Reshaping relations to fit justice aims

ABSTRACT

Legislative developments like the 2012 EU Directive on rights of the victim have an important role in recalibrating a citizenry’s understandings of and commitments to key aspects of its justice aims, such as the nature of victimhood and the kinds of needs it generates. Yet recalibrating those understandings and commitments requires much more than legislative advancements. The argument in this essay is that: first, criminal justice systems shape relations, with powerful effects on persons, families, and communities; second, criminal justice systems teach people how to relate to each other, often unofficially contradicting official justice aims; and third, Western criminal justice policies and practices exacerbate separations that occur naturally in contemporary social life, thereby eroding the understandings that citizens need in order to respond well to crime, both interpersonally and through their institutions. Given these interrelated dynamics, it will not be enough to infuse restorative justice more fully into legal structures and processes. Realising the potential inherent in restorative justice will also require examining the relational effects that criminal justice policies have and reshaping relations between citizens and their criminal justice systems, for the sake of more just relations overall.

KEYWORDS:

• restorative justice aims
• relational effects
• hidden curriculum
• criminal justice policies
• criminal justice legislation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 These authors are making their argument especially in the context of the American criminal justice system, where lessons about citizenship are especially striking in relation to African Americans. However, I believe their argument is relevant also for Canada, where comparable citizenship lessons are evident in the ways First Nations people have long been treated in and by law enforcement, and offers at least a cautionary tale for members of the European Union.