Community Restorative Justice

I have not read any of this week’s material before, but we have read Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow piece, which also discusses the topic of incarceration. With that being said, I have learned about the clear injustices that go with criminal justice system not only when you go, but also when you come out. I am curious as to what this week’s materials will add to my current knowledge.

This week’s materials were very thought provoking. Specifically, I would like to focus on this idea of “community restorative justice” discussed in Ransby’s work. The idea of abolishing the prison system is an extremely imaginative idea, that at first I thought was 100% never going to happen. Although I am still not thoroughly convinced, Ransby’s piece allowed me to think more openly about it. The idea of community restorative justice is a way in which instead of the prison system holding people accountable for their criminal actions, it is the community. The way in which this is done is by bringing in trained professionals on community restoration to help work with the residents and come up with a solution, typically made by negotiating and having the accused and the accuser talk face to face. I find this idea to be intriguing, except it leaves me wondering with the most important question: will this work? While there have been scenarios where this has proved to resolve problems (the sexual assault case described in the Ransby’s piece), I am not so sure if it will work for every case. In my opinion, I think most people are selfish and they will not care to “negotiate” or “mediate” with their community. And when this happens (and there is sure to be a time when this does happen), what is the next step? What happens when restorative justice fails? If the prison system is completely abolished, what do we do with this individuals who refuse to participate in the bettering of themselves and their community? Perhaps a better idea is to not get rid of the prison system completely, but what if it was the last alternative. If a person refuses to comply with their community after a certain number of times, then they recieve jail time. Or, if a person complies with their community but continues to be a problem and a threat after multiple community confrontations and restorative efforts, then they receive jail time. Ruth Wilson Gilmore may argue that this idea of getting sent to jail after multiple times of breaking community restorative efforts will not deter people from not complying. However, even though there are statistics that do show this may be the case, I’m not so sure I believe that. I think to some extent jail does deter crime, and in other extents it doesn't. It very much depends on the person, but I do believe that having jail being the last resort will force some individuals to comply with the community restorative justice practices.

Another big question I have regarding restorative justice is what do you do for larger crimes? If someone murders another person, I’m not so sure the family of the person who was murdered is going to want to negotiate and work things out with their family member’s murderer. And not only that, but for sexual assault and violence cases, the task of the accuser to confront the accused is a pretty mentally grueling task. Some people may not be comfortable being in a room with the person that attacked and took advantage of them. And when people truly feel they were violated, they may not want to work things out, and would actually prefer their assaulter to go to prison. However, despite all of these issues with the idea, I am for completely dismantling the current system rather than reform. I believe that it is currently 2020, and if the system is still this bad then there is probably no hope for the future. And black people shouldn’t have to keep waiting, it has been long enough.