Highlights of Plenary Sessions
from the
6th International Conference on Restorative Justice:
“Best Practices in Restorative Justice - an International Perspective”

June 1-4, 2003
Vancouver, British Columbia

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“According to the restorative justice way of thinking, democratic conversations about the rights and wrongs of an allegedly criminal act are not a sideshow, but the main game.”

“Restorative justice is after all something that animates social movement, a way of living. It’s about listening, healing, repairing, repairing harm and forgiving.”

“We don’t want to focus on the weakness of family; we want to focus on the strength of family.”

“We all confront really difficult conflicts including conflicts of violence in our schools. It’s through those restorative practices in schools that we have the best opportunities that we can hope to have to learn to be democratic citizens who feel the experience of holistic justice.”

“There is a history of tension between state and grassroots restorative justice and I think it’s in synergy, in the possibility of partnership that exists the most exciting possibility for moving forward.”

“I see the principles and processes in restorative justice are really about community building. It’s not a quick fix solution. It is not going to solve the problems of our community tomorrow, but it will, in time, build up the capacity in our communities to do just that.”

“The basic principles and processes of restorative justice are going to change how we fundamentally relate to each other, how we use institutions and how we are going to be as individuals. I would suggest to you that it makes it possible for us to live out our values without being beaten up; values like trust and respect and openness. If you do that in most institutions in which we live you can get beaten up rather badly.”

“If we don’t reach out and stretch out to bring in those parts of our community not present, if we don’t stretch and reach out and bring to the restorative justice movement the business community and others, how can we say we are living our value of being a holistic movement?”

“Punitive escalation in response to youth crime will hold the seeds of more un-wellbeing, more exclusion, thus more crime and more unsafety.”

“Despite some basic common understandings, there is not one generally accepted basic theory on restorative justice, and such theory is not what is needed. Rigid definitions and rules would limit developments. On the contrary, permanent debate provokes permanent reflections and increasing awareness.”

“If restorative justice will become predominant, would any fundamental reasons be left for distinguishing a separate juvenile justice system?”

“For the victim, it does not make a difference if he has been burglarized or beaten up by a 16-year old boy or by a 24-year old adult.”

“In BC, there are more than 60 police-based diversion programs which are called CAPs, or Community Accountability Programs, that are community driven and volunteer based, many of which employ restorative justice approaches.”

“…it can hardly be said that restorative justice approaches have been systematically incorporated into the youth justice system in Canada. It cannot be said…that there are any jurisdictions in the country where restorative justice is both a systemic and integral part of the youth justice system…”

“Teachers are expected to teach and deal with social issues and all sort of problems in the classroom. The problem for many teachers is that they don’t have the skills that they need to resolve issues and conflicts in their environment.”

“As I started working with people in the school system, what was very clear to me was that what they wanted were the tools to deal with conflict, and dealing with conflict in a constructive way and having the tools to deal with conflict that would avoid suspensions and expulsions.”

“Kids learn how to be good citizens by experience… Restorative justice and other conflict resolution processes are the way to teach children to become good peaceful citizens.”

“We are making the connections at all levels: teachers, school boards, and the department of education, where conflict resolution is part of the school. Caring respectful school philosophy is part of the community school philosophy; it can be a very productive partnership of restorative justice people, conflict resolution people and schools.”

“…bullying in the context of restorative justice is an interesting fit because bullying is defined as a systematic abuse of power. Restorative justice on the other hand aims to restore the power and balances that affect our relationships with others.”

“…one message comes through loud and clear in the deadly school rampage cases; adolescents are intensely concerned about social standing in school and amongst their peers. For some, that concern is so great that threats to status are treated as threats to their very lives. And their status is something to be defended at all cost even if it means their own lives.”

“Young people need a place where they feel valued and powerful. This is part of the journey from childhood to adulthood. Holding spaces and pathways open for them are important ways of preventing violence.”

“When we acknowledge shame, we actually acknowledge that we’re feeling shame. We take responsibility for those feelings and we make appropriate amends. When we displace our shame, we end up with retaliatory anger, externalizing blame and displace anger.”

“Justice is the process, peace is the outcome.”

“By listening to the young people we worked with, I learned to see the world through their eyes. I learned to see through the thick veil that the use of conditions and coercion and fears had placed in front of my eyes.”

“As we stripped away authority and coercion in the work that we did in schools and replaced them with equality and freedom of choice, the students’ behaviour became more and more productive. I learned that the less I pushed, the less the students resisted, and that the less I resisted the less the students pushed.”

“Either adults set no boundaries at all, or they constantly engage young people in a battle aimed at showing them that the adult is bigger and more powerful, a pissing contest. Neither of these meets young people’s need. What we need to do is to treat everyone as human beings deserving our caring and respect. Young people do not need to be reminded they don’t enjoy the same right and privileges as adult do. It’s in their face everyday. Unfortunately, it is we the adults who seem to be the ones who need to prove to ourselves that we are bigger and more powerful.”

"I want to state that it is very important for us to recognize that Aboriginal justice and Aboriginal justice initiatives are separate and distinct processes from general restorative justice programs. We need to recognize that distinction, or else, I fear there won’t be Aboriginal justice programs in the future."

"You can’t remedy colonialism by telling Aboriginal people what they can do; that’s just perpetuating colonialism. It’s the experience of colonialism and the need to work through that experience that distinguishes Aboriginal justice programs from other restorative justice programs."

"Sentencing circles aren’t Aboriginal justice initiatives. Sentencing circles are what the justice system want Aboriginal people to do to have input into the process. That’s a good thing. But that’s not Aboriginal justice. If you go into Aboriginal communities and you say, “Imagine a justice system”, very few are going to say, “You know what, I would like to have a circle, and I would like to talk. I would like to have a Judge and a Crown there, and after we all talked, I would like the Judge to go away and tell us if what we came up with is right.”

“I want to finish by quoting someone we don’t normally quote at these conferences. Karl Marx said in his Eleventh Thesis on Fauerbach: “The philosophers have interpreted the world. The point is to change it.”

“Some of the things that are happening that I am struggling with are that it seems like we are trying to define something and the difficulty we have is when we are trying to define something it is like putting a lid on a box, and yet what we are trying to do is get out of the box.”

“Now, what we say is that the way that we want to approach justice is not to make a punitive law. What we need to do is to tell a story about why we want to do this. From that story comes the values and the virtues about how to apply it. From those values and virtues, we begin to start saying this is what we should do.”

“What we need to do is we need to find how the legislature, how the judiciaries, how the committee justice circles work and we need to begin to dance and work together.”

“One of the things you guys all heard is the story of the swans and the geese, and how they’re flying in a “V”. But there are some other theories that look at swallows, they seem totally un-organized, but somehow they stick together like glue, and there is no leader. The way that they operate is that when some, or one of those swallows begin to encounter a sense of danger, the first instinct is to go to the center of the flock. By doing that, what it does is self-direct. I would like to think that our community is moving in that style because we want to see leadership and order and all these things, and who takes leadership. If we set those values and those principles and those guidelines or whatever it is in our communities, then each of us holds responsibility for trying not to let the community get into harm, and to try to maintain the healing path.”

“We need to pay greater attention to the context of victimization, understanding and analyzing victim’s experiences with restorative justice processes.”

“The offence itself sets in motion limits on a victim’s ability to recover from the offence; it also sets limits on the ability of any legal process to make a difference.”

“When we compare court and conferencing, we see the limit of formal legality especially in the handling of sexual offences. The court process marches on, irrespective of what victims are thinking in terms of their sensibilities, their distress, etc. We don’t ask court victims whether they have recovered from an offence; rather, we assume that the court offers victims symbolic vindication.”

“No legal intervention could help all victims. But what the court / conference comparison question makes us ask is, “What does court do to victims?” My study suggests that conferencing is better for a victim only if the offender has admitted to the offence. Victims face a 50-50 roll of the dice, certainly based on my research if the case goes to court. In conferencing, they have about a 95% chance of an offender at least admitting to the offence. I think for many victims, it’s that admission at least that begins the path to recovery.”

“When I think of the Navajo tradition, it always speaks to me. There is no word in Navajo for justice. There is only a word in that language for harmony.”

“Sacred justice is a way of handling disagreements that helps mend relationships, provides solutions and promotes a restructured understanding in those relationships.”

“The common welfare of the community is usually first, and justice may be painful, even in the restorative concept, even though it’s not necessarily retributive.”

“A truly restorative system has to be a system of equitable compensation in some way from society and from the offender in both senses.”

“It is shameful to be a victim. You have been rendered powerless. You have been rendered helpless. If we think about, even experiencing a minor crime, for that second, the offender takes a degree of control over your life and violates it.”

“I think that every offender owes to society and to the victim a sense of remorse, possibly re-integrated shame, as some have called it, and repentance.”

“When we look into restorative justice, we have to be victim centered, offender focussed, and community driven.”

“For a truly restorative process, you need to help to restore the victim. There is a major benefit for a lot of victims in being able to hear from the offenders why they did it, what they did and in what context, as they try to piece the story together. So I say you cannot have a restorative process unless you have the victim involved.”

“Empowerment of victims, families and offenders occurs through the process of meeting, of participating in decision-making and when they become involved in agreeing to those decisions. Reintegration is achieved through forgiveness, through restoring connections between the offender and the victim and wider society.”

“We frequently observed conferences where the professionals just took over. They wanted to get on with the job and finish with the talking. It is very easy for the professionals to get a bit weary about and not be fresh, and not be concerned with involving everybody. It is important to make sure that the conference was an empowering event for the critical participants, the young people themselves and the victims.”

“The issue of fairness and respect came through time and again. The importance of everyone being involved is one of the good things about a circle where the stone is passed around. This is a lovely signal that we want you to say what you really mean. The importance of a construed consensus, the emphasis on repair, the avoidance of retribution and stigma, and the re-integrative measure in the follow up and support.”

“It is possible for Restorative Justice to fit almost anywhere within the justice system and begin to funnel cases out of the justice system. Obviously early in the justice system, the more criminal expenditures are avoided, the greater the benefit.”

“First I want to distinguish the goal of Restorative Justice from the benefits accrued from conducting Restorative Justice. The goal is the reason why we do it. The reason is for the intervention. The only reason for the intervention in our justice cases is to repair the harm that was done. The harms to be repaired have at least 4 aspects, financial, emotional, relational and social harms.”

“We’re going to need a lot of research to really understand program effectiveness.”

“We need victims looking over our shoulders, and to do that we need to have them on board. We need to have them on our start up committees, and we need to deliberately ask them. That goes to other players as well. We need to be having structured dialogue between the various sectors.”

“We need to be clear about our principles and philosophies, and then do what I have come to call principled practice.”

“There are all kinds of metaphors; one of the metaphors used is the metaphor of a journey. Participants are on a journey, and we are on a journey here as well.”

“It is a journey that is circuitous. It’s a journey whose destination is unclear, and I think it is important to remember we are very early in that journey. We are very early in that journey and we’re facing lots of forks in the road.”