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9 Forgiveness and Crime: The Possibilities of Restorative Justice Walter J. Dickey I am not a student of forgiveness or of the philosophy of moral development . I have spent my entire professional life working on criminal justice, with an emphasis on corrections. My immediate interest in forgiveness and the related, though distinct, qualities ofempathy, compassion, mercy, and restoration stems from my concern about their absence in criminal justice policy and practice. Indeed, the original title of this chapter was "The Absence of Forgiveness in Criminal Justice." I have chosen instead the more optimistic emphasis upon its possibility, despite the fact that many of the developments I will outline are hardly positive. I hope that the optimism is not misplaced naivete, but I believe that our society and our approach to criminal justice are in a period oftransition, which affords us important opportunities. Hence the guarded optimism. I believe that the criminal justice system reflects the larger society. To understand the forces that shape most public institutions, including the criminal justice system in this time oftransition, and to explore where that system may go, one must understand the economic, social, cultural, and other forces which shape the society. In a nutshell, the emphasis on punishment and vengeance, the limits on individualized decision making, the abandonment of the rehabilitative ideal, all recent developments in criminal justice, bespeak. deep confusion about the purposes of the system and the appropriate means to advance them. Similar confusion is also evident in the disconnectedness ofmodern life, manifested in many ways, including economic uncertainty, the lack of national purpose, the absence ofcivil, searching dialogue on important issues , and the dominance ofemotion in politics and policy making. Perhaps our ongoing transition from authority-based institutions to participatory ones is a response to these developments. Surely there are efforts by people to be heard, in government, schools, and the workplace. Participation creates the prospect for cohesiveness and community as well as personal responsibility, which are all necessary ifforgiveness and restorative justice 106 DICKEY: For;giveness and Crime 107 are to be introduced into the criminal justice system to any substantial degree. By focusing on transitions and the possibilities they afford, I do not pretend to predict where our society and its criminal justice institutions will go. There is the possibility ofmore satisfYing personal and community life, more connectedness in American life, which would allow forgiveness and related values to be introduced into, if not to flourish in, criminal justice. On the other hand, darker qualities may dominate; recent developments may merely portend further confusion about values not only in criminal justice but also more generally in American life. In these comments, I want to outline more fully the recent changes in the criminal justice system and draw some parallels between them and deeper currents in our society. After this I will suggest what I think it will take for forgiveness, but particularly restoration, to playa more prominent role in criminal justice. Before this, however, I will provide some background about restorative justice and forgiveness and two examples of restorative justice in action. Restoration and Forgiveness Restorative justice defines justice as the restoration to wholeness of those whose lives and relationships have been broken or deeply strained by a criminal offense. This understanding of justice focuses on the harm the offense has caused to the victim, to the victim-offender relationship, and to the relationships of both the victim and the offender to the community. It asks: How can the harm be remedied? How can the victim's material loss be restored? How can the emotional trauma be healed? How can the relationship between the victim and offender, broken by the offense, be repaired? Restorative justice is a model still in formation. It rests on the notions that (1) community, interpersonal wholeness, and social and individual healing must be fostered by any system that purports to administer justice; and (2) apology, forgiveness, and restitution are important components of any restoration or healing that occurs. Enright (1995) provides a helpful definition of forgiveness as the "willingness to abandon one's right to resentment, negative judgment, and indifferent behavior toward one who unjustly injures us, while fostering the undeserved qualities ofcompassion, generosity and even love ..." (p. 1). Forgiveness, then, plays a role in restorative justice. As Joanna North (1987) has written, "What is annulled in the art of forgiveness is not the crime itselfbut the distorting effect that the wrong has upon one's relations with the wrongdoer and perhaps with others...

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