In traditional court procedures, the accused is brought before a judge, possibly a jury, and legal counsel seeks to establish guilt or innocence and the appropriate remedy.
More recently, the victim or the victim's family has been allowed to offer "victim impact statements", describing the ways in which the crime has affected the individual and his or her relatives.
Traditional courts maintain distance and hierarchy.
In a sentencing circle, the offender, his or her victims, the victim's family, peers, elders and other community members sit down together in a circle and work together to understand what has led to the crime and to negotiate appropriate redress.
Rather than being purely punitive, the circle promotes healing.
Instead of removing the offender from the community and isolating him or her, the circle affirms the essential goodness of the offender, attempting to restore and re-build the offender, the victim, and the community to which they all belong.
Circles: It's about Justice. It's about Healing.
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The sentencing circle is about “community building,” he says; it is about “healing” those affected by crime, and those who committed it. It is repairing relations; making victims and perpetrators “feel better” with the outcome of a criminal incident.
[...] “What social scientist in the last 100 years has said, ‘Gee, punishment changes behaviour’?” Mr. Stuart asks.
Much better, he says, is for criminals to feel their community’s “love.”
[...] “If the judge were to effectively ignore the circle that would be sending a message that we don’t want your opinion on justice matters or that somehow punishment is more important than building community,”
[...] “There’s a basic philosophical question that has to be engaged before you even get involved in sentencing circles and that is what are your primary goals or objectives in sentencing,” says David Paciocco, a law professor at the university of Ottawa.
“It all depends on your perspective on what we’re trying to accomplish when we sentence.”
Sentencing circles appeal to those wanting primarily to reintegrate criminals into their offended community, he says. “If on the other hand you believe that sentencing is a principled exercise designed to express societal revulsion at criminal conduct, or if you believe that proportionality is the underlying consideration in sentencing, then you’re probably going to feel uncomfortable with a regime that’s designed to see how we can move forward rather than respond to what’s happened in the past.”
[...] Supporters of the circles say their strength is that the process reflects a more time-honoured form of justice; it is, Mr. Stuart points out, a community choosing to “roll up its sleeves” in the grandest traditions of civil society, to solve its own problems.
“We’re living now in this la-la land where nobody really participates,” he says. “It’s all done by professionals . . . we’ve outsourced everything.”
'Sentencing circles for aboriginals: Good justice?'
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We believe that the penal code of the old covenant - an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth - has been abrogated by Jesus Christ, and that that under the new convenant the forgiveness instead of the punishment of enemies has been enjoined on all his disciples in all cases whatsoever.
To extort money from enemies, cast them into prison, exile or execute them, is obviously not to forgive but to take retribution.
[Leo Tolstoy]
The Kingdom of God is Within You, p. 4-5
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If a person can't do what he or she's s'posed to do - well, they die.
Everybody has to follow his purpose. David is a storyteller and if a storyteller stops telling stories, he stops having his life. Then he dies.
As long as people can keep on doin' what they're s'posed to be doin', they can keep on living.
People are s'posed to be supported so they can do their thing. Without the help of others, no people can carry out their identity - I don't care who they are or what they're s'posed to be doin'.
And if it doesn't need others, then it's not their true identity - not for this world - and they might as well not even be here.
People keep each other alive with support. So if someone is a musician, we ought to listen. If they're a cook, why, you go ahead and eat and tell 'em how that hit the spot, how you needed that.
[...] How people can be so thoughtless, they don't even let a man carry on his life [...] How in the world people could have got so much into their own selves that they don't think they need each other - I sure can't understand it. If people stop listen' to David, now how can he be a storyteller? You tell me.
And if he can't be a storyteller, he'll die. That's the way it works.
[Rolling Thunder, quoted by Doug Boyd]
Mystics, Magicians and Medicine People: Tales of a Wanderer, p. 190-1
A true community begins in the hearts of the people involved. It is not a place of distraction but a place of being. It is not a place where you reform, but a place you go home to. Finding a home is what people in community try and accomplish.
In community it is possible to restore a supportive presence for one another, rather than distrust of one another or competitiveness with one another. The others in community are the reason that one feels the way one feels.
The elder cannot be an elder if there is no community to make him an elder. The young boy cannot feel secure if there is no elder whose silent presence gives him hope in life. The adult cannot be who he is unless there is a strong sense of presence of the other people around.
This interdependency is what I call supportive presence.
[Malidoma Patrice Somé]
Ritual, p. 51
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