Rethinking Restorative and Community Justice: A Postmodern Inquiry

Abstract

Restorative justice and community justice have often been conflated in the extant literature and the practice community, particularly when assessing how best to respond to the problems posed by crime and wrongdoing. In contrast, however, McCold (2004, this issue) argues that merging both models is misguided, as this absorption significantly dilutes, undermines, and undoes the healing and reparative effects intended by the restorative justice approach. This article examines whether and to what extent McCold’s thesis is correct. By utilizing selected insights from postmodern social theory, several challenges to the restorative‐community justice distinction are presented. Along the way, a number of strategies for fashioning a more critically animated model of victim‐offender‐community reconciliation are tentatively proposed.

Keywords:

• Postmodern Social Theory
• Restorative Justice
• Community Justice
• McCold’s Thesis

Notes

Bruce A. Arrigo is Professor and Chair of the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of North Carolina‐Charlotte, with additional faculty appointments in the Psychology Department, the Public Policy Program, and the Center for Applied and Professional Ethics. Correspondence to: Department of Criminal Justice, 9201 University City Blvd, Charlotte, NC 28223, USA. Tel: [phone]; Email: [email protected]

A full description of postmodernist thought is well beyond the scope of this article. However, some observations on what it signifies and what heterodox strains of thought it encompasses are in order. In brief, postmodernists point out how the naming of reality always already assumes the form of a language that is not neutral, that structures thought and action, and that therefore privileges (knowingly or not) certain interpretations of people and events while dismissing or marginalizing all other accounts (Best & Kellner, 1997; Milovanovic, 2002; Rosenau, 1992). Making explicit the various contexts in which these practices unfold is an important dimension of postmodernism. Drawing conceptual and methodological guidance from such notable and critical lines of reasoning as semiotics, chaology, deconstructionism, constitutive theory, dialogical pedagogy, and discourse analysis, postmodernists endeavor to promote a more provisional, positional, and relational view of the world and of people in it (Arrigo et al., 2000).

Commenting on the dangers of ‘fast food mediation’ and the McDonaldization of various victim‐offender‐community programs Umbreit (1999; see also Achilles & Zehr, 2001) identifies several practical concerns linked to the elimination of conflict, consistent with the philosophical position taken by postmodernists on micro‐macro linkages and prospects for structural change. For example, he takes exception to: (1) agreement‐driven rather than dialogue driven sessions; (2) the pressure for mainstream acceptance resulting in less risk‐taking, more efficient negotiation, and easy case referrals; and (3) institutional representations without face‐to‐face dialogue (for example, probation officers representing the view of victims). For some additional comments regarding this phenomenon, see Arrigo and Williams (2003).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bruce A. Arrigo

Bruce A. Arrigo is Professor and Chair of the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of North Carolina‐Charlotte, with additional faculty appointments in the Psychology Department, the Public Policy Program, and the Center for Applied and Professional Ethics. Correspondence to: Department of Criminal Justice, 9201 University City Blvd, Charlotte, NC 28223, USA. Tel: [phone]; Email: [email protected]