{"id":166,"date":"2009-06-11T07:48:56","date_gmt":"2009-06-11T12:48:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/blog\/restorative-justice\/?p=166"},"modified":"2010-05-27T07:51:55","modified_gmt":"2010-05-27T12:51:55","slug":"what-do-restorative-justice-and-revenge-have-in-common","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/restorative-justice\/2009\/06\/11\/what-do-restorative-justice-and-revenge-have-in-common\/","title":{"rendered":"What do restorative justice and revenge have in common?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I wrote Changing Lenses<\/em><\/a> in the 1980s, I positioned the concepts of retributive and restorative justice as opposites.\u00a0 Later, in The Little Book of Restorative Justice<\/em><\/a>, I acknowledged that this was not always helpful and, in fact, masked some important commonalities between their underling assumptions.\u00a0\u00a0 Now I want to go further and explore the connection between revenge and restorative justice. \u00a0Before you gasp and close this page, stay with me. \u00a0I’m not trying to rehabilitate the practice of revenge or retribution. \u00a0Nor is my intention to discount the importance of forgiveness. \u00a0I do want to explore an underlying link between them, however.<\/p>\n

I’m drawing here on ideas sparked by reading an evolutionary psychologist (Michael McCullough, Beyond Revenge<\/em>), a law professor and Nordic historian (William Ian Miller, Humiliation<\/em> and An Eye for an Eye<\/em>) and a novelist (Margaret Atwood, Payback<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Retribution, revenge and forgiveness all seem to reflect a basic human sense of fairness, of balance and reciprocity, thus a fundamental need to “balance the score.”\u00a0 According to McCullough, all three have been functional throughout human history.\u00a0 Although I don’t have space to explore this here, he in fact argues that all three have contributed to human cooperation.\u00a0 As Atwood notes, for example, the instinct for “payback” is the basis for debit and credit that makes our economy possible.<\/p>\n

Some quick definitions:\u00a0 Retribution is an effort to make right the wrong, balance the score, with some semblance of proportionality and limit (an eye for an eye in the book of Leviticus).\u00a0 Revenge is retribution “plus” – it tries to right wrongs by going beyond proportionality (the “Law of Lemech” in Genesis).\u00a0 The definition of forgiveness is more contested but for now I’ll use that offered by Dutch law professor Herman Bianchi:\u00a0 it is letting go of the difference between what can be restored and what cannot.\u00a0 Part of what is in the balance here are issues of humiliation and honor.\u00a0 McCullough says that historically forgiveness is most likely among people who know and care for each other, and revenge is often directed toward those who are more distant.<\/p>\n

I have heard prisoners as well as residents of our inner cities talk about what it takes to survive in their violent environments.\u00a0 If they are wronged, they feel they have to over-react. \u00a0Only by being seen as irrationally violent will they be safe from future attacks. \u00a0In this perception, only the threat of revenge can provide safety in a lawless environment.\u00a0 This, says, McCullough, has been one of the functions of revenge historically:\u00a0 to provide some semblance of safety in situations where “pacified social spaces” don’t exist. This is, however, a very shaky and dangerous state. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Structures of retribution such as criminal justice systems, with their emphasis on a measured, proportional, response are one effort – though far from ideal – to provide such pacified social spaces.\u00a0 We are less likely to take things into our own hands when we know that some kind of justice will be done, when balance and honor will be restored.<\/p>\n

What does this tell us about justice?\u00a0 One important implication is that when a wrong occurs, we need a response that acknowledges the wrong and in some way balances the score.\u00a0 To be balanced, however, it seems essential that the resulting obligation must be costly for offenders; given the pain and harm, if the offenders action isn’t difficult, it doesn’t feel satisfying. \u00a0(See also Aaron Lazare, On Apology<\/em>, for an important discussion of this.)<\/p>\n

McCullough argues that we are used to labeling revenge feelings as bad and forgiveness as good; we then ask people to go against their vengeful tendencies and to forgive.\u00a0 However, if it is true that revenge and forgiveness are both deeply\u00a0embedded\u00a0and sometimes functional, this is unlikely to be successful in many cases – at least without the kind of commitments that our religious traditions represent.\u00a0 Rather, he says, we have to create a context that encourages forgiveness and makes revenge unnecessary or undesirable.\u00a0\u00a0 While espousing the value of forgiveness may help, it can also set up resistance.\u00a0 Structures for safety and justice that meet people’s needs and help them to learn to know “the other” can create an environment where revenge is rejected and some measure of forgiveness may be possible. Unfortunately, the criminal justice system does this poorly – thus the origins of the restorative justice movement.<\/p>\n

Let me be clear: I believe that forgiveness can be tremendously healing.\u00a0 It is a process, though, not a state, and it must be chosen rather than imposed.\u00a0 And it is much easier to choose this road when our needs – including our needs for vindication – are met.\u00a0 Furthermore, in my view restorative justice does not turn on whether forgiveness occurs.\u00a0 Rather, it is about about meeting needs, addressing obligations, an involving those impacted in the process and outcome.<\/p>\n

Revenge, by the way, according to Atwood comes from the Latin vindicare<\/em> – to justify or liberate.\u00a0 To take revenge is one way to liberate oneself of the feelings of anger and dishonor.\u00a0 The score that needs to be settled is a pyshic sore, a wound to the soul.\u00a0 But tit-for-tat, she says, leads to rat-a-tat-tat, an endless chain of violence.\u00a0 Courts of law are one attempt to end the chain, though they often leave a bitter taste.\u00a0 Forgiveness is another.\u00a0\u00a0 I would add restorative justice processes as a third option and this may or may not involve forgiveness as such.<\/p>\n

What does all of this mean for restorative justice?\u00a0 First, it means that we need to take seriously the need for those who have been harm to be vindicated – for the wrong to be acknowledged, honor restored, and efforts to be made – preferably by the one who offended – to make amends. \u00a0This acknowledgment and efforts toward amends by the one who offended must be costly – it can’t be glib or easy. \u00a0Justice is about balance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To be truly restorative, then, our processes must provide safety, vindication and balance for those victimized but also provide an environment that humanizes the “other.”\u00a0 This is the core of restorative justice:\u00a0 repairing harm, meeting needs, carrying out obligations, engaging those who are part of the situation.\u00a0 Sometimes – often\u00a0 – the dynamics of apology and forgiveness take place but I see this as a possible byproduct of a process designed first of all to meet the needs of all those involved.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I wrote Changing Lenses in the 1980s, I positioned the concepts of retributive and restorative justice as opposites.\u00a0 Later, in The Little Book of Restorative Justice, I acknowledged that this was not always helpful and, in fact, masked some important commonalities between their underling assumptions.\u00a0\u00a0 Now I want to go further and explore the....<\/p>

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