Restorative justice with serious crime: politically motivated … · 2016-07-20 · We adopt a positive view of persons and context because we think that restorative practices are

Bianchi Restorative Foundation

(BHS)

9th International Conference of the European Foum for Restorative Justice 22 | 23 | 24 June 2016

LEIDEN

Restorative justice with serious crime: politically motivated prisoners (ETA and Northern Irish paramilitaries) and Mafia prisoners

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Department of Human and Social Science University of Sassari (Italy)

Patrizia Patrizi, Gian Luigi Lepri, Ernesto Lodi

In the case of Mafia we will share the transforming thoughts of a group of prisoners after participating to a project focus on building a restorative city in Tempio Pausania (Sardinia). We will discuss the results of restorative conference held in the city with the participation of prisoners, law enforcement professionals, citizens, students, teachers, social workers, stakeholders, volunteers, etc.


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Aims of the project


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The aims of the project :

• to build a restorative community in Sardinia;

• to detect, disclose and promote good practice in relation to restorative justice programmes and mediation; • to analyse the state of restorative practices initiated in other contexts; • to connect different agencies involved in crime prevention in order to share experiences and practices of RJ.

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Human Agency Integrated

Relational System

Knowledge

Courage Hope

Responsibility

Optimism Resilience

Capability Reciprocity and

obligation

Inclusion

Generativity Connections

Creativeness Contamination

Participation

Wellbeing

Adattability

The contribution of positive psychology to restorative justice


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Positive psychology acknowledg, redirect research attention to the growth and development of persons in their environment, aiming to promote skills and attitudes that match the complex reality in which they live (Catalano et al., 2004; Nota et al., 2015). Central constructs are:

• Hope (the ability to set goals and identify the strategies needed to pursue them (Snyder, 2000);

• Optimism (the propensity to learn the lessons of experience, Seligman, 2005);

• Resilience (the ability to engage and persist in the face of failures and negative events, Masten and Powell, 2003);

• Courage (continuing to face challenges for equity and social well-being, Snyder et al., 2011), including challenging current norms and barriers in pursuit of the greater well-being of the community (Spreitzer and Sonenshein, 2003). We adopt a positive view of persons and context because we think that restorative practices are the best way to activate positive resources in the people and in their environment (family, friends, work, school, services, community, etc.). A sense of community is another important part of restorative practices. It refers to the similarity with others, a recognised interdependence, a desire to maintain this interdependence by offering or doing for others what you expect from them, the sense of belonging to a completely stable and reliable structure (Sarason, 1974),

Intervention and research tools


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Restorative Conference The main instrument to build a sense of community in Tempio Pausania are restorative conferences: a series of meetings in which the different parts of the system come together to identify resources to build peaceful approaches to conflict resolution. The aim is to encourage all participants to reflect on our actions, consequencies and reactions to mafia crime. The conference, open to all community, is composed by a diverse group of participants (judges, volunteers, educators, third sector, the PA administrators, law enforcement, etc.) and we have registered around 450 people who have attended 9 restorative conferences in 2 and ½ years. Focus group and questionnaires To evaluate we used a mixed methodology of qualitative and quantitative instruments. We used focus groups (specific for different areas of community governance: Justice, Health, Safety, Education and Politics) with the aim of exploring understandings of concepts like ‘justice’ and ‘conflict resolution’ and to evaluate its changes after the conclusion of the project. During the first meeting selfassessment tools were delivered to participants (e.g.. perceived support, resilience, hope) to evaluate possible impacts of the action research. The focus groups are also being used also to design the restorative practices community board.


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Other challenges

Media Communication about the Mafia Crime

Social Representation of Mafia


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Institutional Changes during the project and their effects on Restorative Community

Director: loosing one of the most important promoter of project with her adherence to RJ Principles Judge: loosing who support the exit of prisoners for the activities outdoor

Captain: loosing persons who created the relationship way to the prisoners main based on the trust and responsibility

Challenging the hope and resilience of Restorative Community


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The first proactive action of community members

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8TUzP6kAKo


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After few weeks: the first City Council in Prison and the establishment of the prisoners ombudsperson with a document introducing the principles of RJ.

Generative Questions


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3 topics

1.Change perceptions trough the participation to the project about the belonging to mafia culture from himself and others perspectives

• How this experience has changed your perception considering your cultural belonging to the mafia culture?

• How this experience has changed the perception of others about your cultural belonging to the mafia culture?

• How your partecipation to the RJ project was perceived by others: family, mafia organization, other inmates, citizens, penitentiary workers?

2.Relationship with the victims: • What is your experience (feeling) with respect to victims in relation to the path you did? Has it

changed? If yes, in which way? • Would you write a message to the victim/victims? If yes, what message would you write?

3. Expectations on RJ: • What are your expectations with respect to restorative justice programs in relation to offenses

connected with mafia crime?

Change perceptions


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Change perceptions


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Change perceptions


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Change perceptions


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Change perceptions


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Experience (feeling) with respect to victims


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Expectations with respect to restorative justice programs


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General Results of the interviews

RJ as an opportunity of change

To support Individual and social change To frame an individual and social change To share the change with community (civil society) To show this change to their family trough responsibility (direct and indirect) To confirm their change within prison and to underline their distance from other prisoners when they speak about mafia crime (avoiding common situation). Actually they live almost in a separate world: separate from the culturale heritage of the mafia and separate from civil society not ready to include them


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Rj as a way to free souls, persons, and territory from the mafia culture Responsibility on their own their relatives-family life

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Some Risks


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Mafia can become more strong: social esclusion, incapacity of the system to take in to account the resposnability taken by the prisoners with this choice, families not able to really understand the meaning of the process, direct victims not informed of this process.

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The Restorative Lunch November 2014


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Foto pranzo riparativo


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Thank you

Documents

Restorative justice with serious crime: politically motivated … · 2016-07-20 · We adopt a positive view of persons and context because we think that restorative practices are