Reintegrative Shaming
was developed by John Braithwaite based on his experience as an administrative
regulator of pharmaceutical firms in Australia. It was quite simple.
If you go in with a warrant, you only meet the lawyers. If you sit down for tea with the plant
manager, you gain voluntary compliance.
“Sitting down for tea” meant getting the manager to acknowledge out loud
that he knew about the violation, and knew that it was wrong. Then, he would promise
to fix it, and usually did.
Braithwaite followed those encounters with research into the
anthropology of offense. He found
many examples from history and modern first peoples where the offender was
brought back into the community after admitting the transgression and
apologizing to the victim, making restoration where possible.
Sometimes, it is not possible. An Eskimo man killed his wife; and when her brother complained about
that, he killed her brother. So, his friends
invited him to go hunting. Four
went out; three came back. (Hoebel, E. Adamson. 1967. The Law of
Primitive Man: A Study in Comparative Legal Dynamics. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.). Usually, the outcomes are better for everyone because most
harms are smaller than murder.
Even though less than homicide, assault is a violent
crime. Victims suffer multiple
traumas, deeper than the physical wounds and scars. Howard Zehr is a photographer. He created Transcending: Reflections of Crime Victims (Good Books, 2001). Zehr presented the portraits and the stories of 39 courageous
victims of violent crime. Not all of
the encounters brought closure. In
two, the attackers continued to mock their victims. In one, the subject was a man whose son was killed in
prison. For three dozen other
cases, both the victim and the offender found that they could overcome their
suffering.
Community Corrections
The Midtown Manhattan Community Court opened in 1993. The
Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn opened in the summer of
1998. Red Hook’s success has
served as a model for many other efforts.
Greg Berman invested two years of daily work, laying the social foundation
for the center before it opened.
He met with groups. He met
with individuals. His salary came from a grant by the New York City Housing
Authority to the Center for Court Innovation and the King County District
Attorney’s Office.
The Red Hook court brings offenders and victims
together. The usual harms are
domestic violence and shoplifting.
They also get public indecency cases when men are caught urinating in an
alleyway. Their theory on that is
that there is no such thing as a
victimless crime. Every
transgression harms the community.
In cases of personal crime, perpetrators confront their
victims, apologize, and make whatever restitution is possible. For offenses against the public order,
the guilty apologize to an appropriate authority, acknowledge the harm they
caused, and perform community service work.
In many community corrections programs house arrest with
electronic tethering is a common judicial sentence, especially for otherwise
non-violent offenders such as the habitual drunk driver. Community programs find work for
them. Their whereabouts are
monitored. It costs less for us,
and keeps them integrated to the community.
Self-Awareness
That assailants are also victims is a fact of crime. In the first place, a police
investigation often reveals that the victim was only the last person to get
hurt the most. Whether a fight in
a bar or a feud between neighbors, they had a personal interaction that played
out over time. Either one could
have withdrawn completely, but neither did.
Domestic assault is different than that. There, a lifelong violent offender
finds a lifelong victim of violence.
Typically, both grew up in abusive homes, as did their parents. That is how they learned their
roles. To them, it seems perfectly
normal.
Moral Reconation Therapy is one of the most successful
treatment programs for domestic and drug abuse cases. Not surprisingly, they go together, especially with the drug
of choice is alcohol; and MRT is also employed for treating drunk drivers. MRT is the work of Gregory L. Little
and Kenneth D. Robinson. Launched
in 1988, it was based on five years of research in the Tennessee prison
system. Research continues across
problem areas and the many multi-year follow-up studies on recidivism place it
high on the list of evidence-based therapies.
The process is simple.
Following a tested and proven workbook, counselors direct clients in
small groups to explore their own attitudes, beliefs, and emotions. For them self-awareness is a new
experience. Ayn Rand most cogently
pointed out that the root of all evil is the failure to choose to think. Thinking is not automatic. It is volitional. People blank-out, evade, and repress
unpleasant thoughts, especially about themselves. For a child, it does not take many years for them to become
fogged into a reactive life of the immediate present. Non-violent people become dysfunctional neurotics. The violent ones become aggressive
criminals. Self-awareness cures
that in about half the cases.
For over thirty years, MRT and other evidence-based
practices typically have had success rates in the mid-fifties percent. The National Registry of Evidence-Based
Programs and Practices (http://www.nrepp.samhsa.gov) is part of the federal
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (http://www.samhsa.gov).
ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS
