Restorative justice at the crossroads: politics, power, and language

ABSTRACT

In “Neither Boat Nor Barbeque,” Schiff and Hooker create analytic space and discursive context aimed at developing a more nuanced understanding of how the language of “restorative justice” hinders its transformative potential for achieving right and equitable relationships. Despite what may appear to be a more narrowly tailored focus on linguistic constructions, their desire to grapple with the practical and imaginative limits of language establishes a broad container for exploration of multivariate tensions within the field. As such, they place restorative justice—as a movement, project, theory, or practice—at a crossroads. We enter into that crossroads in the following conceptual manner. First, we contend that simultaneous to a call for, and ultimately development of, a new language of restorative justice there must be a close interrogation of the politics of restorative justice. Specifically, we call for scrutiny of individuals who have shaped the framing, transmission, and institutionalization of the pre-existing restorative justice language (e.g., values, philosophies, and ideas). We believe this is essential to guard against replication of a conversational domain dominated by speakers that constrain a new language’s end goal, and this will ultimately address the concern Schiff and Hooker raise about the inability for restorative justice to remain inside the current justice discourse and produce a new possibility for right relationship. Our second objective is to bring distinct attention to the need for any new restorative justice language to shift away from defining itself in relationship to systems. Grounding restorative justice within or adjacent to systems will continuously plague any efforts to achieve a movement building vision or to realize change for those most impacted by injustice. We introduce these ideas to invigorate a new conversation and enrich the conventional restorative justice discourse by highlighting the possibility for new lines of theoretical and empirical analysis, which may in turn redefine the lexicon of restorative justice.

KEYWORDS:

• Restorative justice
• norm theory
• linguistic constructions
• narrative frames
• framing processes

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Notes on contributors

Thalia González

Thalia González is an Associate Professor of Politics at Occidental College and Senior Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University Law Center At Georgetown Law she leads the Center on Poverty and Inequality’s national research on restorative justice policy and practice. Thalia's primary research field focuses on theories and practices of restorative justice. To investigate questions in this area, she applies a broad range of methods from theory development to empirical analysis. A core theme within her portfolio of work is the interrogation of how restorative justice operates within and adjacent to public systems to address disproportionality, structural inequality, and systemic harm. Thalia's secondary research fields include juvenile justice, race, gender, and inequality, public interest legal practice, domestic human rights, and norm theory. She is a nationally recognized expert in the field and frequently provides guidance to policymakers, government officials, attorneys, and advocates. Thalia reguarly advises and supports a number of projects and programs using a restorative approaches in public and political systems, as well as community-based settings.

Annalise J. Buth

Annalise J. Buth is the M.R. Bauer Foundation Fellow in Dispute Resolution at the Center on Negotiation and Mediation at Bluhm Legal Clinic. She focuses on the Center’s restorative justice initiatives. This includes designing and teaching restorative justice courses that provide students with the opportunity to experience restorative justice in practice. Students learn about a value-based relational approach to harm that emphasizes healing through collaborative and inclusive processes. In 2016, Annie developed a bi-monthly program for law school students and staff that uses the circle process to address current issues and build community. Additionally, she teaches negotiation, mediates, and collaborates with community organizations. Prior to the fellowship, she litigated cases at Miller Johnson, worked with a non-governmental organization in South Asia fighting human trafficking, researched for the Michigan Court of Appeals, and represented civil legal aid clients at LAF (formerly Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago).