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Abstract
Research suggests that restorative justice (RJ) conferences are more just than traditional court processing due to the presence of procedural justice (PJ). These conferences also promote reintegrative shaming which, in contrast to disintegrative shaming, allows offenders to repair their ties with the community. Yet, fairness and the type of shaming experienced may depend on perceptions of the offender. We argue that the personality traits of negative emotionality and low constraint influence offenders' evaluations of the fairness of these conferences, which have implications for their experience of shaming. We test these arguments using data from a sample of 498 offenders involved in the Australian Reintegrative Shaming Experiments. Results reveal that personality traits affect perceptions of PJ and both types of shaming, and that PJ mediates these effects. The findings support the notion that RJ conferences are perceived to be procedurally just and reintegrative for certain types of offenders.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Elizabeth Griffiths and Robert Agnew for their valuable feedback on previous versions of this manuscript.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Heather L. Scheuerman
Heather L. Scheuerman is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice at Towson University. Her research examines how social psychological processes impact behavior, especially crime or deviance.
Shelley Keith Matthews
Shelley Keith Matthews is an assistant professor of sociology at Mississippi State University. Her research focuses on explaining social psychological causes of crime.