The Relational Micro-Community

As illustrated previously, the relational dynamics between families, colleagues, friends, and neighbours, and of support mechanisms and ‘interlocking human relationships’, has been a common theme within descriptions of the community concept and its relevance within restorative practices.42 _{For McCold and Watchel, community encapsulates ‘a}

perception of connectedness’ and relates to meaningful interrelationships between the direct stakeholders of a restorative justice event, victim, offender and family and close friends, all coming together under the umbrella of a restorative model such as a family group conference to mediate how best to resolve the criminal wrongdoing and repair the harm caused.43 _{Both authors do not see community as a defined geographical area}

or place. Instead, that space is viewed as a mere coincidence of where a particular criminal event has occurred.44 _{Selznick has further argued that, ideally, communities}

42 _{David R. Karp, ‘Birds of a Feather: A Response to the McCold Critique of Community Justice’ (2004) 7}

Contemporary Justice Review 59, 62.

43 _{Paul McCold and Benjamin Watchel (1998) ‘Community is not a Place: A New Look at Community Justice}

Initiatives’ in Gerry Johnston (eds.), A Restorative Justice Reader (Cullompton, Devon: Willan Publishing, 2003), 294. The authors further argue that community cannot be predetermined, depending as it does on the particular offence and various actors affected.

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should be viewed as ‘settings within which mediated participation takes place’,45 _while

Barton has recognised community within a criminal justice context as consisting largely of ‘a collection of both primary and secondary stakeholders’ around the criminal offence itself.46 _{The previous section served to outline the dynamics of the geographical macro-}

community and ‘secondary stakeholder’ relational theory and its resonance within restorative practice. Alternatively, the community concept can also be illustrated by way of a relational micro-community at play within the restorative paradigm.47 _{The ‘micro-}

community’, or ‘individual community of care’ is said to consist of the close friends and family members within the life circle of both victim and offender who have been directly affected by a particular crime. These primary stakeholders are said to ‘provide the personal, emotional and material care and support we need to face problems and make difficult decisions in our lives’. It best represents ‘a network of relationships, [and] is not dependent on geography’.48 _{From this ‘micro’ perspective, the harm from a criminal}

justice act is ‘specific’ to those relationships most deeply affected by the criminal behaviour.

This identified ‘community of care’ has been further elaborated on by Braithwaite and Daly in relation to restorative family group conference participants. They have included a ‘community of concern’ concept, again consisting of close family members, friends and extended family of primary stakeholders within a particular criminal event.49 _Both

authors have argued that the close relationships and ties within such a ‘community of concern’ as part of a group conferencing model might be better equipped to successfully resolve crimes of family violence and male violence against women victims than the

45 _{Philip Selznick, ‘The Idea of a Communitarian Morality’ (1987) 75 California Law Review 445, 449. Indeed}

Selznick might almost be describing restorative justice models such as victim offender mediation and group conferencing when he talks about ‘the individual (being) bound into a community by way of more limited, more person centred groups’. As will be further illustrated within this chapter, the reparation panel itself can be shown to be a similarly ‘person centred’ group.

46 _{Charles Barton, Restorative Justice: The Empowerment Model. (New South Wales: Hawkins Press, 2003)}

41.

47 _{Paul McCold, ‘What is the Role of Community in Restorative Justice Theory and Practice?’ In Harry Zehr}

and Barry Toews (eds.), Critical Issues in Restorative Justice (Monsey, New York: Criminal Justice Press, 2004), 155.

48 _{Ibid, 156.}

49 _{See John Braithwaite and Kathleen Daly, ‘Masculinities, Violence and Communitarian Control’, in Tim}

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more conventional court based justice model. For example, they argue that ‘as a flexible process of community empowerment, conferences permit more latitude for redressing power imbalances than the inflexible procedures of the court’.50

It should be highlighted, at this point, the difficulties in identifying such a micro- community within Irish reparation practices. The adult reparation panel model under investigation does share a number of restorative principles with other comparable restorative justice models. The reparation panel aims to open up levels of accountability for the participating offender by exploring the reasons behind the offending and outlining the harm caused to victims while underlining the need for both financial and symbolic reparation.51 _{It aims to improve the opportunities for reintegration and}

rehabilitation by utilising local services while also highlighting the advantages of non- recidivist life choices. In essence, the panel model aims to reduce future offending behaviour and increase accountability, remorse and the awareness of victim harm. These restorative principles are in line with other restorative schemes such as victim offender mediation and group conferencing programmes and with the restorative justice paradigm generally.52

The reparation model, however, can be distinguished from a number of these restorative models in that it has utilised a much more streamlined format in terms of direct participants. Within restorative conferencing and restorative circle schemes the number of active participants can be large, with some UK based conferencing schemes managing victims, offenders and large groups of their family members and friends, as

50 _{Ibid, 208.}

51 _{For an explanation of symbolic reparation, see Chapter Three. See further Suzanne M. Retzinger and}

Thomas J. Scheff, ‘Strategy for Community Conferences: Emotions and Social Bonds’ in Burt Galaway and Joe Hudson (eds.), Restorative Justice: International Perspectives (Monsey, New York and Amsterdam: Criminal Justice Press: Kugler Publications, 1996) 316.

52 _{Howard Zehr, ‘Journey to Belonging’ in Elmar G.M. Weitekemp and Hans-Jürgen Kerner (eds.),}

Restorative Justice: Theoretical Foundations (Cullompton: Willan, 2002) 29. Zehr argues that the true

nature of restorative justice concerns ‘the acknowledgement of victims’ harms and needs combined with an active effort to encourage offenders to take responsibility, make right the wrongs and address the causes of their behaviour’.

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well as criminal justice professionals.53 _{Restorative circle schemes can also include a}

large grouping of both direct and indirect actors, including justice professionals and various representatives of the local area around which a crime has occurred.54 _Within

Irish reparation panel practice, such levels of active participation were minimal in comparison. As previously illustrated within Chapter Two, the city based Restorative Justice Services model will usually have a chairperson, caseworker, a Garda and a Probation Service representative alongside the participating offender. The town based Restorative Justice in the Community reparation panel will normally be made up of an even smaller selection of participants, namely the facilitator, Garda representative and one or two volunteers based in and around the area in which the managed offence has taken place.55 _{Victims can also directly participate within the RJC reparation model,}

although such participation has been limited. Within a number of city based panel observations, there have been cases managed without either a Garda representative or a Probation Service officer present due to factors such as conflicting work commitments and holiday leave entitlements.56

Thus, participant numbers within the management of panel cases were limited when compared with other victim and offender support structured models. Importantly, this streamlined reparative format proved initially problematic when attempting to define a recognisable sense of the micro-community concept within panel practices. A certain level of direct community involvement was gauged by way of macro-level local volunteers, chairpersons and caseworker roles undertaken by a collection of lay representative and programme members, as well as through the utilisation of locally

53 _{See Joanna Shapland, ‘Key Elements of Restorative Justice alongside Adult Criminal Justice’ in Paul}

Knepper, Jonathan Doak and Joanna Shapland (eds.), Urban Crime Prevention, Surveillance and

Restorative Justice (Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2009) 125.

54 _{Paul McCold, ‘The Recent History of Restorative Justice: Mediation, Circles and Conferencing’ in Dennis}

Sullivan and Larry Tifft (eds.), Handbook of Restorative Justice: A Global Perspective (New York. London: Routledge, 2006) 27-30.

55 _{By way of recap, Probation Service officers did not attend the town based panel model as they did in}

the city based format. Further, the facilitator within this model acted as both the caseworker and the probation representative. The town based model generally attempts to include victims if they are willing to participate, while the RJS model will usually concentrate on the offender alone due to its adjoining victim offender mediation programme.

56 _{See Chapter Six for proposals on combatting observed limitations such as the lack of attendance of}

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sourced rehabilitative and re-integrative service suppliers. However, attempting to procure a wider practical or theoretical illustration of the micro community concept amongst such a small pool of active criminal justice professional and lay member representatives proved a more difficult task. As previously noted, as part of restorative conferencing practices the community can include ‘supporters’ of both offender and victim. Both offender and victim are then given the opportunity to reconnect to their respective ‘support systems’.57 _{Although some commentators have viewed these}

systems as somewhat ambiguous, within Irish reparation panel practice there was no direct provision for such support structures within case discussions.58

Moreover, the general theory of a relational community dynamic has been frowned upon by a number of theorists. For example, Umbreit, Coates and Vos argue that the very idea of close relational bonds within a collection of primary stakeholders enabling a ‘community’, be that ‘micro’ or otherwise, only results in stretching the concept to breaking point. The authors have taken issue with McCold’s definition of a ‘micro- community’ and suggest that,

‘to speak of the victim, the offender, their relatives, and their friends as community in the way [he] does not only is a stretch; it is inconsistent with the origins and intent of restorative justice. A more sensible term to describe such a collection of persons is ‘social network’. In reality, one may see present in such a meeting of individuals two social networks or possibly overlapping social networks. But we believe this collection of people is not a community by most definitions or understandings of community. It is certainly acceptable to limit a mediation, meeting or conference to members of the victim and offender’s social networks but there is no particular reason to label that collection of persons a

57 _{Gordon Bazemore and Mark Umbreit, A Comparison of Four Restorative Conferencing Models, Juvenile}

Justice Bulletin (U.S Department of Justice, 2001) 5-6.

58 _{See Robert Weisberg, ‘Restorative Justice and the Danger of Community’ (2003) Utah Law Review 343,}

355, in which he argues that ‘the notion of ‘support’ or a ‘supportive environment’ ‘is ambiguous between a natural social or familial grouping or a more contrived arrangement, and even more ambiguous as to what ‘’support’’ substantially means – empathy, instruction, moral guidance, and so on’.

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‘community.’ At best, it represents elements of one’s larger community of association [that is, one’s social network]’.59

In addition, idealistic notions of an interconnecting web of attached community members, of shared interests and obligations, have been similarly noted by Durkheim, who argues that modern day societal structures do not contain such shared relational bonds. For Durkheim, community could at one time have been conceived of ‘mechanical solidarity, or solidarity by similarities’ wherein people lived and worked together and values and roles were agreed and handed down through generations.60 _{However, this}

solidarity then changed to a society now distinguished by difference. This ‘organic solidarity’ now represents a modern social cohesion based on a complicated system of interdependence which only recognises the pursuit of, legally and socially accepted, individual goals.61 _{In this regard, Nils Christie has added to the debate surrounding the}

possibility of either a macro or micro relational community presence. While famously recognising and indeed championing the need for greater social participation within criminal justice processes, he was also aware that ‘a lack of neighbourhoods’, or ‘killed neighbourhoods’ and ‘killed local communities’ served to represent a potentially fatal flaw to the non-professionalised, lay orientated justice ownership ideal that he supported.62

In concluding this section, it again should be underlined that a relational theory of community can be somewhat easier to identify in those restorative models which allow for direct participation of family members and friendship support structures alongside both victims and offenders. The streamlined reparation panel model, therefore, represented a challenge in attempting to identify and define the reparative community concept. Despite the format differences, I have identified a novel relational based

59 _{Mark S. Umbreit, Robert B. Coates and Betty Vos, ‘Restorative Justice versus Community Justice:}

Clarifying a Muddle or Generating Confusion’ (2004) 7 Contemporary Justice Review 81, 85.

60 _{Emil Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society, Introduction by Lewis Coser. Translated by W.D. Halls}

(New York: Free Press, 1984) 31.

61 _{Ibid, 68.}

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community within reparation case management practice. This relational themed community added to the more practical geographical elements within panel practices and was personally identified as a ‘meso-community of care, concern and