Reddit reviews Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice (Christian Peace Shelf)

No way /u/BelongingSeeker, I'm literally in a Restorative Justice class this semester and am reading Zehr's most famous book right now. I was actually thinking about—when the semester is over—writing something here about restorative justice and how it links into the grander SW narrative (considering I did that in class!).

Phenomenal post! Glad you shared it.

>The only way I can see a way around this is by removing prisons and having instead capital punishment or physical punishments for crimes.

Prison is WAY overused in our modern society.

For property crimes (i.e. theft, fraud, etc) several ancient civilizations had IMHO a much, much better solution: if judged to be guilty, the criminal had to repay THRICE the value of what he attempted to steal. (Thus making crime pay... for the victim.)

But for violent crimes (i.e. attacks upon other people) the goal of prison from the society's perspective is really NOT strictly one of punishment, but rather of sequestering the criminal actor and preventing him from engaging in further acts (at least within that society). Some type of "imprisonment" is ONE way of doing that, ostracism and deportation/exclusion is another, and a third (forgotten/abandoned in our current day) option was public shaming and inflicting of real, but limited physical pain (i.e. using the physiological body's own system of memory-enhancing "lesson retention").

Note that "imprisonment" need not mean the modern version of a barb-wire-fence facility that includes "free accommodation, food, healthcare" -- there is the old middle-eastern (pre-government) concept of a "City of Refuge/Asylum/Exile" where an offender (typically someone guilty of negligent/inadvertent manslaughter -- more than an accident, but less than murder) could flee, and would be allowed/required to remain (working and paying for his own needs within that city at whatever job he could get) for an indeterminate period of time (typically until some unrelated event happened -- i.e. the high priest died, etc). If he ever ventured outside of the city he fled to and was caught by the family of the victim(s) he fled to, his life was (legally) forfeit/subject to their mercy (he could attempt to "buy" his life & freedom via ransom, with the victim's family setting the price).

If it were judged to be a case of outright murder (the judges being the elders of the walled city that he fled to seeking refuge/asylum, and therefore voluntarily placing himself under their jurisdiction) then he was turned over to the victim(s) family(s) (basically for them to execute him via capital punishment, but it would not be impossible for him, were he very wealthy, to ransom his life basically by handing over his entire fortune).

Now, rather than just a city, I suppose he could run to some privately owned "estate" and seek refuge/asylum there in much the same way (but he would then of course be limiting himself to a much smaller geographic property -- that of the estate owner) and placing himself under the jurisdiction/control of that one owner.

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Part of the problem in our modern "state-centric" world is the plethora of "non-crime crimes" that the government creates and engenders.

In reality, most people are relatively NON-violent -- and even non-retributive in nature.

The restorative justice movement has learned that very large part of the population's desire for "tougher punishment" (i.e. ever longer sentences, etc) is actually due to a sense of powerlessness and frustration with the criminal justice system itself --what most victims WANT to know is "Why?"... "Why did you rob MY house? Damage MY car? Why did you hit me?" etc.; they want the ability to engage in a DIRECT (but safe) confrontation with the offender, have the opportunity to express THEIR pain, to receive an explanation, an apology and some recompense (often in the form of community service), and have gain or regain some sense of "control" over things and prevent the crime from recurring -- and those are all things that the "state-centered" justice system deprives them of, so all (literally the only thing) they are left with is a growing frustration that manifests itself as ANGER and HATRED and demands for retributive punishment. (Cf the seminal book on "restorative justice" entitles "Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice" by Howard Zehr)

In addition, the vast majority of "crimes" both property AND interpersonal violence are committed by young men in their teens and twenties -- in small part this is probably due to things like hormones/jealousy, etc {or at least current en vogue criminology theory claims this}; but in larger part, I think it is due to the restrictions our modern society artificially places on young men, a sort of enforced/delayed, government-mandated, quasi-childhood where kids from age 13 or 14 {who previously were considered virtual adults and had adult duties and expectations} are bereft of their status as citizens -- and I think the frustrations & aggravations that result from that (being bereft of a natural need to become an adult and being "infantilized" by government laws/rules) subsequently manifest themselves in crimes against both property and persons. (Not to mention other ridiculous things like "car jacking" and "drug dealing" by inner city kids who are bereft -- by both by socio-economic AND legal restrictions {i.e. government policies} -- from obtaining money via more productive positive enterprises.)

Of course, there will always be the occasional full-adult "crimes of passion" or crimes of desperation (i.e. poverty driven) -- but these are far fewer than most people imagine* (and I believe would be even fewer w/o the plethora of government intrusions into our lives); and with the exception of things like murder can typically be dealt with by the family structures, community "elders", etc. (i.e. with "elders" not necessarily being elected, merely those within the community that the other members voluntarily look to for wisdom, guidance, objective & independent resolution of disagreements, etc).

*Note: just as Hollywood loves* things like disaster movies (we're all going to die!!), and ridiculous things like zombie, vampire & monster movies (we're all going to die!!!), they also like to exaggerate and scare the shit out of people regarding things like sociopaths (they're hiding around every corner, and... we're all going to die!!!!) -- and alas, far too much of people perceptions of those things is the "Hollywood" exaggeration. In reality rather than being serial murderers, most sociopaths go into things like financial scams and politics (but I repeat myself).