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DYADIC FORGIVENESS IN RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
A Review of the Field and a Proposed Model
PURPOSE
The purpose of the study on the paradox of forgiveness is to examine the process of energy flow in implicit forgiveness by examining restorative justice dialogues. This section is a review of the literature on forgiveness that pertains to and contextualizes the study. It is also a review and retrospective analysis of restorative justice cases to ascertain key dimensions of implicit forgiveness, underlying conditions that foster that forgiveness, and the process of energy flow in restorative justice dialogues.
INTRODUCTION
Amidst a falling crime rate, including violent crime, the recidivism rate for prisoners who have served their time remains stalled (Durose, Cooper, and Snyder, 2014) suggesting that punishment, through incarceration, does little to effect behavioral change. Similarly, relatively few initiatives help heal crime victims who years after a violent offense continue to live restricted and fear-laden lives. For example, studies of family members of homicide victims have found that 66 percent could not find meaning after five years (Murphy, Johnson, and Lohan, 2002), endured post-homicide distress that did not dramatically lessen over time (Thompson, Norris, and Ruback, 1998), and were significantly more likely than other direct crime victims to have lifetime posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Freedy, et al., 1994). Studies of sexual assault victims showed a slower recovery rate from sexual than nonsexual assault (Gilboa-Schechtman and Foa, 2001), increased vulnerability to panic disorder (Leskin and Sheikh, 2002) and chronic posttraumatic stress if psychological disorders were also present (Darves-Bornoz, et al., 1998). In contrast to victims of minor crimes, victims of violent crime suffer significantly more distress, including loss of confidence (41% vs. 11%), loss of self-esteem (37% vs. 2%), sleeplessness (27% vs. 9%), and headaches and other physical symptoms (41% vs. 5%) (Strang, 2002).
An alternative and complementary approach to prison and punishment for violent crimes is restorative justice, which is rapidly gaining mainstream attention. It is a promising response because it acknowledges the interpersonal nature of crime. Using a variety of formats, it brings together victim and offender for a mediated dialogue. Using the negative energy from the crime that generated a forced, involuntary relationship, restorative justice offers the opportunity to channel that negative energy into healing through a process of accountability that allows victims to transfer the pain from the harm done to offenders, and offenders to use that pain to give back to victims through remorse-driven responses and behaviors. Restorative justice has a longstanding record of effectiveness. Victim offender mediation (VOM), which is the oldest restorative justice practice, has shown for over 40 years that it achieves a 25 percent to 32 percent reduction in recidivism (Umbreit and Armour, 2010, pp.132â133). Family Group Conferencing (FGC) has demonstrated the ability to reduce posttraumatic stress symptoms in victims by 33 percent at six weeks and by 40 percent at six months (Angel, 2005).
Because of the powerful potential in restorative justice to shift the negative energy from crime to positive energy for healing the harm done, and to generate change in and between victim and offender, many view restorative justice as a movement that explicitly furthers forgiveness and reconciliation. This pairing, however, is problematic and counterproductive to the restorative justice movement because it alters the objective of restorative dialogues for victims, which is to restore the victimâs emotional and material losses. It also disturbs the safety that must accompany any meeting between the offender and victim by directly or indirectly prescribing/imposing the outcome for victims. Indeed for many victims, terms such as âforgivenessâ and âreconciliationâ are interpreted as devaluing their criminal victimization, or as judging their legitimate anger and rage as inappropriate (Murphy, 2002). Moreover, those who are unable or unwilling to forgive might experience a double victimization, first from the crime and second from the shame associated with their failure to forgive (Exline, et al., 2003, p.13). Restorative justice, therefore, works within a paradox. On the one hand, forgiveness and reconciliation represent a potent and promising outcome of the process of facilitator-assisted dialogue and mutual aid between crime victims and offenders. On the other hand, the more one talks about these concepts, the more likely they will be heard as behavioral prescriptions or even as a moral imperative and the less likely victims will participate in dialogues with offenders and have the opportunity to experience naturally occurring elements of forgiveness and reconciliation (Umbreit, 1995).
There is strong consensus in the restorative justice practitioner community, therefore, that forgiveness cannot be pushed. Proponents of restorative justice recognize that mislabeling restorative justice as forgiveness could serve as a disincentive for victims to meet with offenders because of the expectation of benevolence. However, there is also recognition that the concept of forgiveness in restorative justice cannot be ignored. To that end, Armour and Umbreit (2006) have proposed a model that defines the dimensions of forgiveness in restorative justice. Because restorative justice is systemic in focus, it is built on the tripartite representation of victim, offender, and community and suggests that the place, definition, and significance of forgiveness will vary depending on the needs of people in each of the three groups and the relationships of the stakeholders to one another.
Forgiveness in restorative justice includes the following dimensions: (1) From the victimâs perspective, forgiveness refers to the unburdening of negative emotions associated with the trauma and/or the releasing of bitterness and vengeance while not condoning or excusing the offender (Umbreit and Armour, 2010, p.126); (2) From the offenderâs perspective, the experience of being forgiven is associated with feeling accepted as human by representatives of the community (e.g. victim, facilitator, other dialogue participants) and is the outgrowth of engagement in a process of the offenderâs accountability, remorse, and reparation. The acceptance is symbolic of being reinstated in the community as a moral citizen (ibid., pp.126â127); (3) Forgiveness involves a bilateral process that creates change in both victim and offender as a result of their impact on each other (ibid., pp.128â129); (4) Victim forgiveness is implicit and its communication is not dependent on the use of explicit language or the occurrence of specific behaviors. It is a by-product of the interaction between victim and offender that is communicated through a shift in attitude (e.g. letting go of anger) or behavior (e.g. no longer fighting against an offenderâs parole) (ibid., p.128).
As reflective of the modelâs emphasis on the processes of forgiveness and the implicitness of its expression, Umbreit has recently proposed that restorative justice embodies the âenergyâ of forgiveness regardless of formal outcome or expression and shown the nature of this energy by having participants of restorative justice dialogues share their experiences via media (Being with the Energy of Forgiveness: Lessons from Former Enemies in Restorative Dialogue, Umbreit 2013) and through narrative in The Energy of Forgiveness: Lessons from those in restorative dialogue (Umbreit, Lewis and Blevins).
This study extends the bilateral component of Armour and Umbreitâs model and Umbreitâs recent work on energy by examining in greater detail, through victimsâ accounts, the flow of energy in restorative justice dialogues that is involuntarily birthed by crime or wrongdoing and positively harnessed in the service of healing when it is unimpeded by preset agendas for forgiveness. Besides its unique contribution to the restorative justice community, this investigation adds to the forgiveness literature that, heretofore, has minimally examined the significance of bilateral (hereafter referred to as dyadic) forgiveness or forgiveness that is the result of transactional or dyadic interaction between the person responsible for the transgression and the person who was harmed.
TYPES OF FORGIVENESS
Historically, the focus on forgiveness has been unilateral and has centered on the substance of the drive or motivation to forgive. Proponents have identified that forgiveness may be either decisional or emotional. Decisional forgiveness is a behavioral intention to act less negatively and more positively toward an offender (Worthington et al., 2012, p.2). Emotional forgiveness is a process in which positive other-oriented emotions replace negative emotions (p.2). It often involves an affective transformation (ibid., p.5) whereas decisional forgiveness can leave the forgiver with unresolved or negative emotions. Whether a decision or a change of emotion, both types of forgiveness, which can co-occur, see the outcome as an internal or intrapsychic phenomenon. Influences on this phenomenon include the forgiverâs inclination or disposition to forgive, which is the tendency or characteristic trait of an individual to forgive over time and across situations (Worthington et al., 2012, p.16).
Clinical interventions to foster forgiveness have reflected this division between decisional and emotional forgiveness and have focused on the individual, sources of motivation and his/her psychological changes. Psychoeducational forgiveness interventions, for example, have focused principally on groups of individuals who attend time-limited groups that promote forgiving others. Change is motivated either by encouraging forgiveness through affective and cognitive empathy, humility, and gratitude (Sandage and Worthington, 2010, p.42) or through stressing the benefits to participantsâ social, emotional, relational, and physical wellbeing (ibid., p.43). Attention to the dynamic of empathy reflects, in part, studies that have empirically and consistently demonstrated that empathy is either a causal mechanism of forgiveness (McCullough et al., 1998) or a core factor (Wade and Worthington, 2005). In contrast to restorative justice, these clinical interventions have focused solely on the individual who was harmed. Engagement with the transgressor, in these circumstances, has been internal to the participant rather than actual or dyadic.
Individual versus dyadic forgiveness
The dyadic construct as embodied in restorative justice practices introduces the possibility that the drive or motivation for forgiveness may grow out of the interaction between victim and offender. This construct does not preclude the co-existence of decisional or emotional forgiveness or that forward movement, even in dyadic forgiveness, may be initiated by a decision or involve emotional forgiveness, but the process by which change occurs and the movement toward positive relational energy is dependent on the actual interaction or dialogue between victim and offender.
Clinical interventions that foster dyadic forgiveness have targeted conflicts in close relationships including, among others, intimate partners, workplace relationships, and friendships (Fincham, Beach, and Davila, 2004, 2007). Results from these studies do not transfer readily to restorative justice interventions, which are usually based on a one-time transgression between persons who do not intend to reconcile and who have limited, if any, prior history.
Although generally confined to close relationships, there is growing interest in transgressor dynamics related to forgiveness and an expansion of forgiveness concepts to include self-forgiveness and forgiveness-seeking (e.g. Sandage, et al., 2000), guilt (e.g. Baumeister, Stillwell, and Heatherton, 1995), and offender apology (e.g. Exline, DeShea, and Holeman, 2007). Similar to studies of victim forgiveness, the focus has been on motivation, with increasing evidence that guilt is the pivotal dynamic in the offenderâs incentive to seek forgiveness. Likewise, the emphasis is on unilateral activity, the individual, and intrapersonal change. The victim exists only as the object of harm in the offenderâs mind (e.g. Riek, Luna, and Schnabelrauch, 2013).
Leading researchers who focus either on those wronged or those responsible increasingly call for a fuller treatment of the experience of both parties with an emphasis on the dynamics of the relationship as well as the experience of both parties (e.g. Riek et al., 2013, p.14); Worthington et al. (2012, p.30). Lack of attention to interpersonal transactions leading to forgiveness can be attributed, in part, to the fact that clinical interventions tend to focus on only one party and controlled studies most often use student populations and hypothetical scenarios (e.g. Wenzel and Okimoto, 2010). Indeed, when students are asked to respond to survey questions on the basis of real experience, the range of transgressions is large, making it difficult to ascertain if the forgiveness response is mediated by the severity of the offense (e.g. Wenzel, Turner, and Okimoto, 2010).
Consequently, knowledge about dyadic forgiveness and the interpersonal dynamics of influence require applied research with populations of victims and offenders unimpeded by the explicit or implicit decree to forgive, which, in some religions, is considered critical to the victimâs relationship with God and the afterlife. It is also important that the energy or bilateral movement toward forgiveness be undisturbed by warnings to the offender, for example, not to ask for forgiveness because that places responsibility on the victim to meet the offenderâs needs (New Hampshire Department of Corrections Victim Services Office, n.d.). Although the power of forgiveness is embedded in the fact that it is freely given, to place rules around transactions can also disturb the natural flow or spontaneous give and take between victim and offender that may otherwise lead to a positive place.
Explicit versus implicit forgiveness
There is no commonly accepted definition of victim forgiveness. Meanings assigned to the concept vary between forgiveness as a release of negative emotions toward the offender (Di Blasio, 1998; Hill, 2001), as a replacement of negative, unforgiving emotions with positive, other-oriented emotions (Worthington, 2003), or as an emotional transformation (Malcolm, Warwar, and Greenberg, 2005). In contrast, there appears to be general agreement that the need to forgive arises in response to reducing unforgiveness, which is the emotional consequence for the victim of the perceived distance between desired justice and t...
