Restorative justice is a tough, elusive hope in Belfast
Julia Steiny
Sunday, November 4, 2007
On one of the only sunny afternoons during the week I recently spent in Belfast, I accompanied the folks from Providence's Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence as they met with local youth workers from the Upper Shankill Project. We gathered at an elementary school, in a big meeting room with windows all along one wall looking out on a hillside of Irelands ubiquitous green.
The school itself could have been one of our boxy buildings, except that Belfast fire codes allow them to cover the walls with art, notices and a huge display of photographs of kids all dressed up in their finest, standing with a parent or two at a Christmas dance.
Interesting to me was that Belfast's School Department employs the projects workers, even though the youth they serve are often school dropouts or well beyond the age of kindergarten-through-12th-grade students.
Providence's Institute and Belfast's project do similar work. In their respective low-income and working-class neighborhoods the Shankill has been one of Irelands most violent hot spots these youth and street workers befriend residents, help to resolve all kinds of issues, and teach peaceful alternatives to settling scores with violence. I listened as they swapped war stories and practices.
The project workers talked passionately about what they called restorative justice. Actually, so did many people we met in Ireland, including one cab driver. Many in Northern Ireland feel an urgency about finding ways to mitigate the brutality of their culture, fostered by years of warfare between Catholics and Protestants, called the Troubles.
They debate these philosophical questions: Is the purpose of the law mainly to enforce social order by punishing wrongdoing retributive justice? Or should a justice system focus on rebuilding communities wounded by crime? Can we develop a system to repair the social context, the dysfunctional families and neighborhoods, that nourish crime which would be restorative justice? Does the question of guilt or innocence matter as much as investigating what went wrong? The Northern Irish crave repair and do not trust a peace built on retribution.
But frankly, no one, not even the project workers, mentioned a single concrete example of local restorative justice in action. The project workers passionately believe that forging personal relationships, one at a time, will provide the foundation for a communitys restoration. But in truth, restorative justice is an idea that lives as a Camelot off in a brighter future. They must believe in its redemptive power, because the cycle of vengeance constantly threatens to tear their fragile peace to shreds. The traditional sectarian dispute no longer matters; old allies might well turn on one another now. Violence is a brutal habit, often learned at home. If you cross me, you get my full wrath, no matter who you are or what your reasons.
In his lilting brogue, Mark West, a jolly, self-effacing older worker, born before the Troubles even began, told this painful story. About 10 years ago, a certain cop appointed himself to be what West would call a community policeman, though no one had heard of such a thing at the time. West noted that while community policing is now a respected feature of restorative justice, only a few people locally are keen on implementing it. Hes one, of course.
For the past three decades, the strongest law in Belfast has been the paramilitary groups, such as the IRA (Irish Republican Army), whose techniques are brutally effective. For a relatively petty crime, the paras will break a kids arm. For a second or worse offense, they might break both his legs, or shoot out his kneecap. While it isnt pretty, the residents appreciate the order they bring and turn to the paras for help, even as they complain about the cycles of vengeance.
The projects workers are making only slow progress convincing people to turn problems over to them and their conflict-resolution skills, instead of calling in the paras.
In any case, this police officer of Wests acquaintance had quit driving around in a car and instead started walking the streets. He got to know the residents and focused especially on the young people. He adjudicated fights, defused tempers and arranged for help from social services. Increasingly, the residents entrusted him with their difficulties, especially with disciplining the youth.
But he got no support from other officers. During the Troubles, regular policemen were considered wusses because they were hugely outgunned by the paramilitaries. Plus they had to observe niceties like the law they had promised to uphold. So the officers battled their own low prestige and did not like one of their own breaking rank and achieving local fame with a new and kinder approach.
Then a few years ago, two Protestant paramilitary groups in the Shankill turned against each other in a conflict so violent that in the end 200 families were forced to move out of the area. When the officers suited up in riot gear to quell the violence, the community police officer begged his commanding officer not to send him into the Shankill. He was more than willing to go fight in the riots elsewhere, but not to beat down the very kids hed worked so hard to pull back from violence.
His commanding officer saw an opportunity to force him to conform, and ordered him to his beat. Good-to-his-word and a stubborn Irishman, the officer did as he was told and dutifully went into battle, destroying years of his own work. Immediately after, he moved away from the area himself.
West throws up his hands and says, No matter what good you do around here, theres always someone who can come along and destroy it. And think nothing of it. We are just as aggressive to our own as to our enemies.
And so the retribution continues. Within families, within groups of friends, among professional colleagues. The Shankill is a portrait of retributive justice at its most extreme.
Belfast has a good lesson for those of us who still believe that punishment from prison sentences to school detentions is the best way for a civilized country to maintain order. Restorative justice, working to rebuild communities, is a tougher goal than self-righteous law-and-order retribution, but it is the only hope the Belfast community has for a life free from the oppression of anger and violence.
As for us, gang violence is on the rise, and Americas prison population is soaring. And is our criminal justice system making us feel safer?
Julia Steiny is a former member of the Providence School Board; she now consults and writes for a number of education, government and private enterprises. She welcomes your questions and comments on education. She can be reached by e-mail at juliasteiny@cox.net or c/o EdWatch, Education and Employment, The Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St., Providence, RI 02902.
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