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Restoring Justice
By Seth Lennon Nguyen Weiner A young man and two others enter a Chicago barbershop with guns. They force everyone inside into a small bathroom and threaten to kill a young woman in front of her mother for trying to call the police. Throughout the whole time they keep a barrel against the head of a teenager. The police arrest all three and they are sent to prison. Three years later, the young man is released having changed his thinking and behavior. He asks for a community organizer to take him back to the barbershop so he can apologize. After expressing his remorse, one of the women who were present on the day of the robbery explained the horror she experienced and the trauma that has stayed with her. In the end, the young man is forgiven; he is physically and symbolically embraced and welcomed back into the community. ers in public. Those responsible can then take accountability for what they have done, express remorse and apologize. Often, that apology is accepted and a certain amount of healing can be achieved in this specific relationship and therefore in the community. As these small communities begin to experience healing in the wake of the civil wars extreme violence, so does the nation. close to balance, but balance is not achieved through an eye for an eye, but through righting a wrong, taking accountability, meeting the needs of victims and addressing the underlying causes of crime. At its core, this is an understanding of justice that appreciates our interconnectedness as people and as a planet. This is also the understanding that informed much of what inspires us about Mandelas life. He called it "Ubuntu", a Zulu word which means at its essence: I am because we are. Working through this lens, restorative justice professionals have come to understand that there is a kind of medicine that victims and offenders can offer each other, when prepared in the right way, and when their meeting is held and facilitated in a safe and supportive context. Victims are often able to express the impact a crime has had on them and ask questions about how and why they or their loved ones were victimized. For some victims just meeting an offender can add an element of humanity to someone who was beforehand a faceless monster, helping victims to recover from the trauma of a crime. Offenders often have an opportunity to apologize, to learn more fully about the impact of their actions, ask and answer questions and sometimes to learn about ongoing needs that they might be able to help address.

In South Africa today, and around the world, we continue to morn the passing and celebrate the life of Nelson Madiba Mandela, a human symbol of fortitude, magnanimity and bridge-building. The life of Mandela, and the two stories above, bespeaks the spirit of a modern movement known largely as Restorative Justice. The term points to a paradigm of justice that prioritizes the health, wellbeIn Sierra Leone, survivors of ing and healing of victims as well as one of the most gruesome civil wars in the rehabilitation of offenders and the history today live side by side in villag- restoration of healthful relationships es that have been their families home amongst the community affected by for generations. Family members and any wrongdoing. The way restorative neighbors have been responsible for justice professor Howard Zehr puts it, If crime is a wounding then justice killing children, mothers, fathers, grandparents, and of maiming and rap- should be a healing. In fact, it could ing those they now live amongst. In be fairly stated that the true definition response to the tension, special gathof the word justice is something closer erings, known as fambul tok or fami- to healing than to other words we commonly associate with it such as punishly talk, bring an entire community ment or retribution. In most places in together around a ceremonial fire where victims are given a space to ex- the world, for most of history, the conpress themselves and confront offend- cept of justice was something very

This movement towards restorative justice exists in sharp contrast to the criminal justice system as we commonly know it. Our modern western justice system engages in a legal fiction that when a crime is committed it is the government that is the victim. Our cases are given titles of "The People vs. (a person)", even when it was an individual person, or group, who was truly injured by the crime. Additionally, many criminal legal proceedings relegate victims to the role of witnesses, while a government prosecutor directs the course of the trial. Similarly, an accused defendant is typically incentivised to plead not guilty and often advised by an attorney not to speak and certainly not to apologize. Of course, many times defendants enter into plea bargains, even when they are innocent. If and when a conviction is made, the offender is sent to prison to be punished, often with little access to resources to improve themselves, and many opportunities to learn about how to be better criminals. And of course, as many as 70% of inmates

from certain areas of the US are convicted for new offenses upon their release. While locked up, inmates families also suffer because of their absence and their children have a heightened risk of growing up to be prisoners themselves. While this cycle continues crime victims too often go without resources needed to heal, and new victims are created through crimes committed by former under-resourced prisoners.

their needs? and (3) Whose obligation is it to meet those needs? This second set of questions lead to very different outcomes.

The second set of questions leads to an experience of Ubuntu. It is what motivates and animates restorative justice and restorative practices. It is what made the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and possible, and likely what prevented a bloody South African civil war. It The status quo of our criminal is what today allows Sierra Leone to face its past and improve its future. It justice system also means the incaris what enabled a young Chicagoan to ceration and even execution of innoreturn to his community with dignity cent people, mass incarceration of and feel welcomed. In memory of Nelnon-violent offenders, and a deeply son Mandela, and of all of those known disproportionate racial makeup of inand unknown who have built bridges of mates compared to the general popuhope over chasms of despair, may we lation and those who commit crimes! As Zehr explains in Little Book of Re- each engage in our relationships with a storative Justice, these are the results spirit of restorative justice, and may of pursuing a justice that asks: (1) Who that spirit become ever more reflected in our justice system and all of the indid it? (2) What law did they break? stitutions of our lives. and (3) What punishment do they deserve? Restorative justice asks instead: (1) Who got hurt? (2) What are

Seth Lennon Nguyen Weiner is a California lawyer focused on restorative justice and collaborative lawyering. He was born and raised in Culver City and is a graduate of UC Santa Cruz, Loyola Law School and the Rudolf Steiner College.

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