‘It is easier to build strong children, than to repair broken men.’
Although that quote has been attributed to noted American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, the attribution appears to be unsupported by a review of Douglass’ writings. But it’s an interesting idea, nevertheless.
How to build strong children? And not only strong, and confident, but also socially adept?
As was suggested in Part One of this editorial series, our American culture has long embraced punishment as the most effective response to the violation of societal rules. At the same time, we recognize that children exist in a “learning mode” and are not expected to fully understand those societal rules, or to know how to control their own behavior. That’s one reason for offering free public education: to help children grow into healthy, productive adults.
Unfortunately, the focus on punishment as a response, has resulted — in some communities — in a “School to Prison Pipeline” whereby children are prepped for a life in prison, by the way they are treated in school.
I shared a quote in Part One, from Pagosa Peak Open School Assistant Director Emily Murphy, who heads up the development of Restorative Practices at the school.
Restorative Practices adds a layer to PPOS’s discipline policy, allowing individuals to take responsibility for their actions and work toward repairing relationships that were harmed. This is the first step, and allows students to identify solutions to problems with support, in place of being given an unrelated consequence around rule-breaking.
Restorative Practices were specified as a preferred discipline technique, when the PPOS charter application was submitted to the Archuleta School District in 2016. But developing a school culture that truly embraces Restorative Practices has required staff, students and parents to embark on a lengthy exploratory process.
Restorative Practice is an adaptation of another social movement known as Restorative Justice, which originated from four main sources: aboriginal teachings, faith communities, the prison abolition movement, and the alternative dispute resolution movement.
In 1989, the New Zealand government enacted the Children, Young Persons and their Families Act, which introduced ‘family group conferencing’, a program based on restorative justice principles. Australia followed with the implementation of family group conferencing in several jurisdictions. Corrections Canada has introduced restorative justice programs in many of its prisons and in 1996, commissioned the Church Council on Justice and Corrections to compile a list of community-based responses to crime, many of which were restorative justice initiatives.
Restorative Justice involves the victim, the offender, and the community in a search for solutions which promote repair, reconciliation, and reassurance. The unifying concept behind restorative justice is the restoration of relationships.
This historic approach to justice is common to many indigenous tribes, but is at odds with the typical approach to rule-breaking in American and European cultures, where our societies have generally accepted the belief that the threat of punishment effectively discourages anti-social behavior. The punishments, in Western culture, have historically involved methods of inflicting physical pain and, for the most serious infractions, torture and execution. In the 21st century, punishments more often involve incarceration and loss of social privileges. This is also referred to as ‘retribution’.
The United States, in particular, has utilized incarceration to such a degree that 34 U.S. states have higher incarceration rates than any country in the world. Louisiana, for example, had incarcerated 1,094 people out every 100,000 residents in 2021.
Mississippi had incarcerated 1,031. Colorado’s rate was 614.
The highest rate of incarceration outside the U.S. is apparently in El Salvador: 562 out of every 100,000 residents. About half the rate in Louisiana.
Some countries with lower rates? China, 121. France, 93. Japan, 38. India, 35.
In spite of the extremely high rates of incarceration in the U.S., our crime rate here remains above the global average. Based on those simple facts, we are tempted to question whether fear of punishment, alone, leads to a safer, law-abiding society. For example: Louisiana has the second highest rate of crime in the U.S. in spite of (or because of) its high incarceration rate. Looking at the graph below, one could surmise that high incarceration rates generally result in more crime, not less.
Restorative Justice takes a different approach, as does the educational version known as Restorative Practices. The approach is based not on ‘retribution’, but rather, on ‘restitution” — an attempt to heal the harm done, effectively addressing the person who was harmed, which might be as simple as admitting one’s guilt and asking for forgiveness.
No method or practice is fool-proof, of course… including the standard ‘retribution’ (punishment) model. As we see in the above graphic.
One central concern, in a school setting, is everyone’s safety, and safety sometimes requires that the perpetrator be removed from the situation. In traditional schools, a punishment may be meted out: ‘after-school or in-school detention’… or ‘suspension’ for a certain number of days… or in worst cases, expulsion from the school.
Also, in traditional school settings, the ‘rules’ are established by adults, and are enforced by adults. PPOS has adopted a slightly different philosophy for handling conflict. The process begins with the setting of ‘rules’. At the beginning of each school year, the classroom advisor (teacher) involves the students in setting the ‘norms’ for their classroom. The assumption here is that students will have greater ‘buy-in’ to the expected behaviors, if they have had a voice in establishing the rules.
Another part of the Restorative Practices approach involves learning a shared ‘language’ — learning to use certain words and sentence structures to establish a mutual linguistic environment within which ‘justice’ can take place.
A certain type of justice.
Here’s a typical set of questions that might result in a meaningful conversation involving the perpetrator and the victim, about a difficult situation:
- “What happened?”
- “What were you thinking at the time of the incident?”
- “What have you thought about since?”
- “Who has been affected by what happened and how?”
- “What about this has been the hardest for you?”
- “What do you think needs to be done to make things as right as possible?”
We might note that this conversation goes well beyond ‘what happened’ and ‘who is to blame’ and ‘what punishment is appropriate’.
As I mentioned in Part One, the PPOS Board of Directors recently underwent a training in Restorative Practices, and being myself one of those Board member, I’d like to share a few insights from our training.