Emotional Dynamics in Restorative Conferences

Abstract

Restorative justice interventions, which focus upon repairing the harm caused by an offence, are consistent with the approach advocated by reintegrative shaming theory. However, some have argued that remorse and empathy play a more important role in restoration, and that a focus upon disapproval and the emotion of shame may be misguided. This article analyses theoretical distinctions between shame and guilt before discussing their role in restorative interventions. It is argued that emotions like empathy, remorse and guilt will spill over into feelings of shame, and that it is the resolution of these emotions that is critical for successful justice interventions.More than a decade ago, one of us, John Braithwaite (1989), proposed a theory of reintegrative shaming. Reintegrative shaming was presented as an effective practice in preventing crime before the event, as well as in responding to crime after the event. It was distinguished from disintegrative shaming (stigmatization) which risks making crime problems worse. Reintegrative shaming communicates disapproval of an act while conferring 191 Theoretical Criminology

The Use of ‘Shame’ with Sexual Offenders

“…Popular responses to sexual offending show that the community is somewhat ahead of judicial attitudes, with public criticism of lenient sentences for rape and the early release of high-risk offenders. The 'name and shame' campaigns discussed above show that the community is, if anything, too strong in its disapproval of offending behaviour and would certainly be 23 A number of critical fronts have developed, including the theoretical distinctions between shame and guilt (Lewis 1971;Taylor 2002;Harris et al 2004) and shaming as a psychological process (Tomkins 1987;Olthof 2000). 24 There is some evidence that communitarian societies (as defined by Braithwaite) have lower crime rates than other societies (Messner and Rosenfeld 1997;Savolainen 2000).…”

Reintegrative Shaming Theory, moral emotions and bullying

“…Quite often, however, it is difficult to analyze guilt apart from shame [Harris et al, 2004;Williams, 1993; pp 197-198]. These two emotions often overlap and people tend to experience them concomitantly [Van Stokkom, 2002; p 351] 3 .…”

Love in Law’s Shadow: Political Theory, Moral Psychology and Young Hegel’s Critique of Punishment

“…Williams's work has had some influence on the restorative justice literature (e.g. Harris, Walgrave and Braithwaite, 2004;Harris and Maruna, 2006), but its admittedly underdeveloped and therefore inchoate call for a deeper moral psychology of guilt and blame has not been taken up. Rather than searching as it were for its own Kant or Hegel, or in today's terms Duff, restorative justice draws pluralistically on a variety of cultural, historical and religious resources which provide a basis for a range of reflections, albeit with a number of commonalities: see e.g.…”