Research Proposal: Restorative Justice

Research Proposal: Restorative Justice

Introduction

In criminal justice, restorative justice gives victims an opportunity to meet and communicate with their crime perpetrators to explain to them the magnitude of their crimes impact. It empowers victims by giving them a close relationship with the suspects and a voice to participate actively in the process of justice. Moreover, it holds offenders into account and legally helping them take responsibility of their crimes. Research in the legal field by the government provides that restorative justice have an 85% victim satisfaction rate. Besides, it reduces criminal activities by 14% annually. It is about the communication between the victims and the offenders in a restricted room; they speak about the harm caused and possible ways of amending it. For the offenders, this is a challenging process because it confronts them with the impact of their own crime. On the other hand, victims also find the process frustrating because they find it hard meeting the people who harmed them. This proposal seeks to understand the experience of both freed offenders and victims of criminal situations who had to go through restorative justice process.

Summary of Literature Review

Gerkin Patrick and co-authors examined the implementation of restorative justice as a pilot program in a medium-sized Midwestern city. They examined the implementation process through minutes from meetings personal reflection of the offenders and victims, and interviews. Their research article examined a victim-offender mediation program; which they referred to as Fast Track Accountability Program throughout the article. The authors presented their findings as a case study, by so doing, they described the key stakeholders, the obstacles, the process, and the challenges faced in the implementation process. The interest to investigate the obstacles, and challenges of implementing this unique system resulted from the current bureaucracy that was in the current, retributive, criminal justice system (Gerkin et al., 2017). This article forms the basis of my research proposal content because the challenges observed from the Fast Track Accountability program outlines the respondents views of their experience. The study on the respondents’ experience that I intend to do, informs the effectiveness of the implementation of this justice system. Therefore, the outcome of the study will be able to answer the question of whether it is worth implementing or not.

Shapland (2016), picks on another aspect of this system that draws on the results of two different empirical studies to develop three theoretical research-based implications of its implementation. First, it investigates theoretical views on forgiveness and apology with regard to criminal offences. Secondly, the article explores research on mitigations and sentencing procedures in a criminal court. Lastly, it takes on an evaluation of restorative justice schemes that undertake mediation and conferencing in relation to serious criminal offences and adult perpetrators (Shapland, 2016). The scholar further states that, although forgiveness does not necessarily require apology, the interactive and communication aspect of this justice system links it automatically to apology. When a victim considers forgiveness, the immediate link is the possibility of forgiveness by offenders to themselves. Thereafter it goes beyond to the forgiveness of the offenders by families or other supporters and the entire local community. Shepland’s article goes a notch higher, beyond the current depiction of apology to consider interactions between apology and acceptance by victims or supporters. The reactions of victims in this empirical context include supporting the perpetrators to change their lifestyle and appreciate the perpetrators apology and courage to answer questions and communicate. As key players in the midst of implementation of this justice system, apology, and forgiveness play an important role in restorative justice. My proposal seeks s to validate the contents of the Shepad’s article that elaborates the relationship between apology and forgiveness in the implementation of this justices system.

Gabbay (2005) in his article Justifying Restorative Justice analyzes the premises of retributivism and utilitarianism as theories of punishment that influence sentencing policies. Additionally, he compares them with to the basic values structuring the restorative justice system. Thereafter, the article makes clear differences between restorative justice and the rehabilitative idea experienced in the other systems and it addresses the criticism comparing it to rehabilitation. The criticism depicts that restorative justice result in different punishments to equal culpable perpetrators just like rehabilitative justice (Gabbay, 2005). The article further states that restorative justice is not contradicting utility and retribution as justifications for penal sanctions. In addition, restorative justice practices rehabilitate the basic mentalities of the neglected retribution and deterrence in modern sentencing schemes. It also suggests that restoratives contribute to modern and deeper meaning to those mentalities and social values; in so doing justice practices improve while promoting societal response to crime.

Lastly, David Wilson and co-authors in their article, “Effectiveness of Restorative Justice in Juvenile Justices deliberates on the objectives of addressing the causes of the offenders’ behavior. Alongside addressing causes of the behavior, the article also addresses remedying the damages caused to the victims. It identifies the fundamental component of restorative justice programs as a kind of dialogue or informal interaction between the victim or a victim surrogate and the offender (Wilson et al., 2017). In some levels, the justice system extends participation to the families and communities from which both the victim and the offenders come. Examples of restorative justice are victim-offender mediation in a restricted area, sentencing circles, and family group conferencing. As a scholarly article based on juvenile justice, it reiterates restorative justice practices in the juvenile justice system restitutions being consistent with restorative practices. Besides, some practices incorporate certain aspects of restorative justice framework like teen courts. From the meta-analysis study done on 99 publications, reporting 84 extracted results within the 60 projects, there was a moderate reduction in future delinquent behavior related juvenile court. The content of my proposal include the implementation of the restorative justice system in both adult courts and juvenile courts; therefore, the outcomes from this meta-analysis is equally a resource.

Research Question and Methodology

Research Question

The proposed study that seeks to understand the experience of implementers including the offenders and victims, analyzes the effectiveness of restorative justice system. The main aim of the study is to understand how restorative justice plays a key component role in criminal justice. After a qualitative survey on the experience of the players in the implementation of this justice system, a conclusion drawn from it will be evidence-based. The provisions on the conclusion made from those experiences forms a critical analysis on the impact of restorative justice system. The question will split to four components to suit four different areas that scholarly articles identified and built reports upon them. First, the question will have a component that will have questions seeking to capture information on the implementation of restorative justice system under the retributive paradigm. Besides, another component will capture information on the restorative components of forgiveness and apology in the implementation of this system. Moreover, another important aspect that the study question will capture justifications of the restorative justice system. Lastly, the study question will need to capture effectiveness of the Restorative Justice Principles in Juvenile Justice.

Methodology

The study intends to employ open-ended or qualitative survey method that will give a wide range of information regarding the research question on the restorative justice system. It will give in-depth information about the participants’ undying reasoning and motivation on the roles of restorative justice as a key player in the current criminal justice field. The questionnaires are set to have 6 distinct questions each addressing different issues with reference to the scholarly work done by the afore-mentioned scholars. Due to focus on the roles played by restorative justice, work from two scholars will split into two each to form the extra two questions that make the total number of proposed questions to six. Therefore, the qualitative survey tool that the research seeks to use in data collection will comprise of six distinct questions ethically friendly to three categories of professionals. The target participants also comprises of three sets of expertise in law enforcement and justice serving. The study feels that the selected team of participants is very vibrant because it comprises of lawyers, magistrates, and security officers within the confines of court corridors. The lawyers are desirable respondents because they have close relationships with their clients and are able to stand in their place i.e., for both the complainant and the accused. On the other hand, the magistrates interpret these laws and therefore have the mandate to monitor the implementation of laws within the courts jurisdictions. Security personnel within the confines of courts are also eligible for the participation because they are the third parties who secure the mediation areas. They have a clear understanding on the implementation of this law, and can vibrantly account for the state of affairs with regard to restorative justice system.

Interview Questions

The qualitative survey tool will consist of six questions that will generally suit the three categories of respondents as earlier mentioned. The responses will have anonymity open-ended but individual nature. Therefore those question are not set for Focused group discussions but for individual respondent consumptions. The six questions include;

• At inception of the restorative justice system implementation what worked and what did not work?
• What are the challenges you face in the implementation of restorative justice system under the retributive paradigm?
• What are your own views on apology and forgiveness in relation to crime?
• In your opinion, are offenders and victims satisfied whenever restorative justice system applies and ends the criminal case between them?
• In your opinion, how effective is the restorative justice have in the juvenile courts?
• What are the main challenges faced in the juvenile courts while implementing restorative justice system?

Limitations of the Study

The study is specific to four areas while the study question is open for a wide scope of research. For instance, there is a particular attention directed to the essential role of strong leadership and to the challenges that accompany the implementation of restorative justice system. In this case, the study will only focus on analyzing a partial program called Fast Track Accountability Program in the implementation of the wider justice system. Furthermore, the program faces many challenges due to the normal routine systems of justice like the bureaucracy in the current retributive criminal justice. In efforts to work more on the article about forgiveness and restorative justice, one would realize that there is no provision to talk much about healing and reconciliation. In the entire scope, the term forgive is very rare and my study being an overview of already researched worked emphasizes on apology part. The limitation questions potentially raised would be, whether these reactions may amount or link to forgiveness and whether forgiveness is to the offender or the act of crime. Similarly, efforts on the implementation of restorative justices system in the juvenile courts also depict only a small and non-desirable quantity. Therefore, users of the study findings feel that the results maybe too small for a more credible random assignment studies. The insufficiency raises concerns about how robust the result can be while living out the opinion of so many people. The question that may come up is whether the users of this information will make a viable scientific conclusion with results from such a small scope of research process.   Additionally, there is a warranty in high quality research whose impact is vibrantly observable given that it has although promising but uncertain findings. Such limitations that come up because of scope chosen for this study maybe harmful to the goals of the study; looking at whether the findings answer the research question. The research question gets proper and viable reactions when we ascertain that implementation of goals of restorative justice system achieves its goals. However, with such a substantial number of limitations, the research questions may not get satisfactory reactions due to limited scope of research conducted. The limitations in the entire study starts from the compressed literature review that also have a limited scope, limited number of interview subjects and reasons of biasness.

Conclusion

Restorative justice system is already widespread across the United States and other parts of the developed world. The legal systems are adopting it so fast while scholars are doing critical follow-ups on its progress. As earlier mentioned, restorative justice gives victims an opportunity to meet and communicate with their crime perpetrators to explain to them the magnitude of their crimes impact. Moreover, it holds offenders into account and legally helping them take responsibility of their crimes. For this reason, the review on the four scholarly articles done above creates a sample of the efforts of scholars to follow up on the progress and practicality of this unique justice system. Within the confines of the review of literature from the four scholarly articles afore-mentioned, I propose to study on how does “Restorative Justice” play a key component role in criminal justice field? From the study, I will be able to ascertain the current position of restorative justice system in its efforts to achieve the set goals. I will focus on whether the legislation is focusing the provision of the necessary by listening to and expressing the victims’ opinion and participating in the decision-making. Besides, I hope to find out if the system is agreeing on how best crimes through restoring relationships and managing crimes. Also by criticizing criminal behavior as unacceptable while reaffirming community values and by ensuring that all partakers take responsibility in the justice process.

References

Gabbay, Z. D. (2005). Justifying restorative justice: A theoretical justification for the use of restorative justice practices. J. Disp. Resol., 349.

Available at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/jdr/vol2005/iss2/4

Gerkin, P., Walsh, J., Kuilema, J., & Borton, I. (2017). Implementing Restorative Justice Under the Retributive Paradigm: A Pilot Program Case Study. SAGE Open, 7(1), 2158244017691562.

doi.org/10.1177/2158244017691562.

Shapland, J. (2016). Forgiveness and restorative justice: is it necessary? Is it helpful?. Oxford journal of law and religion, 5(1), 94-112.

. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1093/ojlr/rwv038.

Wilson, D. B., Olaghere, A., Kimbrell, C. S., George Mason University, & United States of America. (2017). Effectiveness of Restorative Justice Principles in Juvenile Justice: A Meta-Analysis. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/grants/250872.pdf