Volume
1, Number 1, Jan/Feb 2000
Making
Things Right: Restorative Justice Comes to Campuses
by
Bill Warters, with Tom Sebok and Andrea Goldblum from
CU-Boulder
Conflict
on campus takes many forms. Sometimes it involves behaviors
that are in clear violation of university or community
norms. These acts, whether purposeful or inadvertent,
often require a response from individuals empowered to
enforce community norms.
Unfortunately, campus conflict resolution practitioners
have found traditional systems of justice (e.g. criminal,
disciplinary, grievance) to be, at times, cumbersome,
ineffective, and even revictimizing for some participants.
There is a need for creative options to traditional justice
systems, options which are flexible enough to allow positive
productive responses to a variety of offenses or violations
and which also meet the unique needs of the University
community. A small but growing number of campus programs
believe that Community Group Conferencing, utilizing the
principles of "Restorative Justice" is such an option.
Restorative
Justice (RJ)
represents a philosophy and a process that acknowledges
that when a person does harm, it effects the person(s)
they hurt, the community and themselves. When using restorative
justice measures, an attempt is made to repair the harm
caused by one person to another and to the community so
that order is restored for everyone.
RJ
has been successfully used in juvenile and criminal justice
systems all over the world. It certainly has great potential
for being effectively adapted to the unique culture and
needs of university members and community. Discussions
and outcomes generated by the people directly affected
by a student's conduct can help meet the University's
educational mission, have a greater emotional impact and
seem more valid to all involved than outcomes imposed
by administrators or as a result of bureaucratic processes.
There are a number of characteristics of university communities
that make the use of an RJ
model not only feasible, but also a good fit. In a university,
there are well-defined communities, which work to promote
an ethos of care and integration and have ready opportunities
for collaboration. Support systems are usually in place
in Counseling services, health centers, alcohol, drug
or anger management programs and many other services.
RJ is also a concept
that is flexible enough to respond to diverse populations.
In addition, RJ is
particularly well-suited to complement student judicial
and residence life missions and processes.
While other campuses have experimented with these models
in an adhoc way, the University of Colorado at Boulder
is perhaps the first university in the nation to develop
and implement a formal restorative justice program. The
group at CU-Boulder now offers students who get in trouble
a chance to "fess up" and face the consequences of their
acts, without entering the university judicial system.
CU-Boulder's program centers around bringing victims,
offenders and community members together for a "group
conference." During the conference, which can last several
hours, those involved in the case sit in a circle and
discuss the incident and its effects on the victim and
community. Since offending students participating in the
Restorative Justice program have already admitted wrongdoing,
the focus of the discussion is not about whether a law
or policy was violated, but rather, on identifying any
harm to individuals, relationships and property that may
have occurred. Once that's done, the group focuses on
identifying how to repair the harm, and help offending
students make better future choices.
In its first year of operation, the CU-Boulder program
has handled 8 student cases using the group conferencing
model, and the response to the program has been very positive.
Participation in the process remains voluntary. The cases
have involved issues such as damage to an urn in a memorial
garden, bottles thrown from a balcony that almost injured
a groundskeeper, a Greek fraternity chapter "prank" involving
the removal of furniture from a sorority house, and students
shining a laser-pointer into the eyes of a police officer
on patrol.
Some examples of items from past group agreements include
offenders sending an open editorial about their actions
and what they learned as a result of the Restorative Justice
Conferencing process to a local newspaper, an offender
riding along with police officer to see the types of issues
he must deal with on a daily basis, alcohol counseling
and talking to others about their actions. The agreements
are monitored to make sure they are completed, and when
done, no record is maintained in the judicial affairs
office.
The project at the CU-Boulder was developed by a working
group including the Director of the Office of Student
Judicial Affairs, the Coordinator of the Victim Assistance
Office, the Director of the Ombuds Office, the Coordinator
of Student Conflict Resolution Service (SCORES),
the Coordinator of Housing, the Director of Judicial Affairs,
an Assistant Residence Hall Director who had previous
involvement with a nearby community-based restorative
justice project, and a Police Administrator from the University
Police Department. The program was fortunate to receive
considerable technical assistance from a community-based
RJ program in Longmont, Colorado, called the Longmont
Community Justice Partnership. Thom Allena, an experienced
restorative justice trainer and consultant affiliated
with the Longmont project helped them get off to a good
start by facilitating their first group conference.
A group of 20 facilitators were trained to assist with
the program. The group includes a number of peer mediators
already skilled in mediation due to their work with the
SCORES program on campus. The program uses two trained
facilitators to run the group conferences, one serving
as the leader of the process, and the other keeping track
of impacts of the behavior on victims and community members
mentioned as the discussion unfolds, and of possible actions
that the group thinks might help make things right again.
The total number of people attending the circle can vary
tremendously, with the range being around 6-20. Also assisting
is a graduate assistant whose responsibilities include
monitoring the agreements. Should the agreements not be
lived up to, the case is returned to the campus judicial
program for resolution.
Tom
Sebok, the Ombuds at CU-Boulder, and Andrea
Goldblum, Director of Judicial Affairs have written
an article that provides more detail on the process they
went through and lessons they've learned setting up the
program and handling their initial cases. For instance,
one challenging issue is how to prevent students from
unnecessarily experiencing double- or triple-jeopardy
by being required to participate in other university or
community law-enforcement or conduct procedures. Preventing
this requires good relationships and significant coordination
between various community agencies that might be involved.
Tom and Andrea's article is scheduled to appear in the
upcoming issue of The Journal
of the California
Caucus of College and University Ombudsman. Andrea
and a number of her colleagues are also presenting a session
at the upcoming Association for Student Judicial Affairs
conference in Clearwater Beach Florida (see events list
for details).
While efforts at applying Restorative Justice on the college
campus are still in their infancy, some other schools
are experimenting as well. For instance, a search of campus
newspapers uncovered a story
about the use of group conferencing at UCLA. The case
in point involved a group of student athletes who were
charged with illegally obtaining disabled parking placards.
The students joined family members, administrators and
members of the disabled community to explore the implications
of their actions and develop a plan to repair the damage
done.
Clearly, Restorative Justice has great potential for wider-spread
use on college and university campuses. While the process
can be time consuming (ever try to schedule 15 people
for a meeting?), the payoffs can be great, and the growth
and learning for parties involved truly significant. We
hope that more people will explore the use of group conferencing
models on campus, and share their experiences with the
broader community.
More information on victim-offender mediation (another
term often used for this kind of work) and restorative
justice is available at a number of websites for people
interested in exploring further. Useful links include
the following:
