What do you think of this re restorative justice

[amibeingacunexttuesday]

I attended a conference on restorative justice last week and there was a particular academic speaker who was advocating for restorative justice for domestic violence offenders and victim. She was speaking on the fact that institutions and safeguarding policies shouldn't steal conflict from victims and offenders and if its what women wanted then we shouldn't try and block it. Somebody in the audience raised the point that it had been tried before and the man ended up killing her. Her response was that the media always portray the most severe events and domestic violence incidents like that are rare and most incidents are just one offs and people always assume the most extreme scenarios. I was as it's not rare - the statistic is something like 3 women a week are killed by a partner or former partner. A police officer in the audience also said that we should focus on these cases as there is a relationship that can be repaired and fixed. Another audience member questioned the fact that there are often injunctions to stop contact and social services often also tell women that their children are at risk if they have contact with the abuser. The response was that they would go to court to get the injunction removed to facilitate the meeting. I left the conference a bit shocked tbh and now I don't really know what to think but my instinct is to vehemently disagree with this.

I was having to grit my teeth and sit on my hands not to voice my opinion as I was clearly outnumbered but then I was furious with myself as there were a lot of young female university students in the room who would be very impressionable

I also think it's giving women false hope that restorative justice will give them closure as sadly most of these men will never be sorry and they will never get the closure they need.

I also wanted to highlight the fact that the most dangerous time for a woman in an abusive relationship is after she's already left.

I am against any restorative justice for adults. I can see a place for it if used sparingly with minors, but not at all with adults.
I agree with much said here about pressuring women to turn the other cheek.
I think it is regressive to more ancient systems of justice that were less just than the criminal code and minimum sentences we have now. For example, restorative justice used to require a woman to marry her rapist in order to restore her honour and community standing instead of becoming a fallen woman and having to resort to prostitution to survive. That’s not justice in any sense.

'I can see a place for it if used sparingly with minors, but not at all with adults.'

Can you expand on this? My instinct is its the other way around. The idea it's a good thing to do with youth sex offences in my previous links is mind boggling.

I don't think anyone's suggesting using it with youth sex offences Fraggling - that would indeed be unconscionable. I think the idea was that it might play a role in addressing relatively minor anti-social behaviour (setting fire to bins was one example given upthread).

The speaker also made an example that if her and her husband got into an argument and he shoved her and she rang the police then they would still class that as domestic violence even though he would come back home and everything would be ok again . In my mind she was minimising domestic violence and it has shocked me.

I assume so as well Barbara, the links do suggest that is a good time to use it so I was wondering what the pp had in mind.

Agree it may be useful in some circs it's the modern version of taking your kid round to say sorry if they boot a ball through a window isn't it?

Sounds neither restorative nor just.

In your OP, I think you say that institutions and safe-guarding policies steal conflict from those who might want it?

I think, particularly in light of the most recent post about minimising DV, this also tends towards seeing domestic abuse as a ‘high-conflict’ relationship rather than abuse perpetuated by one person against the other, usually male on female, in a system of inequality. It might masquerade as conflict as the perpetrator may provoke the victim for a reaction, but the dynamics of domestic abuse are not conflict (they are usually the victim doing everything she can to avoid conflict and finding herself abused anyway).

My second point is it seems that restorative justice as discussed here then fits into this doing everything you can to avoid conflict (I.e being abused). Abuse works because victims think if I do x, y or z the abuse will stop, or if I just explain some more, he will understand. Restorative justice fits the ‘if I just explain some more’ point, whereas the truth is there is nothing you can say to make him get it. A waste of time and emotional energy. The best bit of advice is in the Bancroft book which is to concentrate on healing yourself and DC and do not engage at all (I paraphrase).

Agree with most PPs about the issues with RJ. I have a family member that teaches it, and even she thinks there are situations where it isn't appropriate and/or where one party refusing to participate is the right course of action.

Fraggling
I think RJ can be used sparingly with minors for things like theft, vandalism, drug use. Things where rehabilitation is possible and there has been no bodily harm to another living being. I agree it would not be good for youth sex offences or assault because those involve bodily harm with lifelong burden on the victims.

What did you mean by other way around? Did you mean you think RJ can be used for adult offences but not youth?

I think RJ can be a good tool and result in good outcomes when it's used appropriately. In my experience more serious violent offences aren't considered appropriate for that approach, so that would rule out a chunk of DV cases right away.

Could it ever work well in those other cases? The way I would want to look at answering that would be to look at the outcomes with cases as they are handled conventionally, vs the outcomes with RJ. I think the latter might work better for some cases if the proper supports were in place, but how well would we be able to see which ones those were, how many mistakes would there be, and what kinds of outcomes would happen then? I don't know if there would be any way to know the answers to those questions without trying it out and collecting some data.

One thing it does make me think of is an article I read (maybe posted here) about female lawyers, on of whom was working in a role with DV where she was able to decide which cases were prosecuted. Typically many were not and she had intended change that and did. But the outcomes weren't at all what she expected, regularly there were instances where it made things worse for the women.

If anyone remembers the article, it is worth reading, it gave me a really different perspective I hadn't thought of before.

The trainer, like a lot of people, doesn't understand the difference between interpersonal couple violence and coercive control.
Thank goodness we now have laws outlining how coercive control functions as a pattern rather than one-off incidents.

It sometimes makes me a bit impatient when people with no expert knowledge of gendet-based violence sound off about domestic abuse using some kind of guru status.
A mental health nurse did it last week. I had little crescent moon marks on my palms from making fists and trying not to interrupt.

Plan

I was thinking of the link which said that rjb could be useful with youth sex offending.

I'd say it's not appropriate for any sex offending, but if it had to be used, it would be more appropriate for adults than young people. I'm a lot less confused and self doubting about sex offences now as a grown woman than when I was young. I know it's all about them and not about me. When I was taped by an ex at 17 though I struggled to name it as such, I was very confused by the whole thing, I tried to talk to him after to make sense of it etc. I mean I think it's wrong for adults but to say it's positive for young people is bananas to me.

RJ not rjb

Raped not taped

In this book by the Chair of the London Domestic Abuse board she mentions how RJ is particularly inappropriate in DA as the perps are very good at sounding contrite when they can avoid a conviction and are likely to be manipulative types too.