Christianity

Pathways to a Strengthened Community

by Reverend James Scott, Project Coordinator of the Collaborative Justice Project, Provincial Courthouse, Ottawa, Ontario

Scripture passages: I Corinthians 12:12-27, Matthew 18:15-17, II Corinthians 5:16-19

Music:Let there be Light
Let there be Peace on Earth

Recently retired Justice Barry Stuart, who pioneered community sentencing circles in the Yukon Territory, refers to crime and conflict as opportunities for the community to become stronger and healthier. "The health of a community improves when its members participate in conflict resolution," says Stuart. "When they leave the task to others, the quality of community life declines. Gone as well is the community's natural capacity to prevent crime, redress the underlying causes of crime, and rebuild the broken lives and relationships caused by crime."

This vision of an "inclusive" justice process is a radical departure from the form of justice embodied by the current criminal justice system. There, the focus is on catching, convicting and punishing the individual accused who participates only through a legal representative. Victims have generally been excluded from the criminal justice process and as a result, may feel twice victimized by the system. Other community members who have been directly involved or impacted by the crime have minimal role, if any. The outcome often further alienates the accused from the community through stereotyping, the stigmatization of a criminal record, and physical removal by incarceration. Seldom does this process result in the repair of broken relationships or the healthy reintegration of the offender back into the community. The current approach to justice often leaves citizens with unresolved wounds, broken faith and hardened attitudes. The tear in the fabric of the community remains untended and unmended.

A case in point. Several years ago, a teenager was charged with the stabbing of another youth at his neighbourhood community centre. He was sentenced to a period of custody at a detention centre followed by 18 months of probation and psychiatric counseling. The justice system assumes that the case has been dealt with and moves on. But how has that system addressed the brokenness in individuals or the community? How has it assisted in the repair of any of the relationships affected by this act? How has it addressed the needs of his victim or any of the other people affected by his violence - those who witnessed the attack, the boy's parents, the victim's family, the neighbours who heard about it? How is the community to cope with his living among them again? How will they know if they are safe, if he is sorry, if they can trust him again? What is likely to happen to him and his family if he's just feared, and ostracized, and scapegoated for the rest of his life?

JUSTICE AS REPAIRING BROKENNESS

Restorative justice challenges us to expand our vision beyond a model of justice that focuses almost exclusively on the offender to a model that pays attention to the needs of all those who have been affected by the crime, and thereby contributes to restored individuals and a healthier community. But doing justice differently means viewing crime differently. Crime is not just law-breaking. It is almost always a sign of brokenness, within people and between people, a fracture or rending of community life usually with real and painful impacts on the lives of those victimized, the offenders, their families and other community members. It can also be a symptom of social brokenness revealing structural or systemic inequality or dysfunction.

When such brokenness occurs, the questions arise: what should be done? How should the community respond? And more fundamentally: what is justice? The nature of justice has always been a central concern of human development in general, and of the faith community in particular. The faith journey itself is about "justice", if we mean by justice - how we are called by God to live with one another.

In Jewish scriptures, justice (sedeqah) is a holistic vision. Justice has to do with creating and maintaining right relationships. It meant that when something happened that damaged the relationship you had with others, you were called to work at repairing it until "shalom" was re-established. "Shalom" was understood as God's will for the people. It meant peace, harmony, wholeness, fairness and well-being between people.

The Christian view of community is also rooted in an inclusive image. In I Corinthians 12:12-27, Paul presents the image of the community as the body of Christ. He writes that if one member of the body suffers, the whole body suffers with it, and he rejects the view that any part of the body is disposable or unimportant (vss15-17). This is a call away from an individual focus on the "bad egg" to an inclusive social responsibility model.

OUR RESPONSE TO CONFLICT IS A THEOLOGICAL STATEMENT

Recently, some faith communities have been reflecting on their own understanding of conflict and moving to non-adversarial processes for conflict resolution. In August 2000, the General Council of the United Church of Canada adopted the following Theological Affirmations as the basis for its conflict resolution policy and process.

MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION

Restorative justice asks: what is needed for the community and its members to heal and live successfully together again after brokenness? How can we assist in the support and healing process of the victim? How can we help the offender understand the impacts of his or her behaviour and encourage him or her to accept responsibility and make amends? The community should have an interest in these questions because it has responsibility for the care of its individual citizens as well as the community as a whole. It is concern for these questions that are the hallmark of restorative justice programs.

Sponsored by the Church Council on Justice and Corrections, the Collaborative Justice Project operating out of the Ottawa Courthouse is demonstrating what a restorative model could look like when applied to serious adult and youth crime. In an otherwise polarized and adversarial system, we stand in the gap to help the victim, the accused, their families and other affected community members to access information, address support and safety needs, acknowledge responsibility, and develop relevant reparation plans that go to the court for consideration at the time of sentencing. We accompany people through a difficult time, humanizing the justice process for them and assisting them to recover, to repair the harm to the extent possible, and to regain control in their lives.

The community has an interest in this expanded and inclusive vision of justice because we want healthy communities. Just as we commit ourselves to maintain a social safety net, to ensure accessible and high quality health care and education, we need to claim our interest and role in a community based justice process. In doing so, we foster a sense of collective responsibility; we place a greater emphasis on crime prevention and on addressing the underlying causes of crime; we mend the torn fabric of community life and of individual lives; we reduce public fear and alienation; and, we assist citizens to rebuild their lives and relationships so that they can move on with their lives.

What happened to the teenager convicted of stabbing another youth? He and his family wanted to continue to live in the community but recognized that no healing work had been done. They arranged to meet with the victim's family, community centre officials, other neighbours, and local church supporters in a facilitated community healing circle. It was a powerful day-long process which revealed the depth and breadth of emotion that remained in the community even after two years, - feelings of guilt, fear, sadness and anger. The circle gave people an opportunity to ask questions and deal with their feelings in a supportive context. It was a redemptive experience resulting in a sense of healing, reconnection, and forgiveness.

What does God's justice look like? In II Corinthians 5:16-19, Paul holds out a new vision of justice based on our own experience of a God of love and grace, a God who reaches out to repair and heal our brokenness, not holding our trespasses against us, -- a vision of justice that centres on healing, repair and restoration. I believe that, as Christians, we are called to challenge the current system of justice and our communities with this new vision. If not we, people of faith, then who?

"All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation."