is needed to be responsibly qualified. Psychology is not something we should use the close enough mentality with.

There is no real way to measure the intentions of both parties. When I first examined the concept, I remember discussing it with my husband who is a sergeant in corrections. At the time, he worked in a shock camp and as I was explaining it to him, he rolled his eyes and said, "yep, that's what the inmates do," and as we spoke about it, I realized that it was eerily similar. I guess you may say, okay, if it's honest 50% of the time, it's a win.

Is it, though? If you make a single victim face further mental distress, is it truly worth it? I think that is for each and every person to decide for him or herself. I just find the whole thing troubling because first of all, New York State now has the new Social Emotional Learning requirements and Restorative Justice is one of the ways for schools to implement these standards. I worry that it becomes more about the ticking off of boxes than the real impact on those involved. I am not suggesting that anyone involved has malicious intentions, but there is a great deal at stake, and often times, like communism, we do things with good intentions but the execution is flawed. Remember what the road to Hell is paved with? And the end result is a social experiment gone wrong.

For me, it's just not something education is equipped to do. Leave the psychology to those who know what they're doing.