Editors comment: This article is by Howard Zehr. Howard is one of the best known exponents on 'Restorative Justice' and was influential in it's development in the UK. The article explains why Restorative Justice should be used and it's Biblical roots.

Howard Zehr is Professor of Sociology and Restorative Justice in the Conflict Transformation Program at Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisburg, VA. He is the author of Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice.

Justice: Retribution or Restoration?

Every day when I pick up my newspaper I read about crime. What strikes me as tragic in these discussions is that the solutions which are proposed are simply more of the same: bigger threats, more punishment. Few people ask more basic questions about whether punishment ought to be our main concern. Even fewer seem genuinely concerned about victims and what they need. Consequently, victims' needs and wishes continue to be ignored. Prisons are massively crowded, and the death penalty is back with a vengeance. The costs to us as taxpayers keep soaring.

Actually, there is good reason why we ignore victims and focus instead on more punishment for offenders. It has to do with our very definitions of what constitutes crime and what justice entails. If you have been a victim, you know something about the fear, the anger, the shame, the sense of violation that this experience generates. You know something about the needs that result: needs for repayment, for a chance to talk, for support, for involvement, for an experience that feels like justice. Unfortunately, you may also know from personal experience how little help, information and involvement you can expect from the justice process. If you have experienced crime, you know for a fact that you yourself are the victim, and you would like to be remembered in what happens thereafter. But the legal system does not define the offense that way and does not assume that you have a central role.

Legally, the essence of the crime lies in breaking a law rather than the actual damage done. More importantly, the official victim is the state, not you. It is no accident, then, that victims and their needs are so often forgotten: they are not even part of the equation, not part of the definition of the offense! When a crime occurs, the state as victim decides what must be done, and the process of deciding focuses primarily on two questions: "Is the person guilty? If so, how much punishment does he or she deserve?" Our definitions of crime and justice, then, might be summarized like this: Crime is a violation of the state and its laws.

Justice establishes blame and administers pain through a contest between offender and state. This way of viewing crime might be called "retributive justice." It has little place for victims, uses what some scholars have called a "battle model" for settling things, and, because it is centered so heavily on establishing blame, looks primarily to the past rather than the future. It assumes that punishment or pain, usually in the form of a prison term, is the normal outcome. This process concentrates almost exclusively on offenders, but, ironically, does not hold them accountable. To be accountable, offenders ought to be helped to understand and acknowledge the human consequences of their actions. Then they ought to be encouraged to take responsibility for what happens thereafter, including taking steps to right the wrong. Yet this rarely happens; indeed, the justice process discourages responsibility. Thus neither victim nor offender is offered the kind of opportunities that might aid healing and resolution for both.

But what is the alternative? How should we understand crime and justice? The Bible offers some suggestions. The Bible is often cited as a justification for our way of doing justice: "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," sayeth the Lord. But there is more to "an eye for an eye" than meets the eye. It was not intended as a command to do vengeance, but as limitation on vengeance: "Do this much, but only this much." Moreover, it was not the governing principle of the Old Testament. In fact, the phrase only occurs three times there. Then, in the New Testament, Christ specifically rejects this theme: "You have heard it said, 'an eye for an eye,'...but I tell you, love your enemy." An important clue to Old Testament justice is found in how God responds to wrongdoing. When confronted by sin, God is described as angry, full of wrath, with words that connote heat, heavy breathing; like crime victims, God is understood to be angry. But the real story is that in spite of this wrongdoing, and in spite of the resulting anger, God never gives up. A place is recognized for anger in the face of wrongdoing, but God does not remain there: God moves through wrath to restoration. Restoration, not retribution, is the thrust of biblical justice. The key is in God's intent for God's people, captured in the word "shalom." Shalom means peace, but more than what we mean by peace. It means people living in right relationship to one another - materially, socially, spiritually. The essence of crime is that it upsets shalom, making right relationships impossible. Crime, in the biblical view, is a wound that needs healing. That is why restitution, making things right, is found so often there. In fact, the word for making things right is the root word for shalom. Clarence Jordon of the Koinonia community in Georgia has pointed out that throughout the Bible is a kind of progression, an unfolding of understanding. It begins, in Genesis, with a recognition that unlimited retaliation is a normal response to wrongdoing: the "law of Lemach," it is called, and in Genesis is graphically characterized as "70x7"-almost without end. But very soon revenge is limited: an eye for an eye only, the Israelites are told. Following that comes another limitation: love your kind, your people. Christ pursues this direction. Love not only your kind but your enemy, he says; do good to those who harm you. Instead of unlimited retaliation or even limited retaliation, he calls for unlimited love-and it is no accident, perhaps, that he graphically calls for forgiveness to 70x7. Christ's focus on forgiveness, restoration and reconciliation rather than retribution is thus quite logical, and not a rejection of the overall thrust of the Old Testament. The biblical view suggests a way of viewing crime which is closer to the way we actually experience it. Crime is a violation of people and of their relationships. Justice, then, ought to seek first of all to repair, to make right.

An alternate understanding of crime and justice might look something like this: Crime is a violation of people and their relationships. Justice identifies needs and obligations so that things can be made right through a process which encourages dialogue and involves both victims and offenders. A restorative approach to justice would understand that the essence of crime is a violation of people and of harmonious relations between them. Instead of asking first of all, "Who 'done' it? What should they get?" (and rarely going beyond this) a restorative approach to justice would ask "Who has been hurt? What can be done to make things right, and whose responsibility is it?" True justice would have as its goals restoration, reconciliation and responsibility rather than retribution. Restorative justice would aim to be personal. Insofar as possible, it would seek to empower victims and offenders to be involved in their own cases and, in the process, to learn something about one another. As in the Victim Offender Reconciliation Programs (VORP) which operate in many communities in the U.S. and Canada, when circumstances permit, justice would offer victims and offenders an opportunity to meet in order to exchange information and decide what is to be done. Understanding of one another, acceptance of responsibility, healing of injuries, empowerment of participants would be important goals. Is restorative approach practical? Can it work? The experience of the Victim Offender Reconciliation Programs suggests that while there are limitations and pitfalls, restoration and reconciliation can happen, even in some tough cases. Moreover, our own history points in this direction. Through most of western history, most crimes were understood to be harms done to people by other people. Such wrongs created obligations to make right, and the normal process was to negotiate some sort of restitution agreement. Only in the past several centuries did our present retributive understanding displace this more reparative approach. If our ancestors could view crime and justice this way, why can't we?

Do not let your mind be filled with hatred toward your brother or sister. Confront your associate, making a strong case to him or her. Don't let yourself get carried away with a wrong course of action (sin). Do not take vengeance and don't maintain angry feelings against the people in your community. Love your neighbor as yourself. I am your Lord.

-Leviticus 19:17,18 Translation Vern Redekop

Reproduced with kind permission of Peacework magazine www.afsc.org/peacework