Editorial                                    

Restorative Justice

Last year I was part of an interfaith clergy group that worked for the parole of Kathy Boudin, imprisoned for nearly twenty-two years of a twenty-years-to-life sentence for her involvement in a 1981 New York robbery by remnants of the Vietnam-era Weather Underground. In the escape after the robbery, a Brinks guard and two policemen were killed.

Boudin was not in on the planning of the robbery and was recruited at the last minute. She carried no weapon. But she was in the getaway car to help with the escape, and was therefore an accomplice to the crime.

In her two decades in the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, Kathy Boudin helped develop a program for AIDS counseling; she assisted in developing literacy and English-as-a-second-language programs; and she helped mothers who were inmates to learn good parenting skills. She says, “I feel nothing but remorse and shame for my involvement. I will live with this the rest of my life.”

Though turned down for her parole the first time, in 2001, as well as in May of 2003, Kathy was paroled in August 2003.

A very active group, adamantly opposed to parole, fought to keep Kathy Boudin in prison for life. A representative of this group, referring to Kathy’s good record in prison, wrote in a local newspaper, “Living in the controlled environment of a prison, one should accomplish good deeds and help the less fortunate as part of paying back society. However rehabilitation and good deeds do not change the facts or the need for punishment and deterrence: three men were murdered that day.”

This case illustrates two approaches to dealing with crime, often termed "retributive justice" and "restorative justice." The predominant mood and practice in the United States today favors harsh retribution. The widespread acceptance of the death penalty; the abandonment of the idea of rehabilitation, with harsh sentencing for crime whether violent or nonviolent; the building of prisons to handle the influx of prisoners in the face of mandatory sentences and a “three strikes and you’re out” mentality—all this characterizes American criminal justice today. By 2001 the US Department of Justice reported 3,692 inmates on death row and the striking statistic of 6.6 million people on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole. Our prison population has quadrupled in the last twenty years as the focus across the land has been on punishment, with the idea of rehabilitation discarded as "bleeding heart liberalism."

Nonetheless, a quiet but powerful change has begun to make itself felt. In part it has come with the realization of the enormous cost and ineffectiveness of this overwhelmingly punitive approach. Keeping a person locked up costs over $30,000 a year. And prisons that focus on punishment inevitably produce a high rate of recidivism: the sprawling California prison system, for example, sees two-thirds of its released prisoners back behind bars after eighteen months. The incarceration and execution of innocent persons has also forced people to rethink their harsh “tough on crime” approach.

The moral argument is equally strong: there is "that of God" in everyone. Mercy, good will, healing, renewal, hope come from the wellsprings of faith. Punishment, vengeance, and capital punishment contradict this belief.

In this issue of Fellowship we will examine afresh a few of the remarkably many voices and groups working for restorative justice in the world. Instead of the traditional approach of primarily focusing on punishing the criminal, the approach of restorative justice is to consider the impact of crime on the victim, the offender, and the community at large, and the importance of seeking healing in all three dimensions.

 In her first published article since parole, Kathy Boudin writes about what she learned in prison. Her son Chesa talks about how it felt to grow up with both parents in prison, and how he came to see the necessity of forgiveness in life. We learn from an inmate in Texas that the practice of restorative justice hasn’t penetrated his prison walls. We hear the stories of murder victims opposed to the death penalty and advocating reconciliation, even with members of the Klan. We hear about Circles of Support and Accountability that match offenders coming out of prison with faith communities of healing and restoration. We read of efforts to change the mindless punishment of nonviolent drug offenders and to lift up rehabilitative approaches. From South Africa and Zimbabwe we read of efforts to heal the trauma of those living through violent social oppression. And from England we are reminded of our own government's abandonment of the centuries-old belief in due process. In sum, we find grounds for hope, but many reminders of all that remains to be done.

Richard Deats

editor@forusa.org