Setting Standards for Child‐Inclusive Restorative Justice
| Published date | 01 January 2021 |
| Author | Tali Gal |
| Date | 01 January 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12546 |
SETTING STANDARDS FOR CHILD-INCLUSIVE
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
Tali Gal
Childhood victimization occurs everywhere: in homes, kindergartens and schools, in state-care institutions, neighborhoods,
workplaces, and online. The most vulnerable children are least likely to disclose their victimization and see their cases prose-
cuted. Restorative justice (RJ) offers an alternative way for addressing criminality. It promotes accountability and reparation,
without the debilitating effects of incarceration. RJ places victims at the center and enables them to communicate with perpe-
trators, usually with state monitoring. Recent decades have seen the widespread use of RJ worldwide. Yet, despite indications
that RJ reduces violent crime, most programs target cases involving misdemeanors, juveniles, and first-time offenders. Child-
hood victimization has generally been left outside the scope of RJ programs, apart from juvenile offending, where the main
goal is offender rehabilitation. Consequently, when the victim is a child, the promise of RJ to give victims a voice is often
unfulfilled. The high rates of childhood victimization and the shortcomings of criminal justice systems in prosecuting such
crimes highlight the need for child-inclusive RJ programs targeting crimes against children. The present article reviews find-
ings from the fields of RJ, children’s rights, psychology, and victimology.Through integrating these practices and approaches,
it proposes a set of standards for developing child-inclusive RJ programs.
Practitioner’sKey Points:
Offers practical tips for implementing restorative justice with children.
Explains child-inclusiveness.
Demonstrates that involving children in justice making is hard but beneficial for them.
Explains how to involve children safely in decision-making.
Demonstrates that children want to have a voice, not necessarily a decision-making power.
Presents connection, continuity, and respectful listening as key features for children.
Keywords: Child-inclusive; Child victims; Juvenile justice; Needs-rights; Restorative justice.
I. INTRODUCTION
A Fact Sheet by the World Health Organization has recently stated that an estimated number of
one billion children aged 2–17 have experienced violence, abuse or neglect in the past year.
1
That’s
a shocking 45% victimization rate, referring only to recent victimization and excluding non-violent
offenses such as property crimes. Childhood victimization occurs everywhere: in homes, in kinder-
gartens and schools, in state-care institutions, in neighborhoods, in workplaces, and online. It occurs
in the vast majority of cases by someone known to the child such as caretakers, relatives, peers, and
neighbors, but also occurs at the hands of strangers and by passers.
2
Particularly vulnerable are chil-
dren with disabilities, children with special needs, children living in poverty, in the streets or in out-
of-home placements, and children of minority groups.
3
The most vulnerable children are least likely to disclose their victimization and see their cases
processed through the criminal justice system. When victimization occurs at the hands of a trusted
adult, reluctance to disclose is particularly strong, as in the case of young victims of sexual abuse,
and often results from feelings of shame, fear, and self-blame.
4
Often, there are evidentiary difficul-
ties relating to the nature of the offense and the ability of children to testify. Victimized children
Corresponding: tgal1@univ.haifa.ac.il
FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 59 No. 1, January 2021 144–160, doi: 10.1111/fcre.12546
© 2021 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts
and their guardians often prefer not to press charges for reasons having to do with fear of unwanted
exposure, breaking up the family, or harming the known perpetrator.
At the same time, young victims want to see that justice is done; that the world has not remained
the same after they disclosed their victimization; that the fact that the violation of their rights,
bodily integrity, or emotional wellbeing by a legally accountable person means something to the for-
mal authorities, or at least to the people around them.
5
The public interest in effective reaction to
crimes against children and youths is strong. Crimes against children have developmental and inter-
generational effects on the children, their families, and their communities.
6
They affect the chil-
dren’s and youths’sense of safety, trust, and ability to thrive.
7
Given the magnitude of the effect of
crimes against children of all ages, society wants to prevent further childhood victimization through
deterrence, incapacitation, or rehabilitation of the offenders, and it wants to condemn such crimes
publicly.
Restorative justice (RJ) offers an alternative way of addressing criminal behavior. It promises
to “do something”about interpersonal harms, resulting in accountability and crime reduction,
without the debilitating effects of incarceration. RJ is defined as “any process in which the vic-
tim, the offender, and/or any other individuals or community members affected by a crime
actively participate together in the resolution of matters arising from the crime, often with the
help of a fair and impartial third party.”
8
There are several models of RJ process, the most com-
mon among them are victim-offender mediation, conferences, and circles. They differ mainly in
the degree of community involvement and in the number of participants in them. Victim-offender
mediation programs involve only the victim, the offender and a mediator.
9
Conferences, or family
group conferences (FGCs) typically involve family members, friends and other supporters in
addition to the direct stakeholders.
10
The largest RJ model is that of restorative circles (also
called justice- or sentencing-circles). These often involve a whole community, and typically take
place when the victim, the offender, or both, belong to an aboriginal community.
11
RJ processes
can be applied either as an alternative to a punitive response, or as an addition to it, reducing
the amount of pain inflicted on the offender by increasing the restorative measures toward the
victims and the community.
12
Unlike the criminal justice process, RJ places the victims at the
center and enables them to communicate safely and directly with the perpetrators, at times with
supporting others witnessing and contributing to the discussion, and usually with some monitor-
ing by state officials.
In the past two decades, the use of RJ has become widespread worldwide, particularly in the US,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe.
13
Together with the growing interest in RJ, the legal
and criminological scholarship about it has expanded, focusing on its theoretical justifications,
14
ideological bases,
15
and proven outcomes regarding offenders
16
and victims.
17
Yet, although RJ
programs address all types of crimes, victims, and perpetrators, the popular view is that RJ is suit-
able mainly for juvenile offenders and minor offenses.
18
Only a small number of programs world-
wide target specific victims of serious crimes.
19
Despite clear indications that RJ is more effective
in reducing recidivism in violent offenses resulting in real emotional and physical harm
20
than is
the traditional legal process, the majority of programs target juvenile offenders, first-time offenders,
and cases involving misdemeanors.
21
Thus, although many of the victims of juvenile offenders are
children and youths, typically the focus of such programs have not been the young victims but
rather the juvenile offenders, as these programs are aimed at diverting juveniles from the criminal
process, or at least enhancing the rehabilitative elements in it.
22
As a result, the promise of RJ to
place victims at the center of the discussion and enable them a safe, empowering dialog with their
perpetrator is often not fulfilled when the victim is a child. A small number of programs have aimed
to provide RJ processes specifically targeted at victimized children,
23
and these programs have
shown positive results for those children.
24
These experiences highlight that alongside the great
potential of RJ as a reaction to crimes against children, without special attention to the individual
needs of a young victim, there may be a serious gap between the theory of RJ and its practice.
25
In 2011, my book, Child Victims and Restorative Justice: A Needs—Rights Model, outlined a
theoretical framework conceptualizing the needs-based rights of victimized children, and proposed
Gal/CHILD-INCLUSIVE RESTORATIVE JUSTICE 145
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