Reconstructing Restorative Justice Philosophy

Theo Gavrielides, Vasso Artinopoulou

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317070177
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Criminología

This book takes bold steps in forming much-needed philosophical foundations for restorative justice through deconstructing and reconstructing various models of thinking. It challenges current debates through the consideration and integration of various disciplines such as law, criminology, philosophy and human rights into restorative justice theory, resulting in the development of new and stimulating arguments. Topics covered include the close relationship and convergence of restorative justice and human rights, some of the challenges of engagement with human rights, the need for the recognition of the teachings of restorative justice at both the theoretical and the applied level, the Aristotelian theory on restorative justice, the role of restorative justice in schools and in police practice and a discussion of the humanistic African philosophy of Ubuntu. With international contributions from various disciplines and through the use of value based research methods, the book deconstructs existing concepts and suggests a new conceptual model for restorative justice. This unique book will be of interest to academics, researchers, policy-makers and practitioners.

PART I
Reconsidering Restorative Justice

Chapter 1
Prolegomena: Restorative Justice Philosophy through a Value-based Methodology

Theo Gavrielides and Vasso Artinopoulou

Σα βγεις στον πηγαιμό για την Ιθάκη,
να εύχεσαι νάναι μακρύς ο δρόμος,
γεμάτος περιπέτειες, γεμάτος γνώσεις.
Τους Λαιστρυγόνας και τους Κύκλωπας,
τον θυμωμένο Ποσειδώνα μη φοβάσαι,
τέτοια στον δρόμο σου ποτέ σου δεν θα βρεις,
αν μέν’ η σκέψις σου υψηλή, αν εκλεκτή
συγκίνησις το πνεύμα και το σώμα σου αγγίζει.
…
Κι αν πτωχική την βρεις, η Ιθάκη δεν σε γέλασε.
Έτσι σοφός που έγινες, με τόση πείρα,
ήδη θα το κατάλαβες η Ιθάκες τι σημαίνουν.¹

Kavafis’ Ithaki, 1910

The Journey Begins

In his poem, Ithaki, Kavafis uses the story of Odysseus to remind us that the journey is as important as reaching our destination. After the 10 year Trojan War, King Odysseus set off to his homeland, Ithaki, only to encounter hardship and toil that cost him another 10 years. Ithaki stands for the ultimate objective and the final destination that we all seek through our actions and life. It also acts as the justification for what we do and achieve in our various roles. But the journey to Ithaki and the experiences during that journey are as important because it is through the people and challenges that we encounter on our way that we become ready to embrace and indeed appreciate Ithaki. It is also during this journey that we face our fears and weaknesses and that we learn how to think freely and creatively, surpassing what we are and transforming into what we should be. But the journey is also important for two more reasons. Firstly, it is not always certain that we will reach Ithaki. However, the journey itself should be enough for our transformation into a better being and thinker. Secondly, Ithaki is not the same for everyone. We all have our own personal destinations, and it is only through our journeys that we get to understand, embrace and support our respective destinations and together reach a joint purpose.

The writing of this book can only be described as our own personal journey to Ithaki. Although it didn’t quite take us 10 years, the book’s conceptualization, the discussions that led to its writing through the holding of a ancient Greek-style Symposium, its actual writing, editing and publication were the outcomes of many challenges that left all our fellow travellers transformed. Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is threefold.

First, we want to travel this journey with you, the reader, in the hope that some of our learning, successes and failures are shared and understood. Although your physical presence on our journey is not possible, we hope that, like a time machine, this chapter and book can transport you to the monasteries, beaches, myths and legends that the authors encountered during this voyage. For a philosophical book, this transportation is important not only for understanding its methodological underpinnings, but also for being able to grasp some of the key concepts and norms that it aspires to unravel. While hoping to explain our sympotica methodology, we neither aimed to enter the field of sympotic studies nor to reactivate sympotic cultures and activities. However, we used sympotic qualitative characteristics and values, such as egalitarian dialogue, respect, and team-building processes to achieve open-minded and constructive debates.

Second, this chapter aims to lay the founding values and principles on which the book and the journey were based. These values were agreed with all authors from the outset of our journey, and consequently served as a framework for our philosophical and creative thinking and writing. They are also married to the two disciplines that we aim to challenge through our philosophical thinking; the strands of restorative justice and human rights. As value-based systems of social control and power, restorative justice and human rights are contextualized and challenged through the value frameworks that we, the symposiarchs, adopted and challenged.

Third, as we set off to think normatively about restorative justice we expect, and indeed hope for, an intense debate. We know that this will most likely be critical and, on many occasions, negative. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge our limitations and state our positions from the start. It is paramount that we set the parameters of our work and acknowledge the caveats that any time-bound project with limited resources is expected to face.

The overall ambition of the chapter is to open up the debate on new methods of writing on restorative justice. Undoubtedly, over the last 30 years we have enjoyed an impressive literature on the practices and theory of restorative justice. And yet, creative and philosophical thinking that takes bold steps to move outside empirical evidence from the bottom-up is still rare. Even less common are authors and researchers who leave questions unanswered. Much has been written on research trying to address questions of effectiveness and implementation. How often do we take the time to just ask and leave the reader to think freely and creatively?

As it will hopefully become obvious, each chapter was written by a leading expert in their fields. What is not so obvious is that these experts first became friends in the context of Greek Symposia. Symposium should mean neither academic presentations at conferences nor a social feast. Symposium, as analysed in detail later, should be understood as the life changing process of creating relationships through high level debates, unique life experiences of beauty and love for nature, each others’ ideas and personalities, our mistakes and differences.

So, let the journey begin!

An Account of our Journey

The idea for the book and the journey that would lead to it were conceptualized in Athens when the two Editors met to present at a joint conference celebrating the 60th anniversary of the signing of the UN Convention on Human Rights. Following the publication of Rights and Restoration (Gavrielides, 2012), and the seminal work of Braithwaite and Strang (2000), it became apparent that more philosophical and critical thinking was needed in understanding the values, connections and foundations of restorative justice, especially within disciplines such as human rights.

It was agreed that this thinking should not be owned by two people. Thus, more travellers were needed. But inviting them to present at a conference simply would not work. We wanted to challenge the participants and indeed ourselves. We felt that the ideas that were planted in our heads needed something radical before they could be communicated. With no funding and while committed to our full-time jobs, we set off to organize an international event that would take the form of an ancient Greek Symposium. We had hoped that this would enable the participants to debate freely and without institutional and professional limitations.

The method of a Greek Symposium was selected not only due to the Editors’ Greek background, but also because of its unique ability to create deep relationships through a love for thinking and the beauty of the mind. Symposia are also known for triggering self-observation leading to the betterment of oneself. They were originally treated as cultural institutions with their own formal and comprehensive rules, principally aimed at posing philosophical and rhetorical questions. Ancient Greek symposia were well structured in all their aspects. Formal symposium customs included the number of guests, the special room where the guests gathered (andron) and the type of food and drink that was served. For instance, the serving of wine (mixed with water) after eating, as well as the quantity of wine cups, were very important organizational aspects. Moreover, hymns and libations to the Gods before, during and at the end of the symposium were key aspects as they reflected respect for the divine inspiration that was utilized as well as a part of the everyday life of ancient Greeks.²

The literature on symposia in ancient Greece and Rome is multidisciplinary and diverse, including rhetoric, philosophy, history, archaeology and humanities. However, there are certain problems of validity and hermeneutics, including the use of original sources and interpretation of ancient Greek. Epistemological issues are also obvious while trying to explain the very old concepts, notions and practices using current logical and theoretical schemes and frameworks. Thus, ancient Greek symposia must be placed within the context of their era and social circumstance.

Nevertheless, a recent trend in humanities focuses on the comprehensive study of the ancient symposium, defined as sympotic studies. This debate started with the publication of O. Murray’s Sympotica: A Symposium on the Symposium (1990). Likewise, we will use the terms sympotic or sympotica to refer to the actual cultural institution of the symposium, and symposiac or symposiaca to refer to the literary genre, which is the symposium.

Admittedly, the most famous symposium in history, Plato’s Symposium (Birrell and Leslie, 1925), served as our inspiration:

The Symposium is a great love treatise which lies somewhere between the Song of Solomon and the Sonnets of Michael Angelo in the past and the works of Mr. Havelock Ellis in the present … Right opinion or orthodoxy to Plato was insufficient to lead the soul which demands that true knowledge of truth, for which Pilate asked and asked in vain. Like a moving staircase, Plato’s dialogue rises with the initiated and disentangles law from particulars and unity from multiplicity until suddenly eternal beauty is glimpsed and the soul stands in the real presence of beatific experience (Birrell and Leslie, 1925, p. 2–9).

Our symposium was held on the Greek island of Skopelos on 2–7 June 2012. Following closed invitations from the Editors, twenty international names participated.³ Our symposium was intended to be a closed scientific event, with no audience or external interventions. The participants came from various corners of the world (Canada, USA, Australia, Europe, Africa), with mixed backgrounds and experiences. This was important in order to achieve a multidisciplinary dialogue that would include all three levels of scientific ambition: academia, research and practice.

The symposium was also differentiated from other forms of scientific activities (such as conferences, seminars, congresses), where the participant usually presents their research findings during a short Powerpoint presentation. In our symposium each contributor had one hour to spend as they wished. There was no technology involved at all. The contributor had to explore and use old ways of debating and keep the participants engaged so that they could then put forward questions and help develop dialogue. Motivation of thinking, using pen and paper and semi-structured questioning, turned out to be our key sympotic techniques.

No papers were requested in advance of the symposium. In fact, the dialogue and questioning served as the vehicle for writing the chapters that are published as part of this volume. Therefore, the symposium sessions were not treated as presentations of new research but rather as an interactive and step-by-step, discourse-based, structuring process, aimed at driving the context of analysis.⁴

Węcowski argues that ‘we tend to consider the Greek symposium as a microcosm of the Greek life, especially that of the “Agonistic Age” of Greek civilisation, i.e. of the archaic period’ (2002, p. 337). Our symposium was a kind of microcosm of the restorative justice experts who attended, reflecting the agonistic trends in academia, research and practice.

Lasting for one week, our symposium turned out to be symbiotic and relational. All our days and evenings were spent in each other’s company. All participants shared the seven hour daily programme (four hours every morning and three hours every evening), as well as lunch, dinner and evening drinks. Some participants also brought family and friends who were welcomed to all the activities and in this way strengthened the relationships further. It was important that power was relinquished and a bottom-up debate encouraged.

What really made a difference, however, were the chosen locations for our sessions. Skopelos is one of the most beautiful and unspoilt islands of the Aegean, famous for its blue sea, light, and rich flora and fauna. The locations for each session were different, chosen for their symbolism and unique beauty. For example, the beach-based sessions symbolized the open horizon of the Aegean Sea, encouraging an open mind and creativity. The session held at the old Monastery of Panagia Leivadiotissa, owned by the Monastery of Sinai in Egypt (fourteenth century), represented the continuum between the past and the present, not only in history, but in linking the different countries and cultures present. The Minoan Style villa, designed and painted by the artist Mrs Vasso Kosma reflected the technique and colours of the Minoan Palace at Knossos, Crete, symbolizing the continuum of influence of the Greek civilization through time and space.

The Santa Barbara Monastery, founded in Byzantine times, cut off from other parts of the island and adorned with Byzantine icons, represented peace, calm and self-reflection. We saw Byzantium as the link between ancient philosophies, both Greek and Arab, as well as modern Western thinking. Our selected locations symbolized the continuum in philosophy and spirit, from the past to the present and from East to West, including the values of fairness and justice.

Our closing ceremony at the Ancient Asklipeion of Skopelos, which is referenced as the centre of energy, healing and revealing, was symbolic of our plans to take a step forward in restorative justice and human rights thinking. Healing and revealing social bonds from crime violation and restoring communities, while remaining faithful to our core aims in academia, research and policies were emphatically symbolized. Similar to a Greek tragedy’s catharsis the closing ceremony encouraged further self-reflection, exploration and a transformation into something better. The Orphic Hymns to Dionysus, Dias, and Apollo sung by Iphigenia Kovani, a mezzo lyric singer, and ancient style libations by the host organizers closed the event in an inspiring way.

Figure 1 Restorative Justice International Symposium delegates, Skopelos – Summer 2012

The event was followed by a painful comedown and countless emails and conversations about the aftermath of our experience and the ideas that flowed from it. Then the writing started, resulting in further debates and, of course, editing. The ultimate Ithaki was the creation of this book, which we hope will encourage the reader to take their own journey of exploration and questioning.

Limitations and Ways Forward

In attempting such a journey and book we were mindful not to be seen as romantic or utopian. Our goals were grounded in academia and the furtherance of philosophical thinking. It was also important that we were not seen as detached from reality. Although the questioning of current models of practice and thinking was encouraged, we did not subscribe to any school of abolition.

Arguably, due to 1970s literature, restorative justice has often been confused with abolitionism and the replacement of the current justice system with something radically different. None of the participants had such an intention. Our writings, questioning and postulation aimed to challenge current ways of thinking about reality, harm and crime control and the reasons justifying our criminal justice sanctions, practices and ethos. The chapters in this volume may be seen as radical but their intentions are reconcilable, as they aim to help us reposition ourselves in the pursuit of justice for others and ourselves.

Figure 2 The journey begins at Kastani beach, Skopelos – Summer 2012

Figure 3 Philosophy in a restorative justice circle, Skopelos – Summer 2012

Being Greek, both Editors were also anxious to avoid being viewed as promoters of an ancient Greek lifestyle. Although the ideas of Classical Greek thinking and ethos were used, the event was placed within a cultural context that represented its international delegates. It was important that everyone felt comfortable and safe in each other’s company. Such is also the power of restorative justice and the universality of human rights.

We acknowledge that the small number of participants in our symposium is not representative of all the trends and perspectives in restorative justice theory, research and practice. However, given the different scientific backgrounds of the participants, the various fields of their work and their diverse professional ideology, we achieved an interdisciplinary dialogue. The multidisciplinary background that we all shared (practitioners, criminologists, philosophers, po...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Contributors
• Editors’ Note and Acknowledgements
• Foreword by John Braithwaite
• Preface by Howard Zehr
• PART I RECONSIDERING RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
• PART II CASE STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY
• PART III BACK TO BASICS FOR RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
• Index