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Some professors call for ‘restorative justice’ to adjudicate campus rape claims

The feds report that the number of sexual assaults on college campuses has surged from 2,200 in 2001 to 3,300 in 2011 – and with that calls for a new form of tackling this issue have emerged: “restorative justice.”

Restorative justice treats crime as a violation of people and relationships, and seeks to repair the damage it causes through sharing circles, victim-offender dialogue, victim impact panels, community reparation boards, circles of support, sentencing circles, and conferencing with juveniles and adults, according to a paper published by Dr. Mary Koss, a professor at the University of Arizona.

Koss told The College Fix that restorative justice practices “may more accurately represent what victims seek from justice.”

“They explicitly recognize that there are three groups to which justice must attend: victims, offenders, and communities,” she said in an email.

Restorative justice has operated primarily at the fringes of the criminal justice system in the United States, but has garnered more attention in recent years. The United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, with 754 people per 100,000 behind bars.

An alternative to incarceration, restorative justice saves time, judicial processing money, and is fair to all involved, according to proponents. Restorative justice in sexual assault cases may be used in addition to or instead of criminal punishments, depending on the jurisdiction, Koss related.

Koss’s paper, “Restorative Justice Responses to Sexual Assault,” advances that using the criminal justice system to resolve sexual assault charges is ineffective and a waste of time and resources.

The number of guilty verdicts for accused assaulters is low and “the consensus is that justice reforms have not improved satisfaction of survivor/victims needs and that rape remains the least reported, least indicted and least convicted non-property felony. Social psychological research has shown that not-guilty rape verdicts increase both men’s and women’s rape myth acceptance, which is among the best predictors of a juror’s refusal to convict of rape.”

According to Koss’s paper, victim-offender dialogue, or mediation, has existed in the United States for 30 years. Yet, New Zealand and Australia are the countries in which restorative justice is a routine response to sexual assault crimes.

Koss wrote that she believes restorative justice practices in the United States are “starting to gather momentum.”

“There is less familiarity with restorative justice in the US. In most countries there has been hesitancy to use the practices with adult sexual crimes,” Koss related in her email.

Meg Mott, professor of political theory at the Vermont-based Marlboro College, has suggested restorative justice practices as a viable alternative to convening panels of administrators for assault allegations.

“Researchers in the United Kingdom found that sexual assault victims who participated in a restorative justice conference experienced a ‘really big turning point.’ For one victim, being able to speak directly to the offender was not traumatic but deeply healing. ‘I just wanted him to hear me,’ ” according to Mott.

But the restorative justice approach has its critics, among them John Banzhaf, professor of public interest law at The George Washington University Law School.

In a press release, Banzhaf described restorative justice practices as “touchy-feely New Age kumbaya” that involves “bringing the accused and the accuser together to talk about what happened, and to seek some kind of resolution which can be agreed to by both parties.”

“We don’t know if we have a rape crisis or simply rape paranoia on our hands, whether and to what extent the traditional criminal justice system – which victims not currently in college are still forced to rely upon – is effective, whether punishment or treatment or education or encouraging intervention is most effective, whether ‘no means no’ or ‘yes means yes,’ how to handle intoxication by the male as well as by the female, or even what percentage of college women are raped each year,” Banzhaf stated.

College Fix reporter Kate Hardiman is a student at the University of Notre Dame.

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About the Author
Kate Hardiman -- University of Notre Dame