Evaluating for Impact: Restorative Justice and Power Shifts
In sharing our work on Restorative Justice and Restorative Practices, we first acknowledge the Dakota & Ojibwe peoples as original & rightful inhabitants of this land as well as, along with other communally and relationally centered cultures across the globe, the originators and primary keepers of restorative ways of being. We acknowledge that their origin in indigenous wisdom require us to continuously identify and avoid colonizing practices, such as claiming “intellectual property” of our work.
Shifting from punitive mindsets embraced by traditional justice and disciplinary systems to restorative mindsets grounded in relational systems of accountability is a relatively new concept to some people. However, this concept isn’t new to community partners of HYD-PRC Senior Evaluator Kara Beckman or Deputy Director, Abi Gadea. Beckman and Gadea have a special interest in restorative justice and restorative practices and recently highlighted three community-based evaluation partnerships at the 2021 CDC Prevention Research Center virtual conference, “Re-imagining Prevention Science during Unprecedented Times.” They specifically focused on how restorative practices represent a shift in the power dynamic from current practices that hold people accountable to the rules of institutions (such as state laws, school rules) to practice that focus on accountability to people and community.
HYD-PRC partnership with Restorative Justice & Restorative Practice Initiatives
The three projects described below are building practice-based evidence of systems-centered restorative practices and restorative justice implementation. One aim is to create a shift in power dynamics, where youth, families, and community members re-gain the authority to provide meaningful disciplinary responses, and fewer young people have their healthy development impeded by punitive responses to behavior that prevent growth and learning.
Youth Restorative Justice Initiative in Hennepin County
This project seeks to build the strongest, potentially replicable model of integrating restorative justice practices across all decision points in the justice system (i.e., within schools, truancy programs, police, county prosecution, and courts). Led by the Legal Rights Center with funding from the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, the initiative includes pilot testing, evaluating, and reporting on restorative practices - processes that use collaborative, contextualized and tailored processes to determine harm, accountability, and steps needed to make amends - at each decision point.
One recent finding from the PRC evaluation is that youth who were offered pre-charge restorative justice diversion by police after arrest were 2.5 times less likely to be re-arrested in the following year compared to youth who were processed via the traditional juvenile justice system approach. A cost analysis found this pre-charge restorative justice diversion program led to approximately $1.6 million in societal benefits. Two key power shifts occur with this type of project: from systems to families/communities in terms of who has the responsibility to hold youth accountable for harm; and from systems to community in terms of data transparency and accountability for effective, youth-centered approaches.
Whole School Restorative Practices Implementation in St. Paul Public Schools (SPPS)
Together with the St. Paul Federation of Educators (SPFE), SPPS began a pilot project during the 2016-2017 school year to explore pathways to high-quality, whole school Restorative Practices implementation in twelve pilot schools. Beckman and Gadea, along with HYD-PRC Faculty Barb McMorris and UC-Irvine PhD candidate & SPPS graduate Miles Davison, have been evaluation partners to SPPS & SPFE and have co-developed an implementation framework to highlight restorative practices as a climate shift which centers relational ways of being in all aspects of school culture. Although a full measure of impact is still in progress, moving this project forward helps to establish a power shift in how educational institutions value, learn about, and commit to holistic, equitable, and restorative school climate approaches.
(Re)Imagining Justice for Youth with the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office
The most recent project with the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office (HYD-PRC joined in 2020) aims to (re)imagine justice for youth using developmentally appropriate restorative responses. Beckman and Gadea, along with HYD-PRC Faculty Rebecca Shlafer and community partner Sarah Davis at the Legal Rights Center, were asked to bring a healthy youth development lens and data analysis expertise to the work of designing a new system response. In its relatively early stages, one of the aims of this effort is to evaluate for impact related to mindsets - from punitive mindsets that make decisions based on whether a crime was committed and guilt can be proven to restorative mindsets that focus on harms, needs, and obligations. Especially in cases of harm caused by youth, a restorative mindset carefully attends to the balance of individual and community responsibility, recognizing current and past trauma that may influence youth behavior as an important aspect of community responsibility for current and future harm.
At the same time, a restorative response ensures the young person participates in a meaningful accountability process that develops key skills of empathy, perspective taking and individual responsibility appropriate for their developmental stage.
Next Steps
Beckman and Gadea are excited by the prospect of incorporating restorative justice and practices into more community settings yet note that much work still needs to be done.
“We know that shifting conditions for health at the community level requires shifting power and sharing power with community,” said Gadea. “It is our belief that evaluation services are successful when community gets the credit for the work,” added Beckman.
Both Gadea and Beckman agree, shifting power to allow these spaces to implement restorative practices within their systems with integrity takes time and a clear understanding of the paradigms and belief systems at work within restorative justice approaches. Accountability to people and relationships using a lens that understands human beings as deeply relational, profoundly interconnected, and inherently good, is key to moving both the practice and understanding of restorative approaches forward within our systems and communities.
If you have questions about restorative practices, please feel free to contact Kara Beckman ([email protected]) or Abi Gadea ([email protected]). You can also visit our website for more information on differences between restorative practices and restorative justice, these and other related projects, and the alignment between restorative justice and healthy youth development. Click here to access the YRJI project fact sheet.