https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/06\/the-confessions-of-brock-turner-and-a-culture-of-punishment\/<\/a>], reveals an obsession with inflicting torment upon wrongdoers, even if such penalties do nothing to reduce violence.<\/p>\nBy comparison to Western Europe, U.S. criminal punishment is extremely harsh.\u00a0 In Norway, the maximum prison sentence is 21 years, even for multiple murders.\u00a0 In Portugal, it is 25 years.\u00a0 The European Union has abolished the death penalty.\u00a0 The U.S. system has mandatory minimums, \u201cthree-strikes\u201d laws, lifetime incarceration, solitary confinement, and executions.\u00a0 At any given moment, the total number of people imprisoned in the U.S.A. is well over 2 million, giving it the highest incarceration rate in the world. \u00a0Simple comparisons regarding complicated, multi-causal issues can be misleading, but if harsh punishment\u2014presumably as deterrent or corrective\u2014leads to a less violent society, we might expect to find much lower crime and recidivism rates in the United States of Incarceration than in other wealthy, liberal democracies.\u00a0 Yet U.S. rates for homicides, rapes, robberies, assaults, and recidivism remain higher than in Western Europe.\u00a0 \u201cPublic safety\u201d is not making us safe.<\/p>\n
In fact, harsh sentencing may encourage rather than deter violence. \u00a0Incarceration, particularly without adequate health care, rehabilitative therapy, meaningful work, and protection from assault, is a form of violence.\u00a0 When the state condemns a person to death or long-term confinement in horrid conditions, it is announcing that vengeance is honorable, violence is a legitimate response to injustice, and some lives are not redeemable.\u00a0 Destroy your enemy.\u00a0 In a stressed out, heavily armed, profoundly unequal and racist society, this is a dangerous message.<\/p>\n
Victims of violent crime typically demand harsh punishment for their violator.\u00a0 They may think, wrongly, that sufficient vengeance will bring emotional closure.\u00a0 They may hope severe punishment will cause the perpetrator to reflect on his actions and feel remorse, but it may just inspire him to ponder racist and classist disparities in law enforcement and feel victimized and resentful.\u00a0 Furthermore, the threat of extended punishment may encourage the perpetrator to plead innocent, thus dragging the victim onto the witness stand and through a lengthy ordeal.<\/p>\n
The emphasis on punishment extends beyond incarceration, as the well-being of former prisoners is an afterthought.\u00a0 The stigma of a felony limits job opportunities.\u00a0 Lifetime public registration keeps sex offenders isolated and alienated, despite low recidivism rates.\u00a0 The underlying, and reasonable, assumption is that time behind bars in the U.S.A. is degrading rather than rehabilitating.\u00a0 Some states permanently disenfranchise convicted felons\u2014a political device to weaken black and Latino voting power.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the privatization of prisons enriches corporations that lobby for stricter laws and harsher sentences.<\/p>\n
What we have, then, is a mutually reinforcing triangle of cultural, structural, and direct violence.\u00a0 The culture of punishment is a feedback loop.\u00a0 The retributive justice system does not lessen suffering.\u00a0 Violence begets violence.<\/p>\n
To reduce violence, some form of restorative justice is required.\u00a0 Rather than punishment for its own sake, the primary concern of criminal justice should be the well-being of all involved: victim, perpetrator, and other community members.\u00a0 In restorative justice programs, dialogue and mediation are critical.\u00a0 Victims are invited to participate, to express their hurt and their needs, to have their loss acknowledged\u2014a very different scenario than hostile interrogation by defense counsel.\u00a0 Perpetrators are encouraged to reflect on harm they caused and take direct responsibility for their actions by making amends through apology, payment, community service, and other positive means\u2014punishment is not restitution.\u00a0 For convicts, this is a first step toward rehabilitation\u2014cultivating accountability rather than resentment, preparing for reentry into society with less likelihood of repeat offenses.<\/p>\n
But \u201crestorative\u201d can be a misleading and limiting description.\u00a0 Restoring society to status quo ante will likely leave in place the structural factors that contributed to the crime.\u00a0 Consider the woman arrested for stealing baby formula\u2014not unheard of in the U.S.A.\u00a0 Her methods may be unacceptable; her goal may be legitimate.\u00a0 Retributive justice demands punishment for her sin, especially if previously convicted, so incarceration is ordered, separating mother from child.\u00a0 Who does that help?\u00a0 In simple restorative justice, the merchant explains how the theft caused harm, the mother admits guilt and somehow makes restitution, the judge might sentence her to counseling and probation.\u00a0 Then what?\u00a0 The perpetrator must be heard.\u00a0 Why did she turn to theft?\u00a0 Does she have unmet basic needs?\u00a0 Sorry, vengeance-seekers and moralizers, if the goal of the criminal justice system is less violence, the perpetrator needs advocacy, in this case perhaps to address issues of employment and daycare.\u00a0 Will the same merchant hire her?\u00a0 This more radical form of conflict resolution sees the theft as an opportunity to investigate and reduce structural violence, meaning that which is built<\/em> into<\/em> political and economic systems.\u00a0 Individual responsibility is necessary but insufficient.<\/p>\nAfter several decades of intensified punishment obsession, U.S. society may be reversing course.\u00a0 Slowly, state by state, public officials and voters are eliminating mandatory minimums, decriminalizing marijuana, and suspending executions\u2014tacit acknowledgment that punitive justice has failed to make society less violent.\u00a0 But more radical change is required.\u00a0 Reducing a death sentence to permanent imprisonment, or ten years of incarceration to five, while immensely important to the one being sentenced, won\u2019t substantially reduce violence in society.\u00a0 The culture of punishment must give way to a culture of rehabilitation.<\/p>\n
In fact, that process is underway, albeit largely unnoticed by national politicians.\u00a0 Prisons and juvenile justice programs in the U.S.A. have been experimenting with restorative justice for the past thirty years, with promising results: decreased crime and recidivism rates, less desire for vengeance by victims, and lower financial costs.\u00a0 Many school districts in major U.S. cities have adopted such programs, emphasizing dialogue and mediation over suspension and expulsion, seeing misbehavior as an opportunity for teaching responsibility and self-worth.\u00a0 When young people internalize the assumptions of nonviolent conflict resolution rather than the punishment imperative, they are less likely to employ violence against those who offend them.\u00a0 Less violent child-rearing and schooling is a key component for a less violent society.\u00a0 Start early.<\/p>\n
Norway, with strong restorative justice programs, is an instructive example.\u00a0 (New Zealand\u2019s institutions are also worth investigating.)\u00a0 Norwegian schools utilize peer mediation: troublemaker today, peer mediator tomorrow, peacemaker the next.\u00a0 The justice system provides victim-victimizer mediation, also street and prison mediation, and emphasizes rehabilitation over punishment, contributing to extremely low incarceration and recidivism rates.\u00a0 U.S. journalists tend to describe Norway\u2019s prisons as \u201ccushy,\u201d even \u201cluxurious\u201d\u2014incarceration is considered punishment enough.\u00a0 After a Norwegian right-wing psychopath massacred 77 people, in 2011, the predominant public response was, essentially, \u201cwe must not become like him\u201d\u2014so different from \u201ckill the bastard,\u201d as often heard in the U.S.A.\u00a0 The Norwegian prime minister insisted, \u201cWe will answer hatred with love.\u201d\u00a0 Fyodor Doestoevsky\u2019s observation comes to mind: \u201cThe degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.\u201d\u00a0 Peace begets peace.<\/p>\n
With this in mind, the promotion of restorative justice programs in the U.S.A., at all levels, can be an issue that unites progressive activists.\u00a0 A racial divide frequently arises among progressives\u2014indeed, this appears to have contributed to black support for Hillary Clinton and her business-as-usual campaign, even as blacks stand to benefit from the New Deal-type reforms proposed by Bernie Sanders.\u00a0 As the criminal justice program disproportionately convicts and sentences by race, and as inner-city schools see high rates of suspension and expulsion, blacks and Latinos have good reason to support restorative justice programs.\u00a0 For progressives in general, restorative justice offers a humane path toward less violent communities, even while undermining the power of prison-industrial complex.\u00a0 Note to the progressive majority on the Democratic Platform Committee: Make restorative justice a non-negotiable plank.<\/p>\n
But wait, there\u2019s more.\u00a0 By reducing the obsession with punishment, restorative justice programs offer hope of reducing war-making.\u00a0 Say what?\u00a0 The UNESCO constitution reminds us that \u201cwar begins in the minds of men.\u201d\u00a0 Current U.S. foreign policy makes clear that changing presidents does not end imperialist wars.\u00a0 Thinking must change\u2014from the bottom up.\u00a0 If schools and juvenile justice programs stop teaching the punishment imperative, if future generations learn nonviolent conflict resolution rather than \u201cdestroy your enemy,\u201d then we can expect a decline in public support for war.<\/p>\n
_______________________________________<\/p>\n
Timothy Braatz is a playwright, novelist, and professor of history and peace studies at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, California.\u00a0 His most recent nonfiction book is <\/em>Peace Lessons.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By reducing the obsession with punishment, restorative justice programs offer hope of reducing war making. The UNESCO constitution reminds us, \u201cwar begins in the minds of men.\u201d If schools and juvenile justice programs stop teaching the punishment imperative, if future generations learn nonviolent conflict resolution rather than \u201cdestroy your enemy,\u201d then we can expect a decline in public support for war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglo-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75402\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}