Restorative Justice: An Ethical and Practical Solution to Ghana's Criminal Justice System (II)

This is the concluding part of Godwin Agboka's write-up on fixing Ghana's Criminal Justice System. The first part was published yesterday.Click on this link to read Part I >>http://www.modernghana.com/news/180964/1/restorative-justice-an-ethical-and-practical-solut.html

Ghana's criminal justice system draws so much inspiration from the retributive school of thought that believes that punishment must avenge or retaliate for a harm or wrong done to another. Thus, it makes sense (according to this idea) even if it means prisoners should be treated like animals. This philosophy of punishing criminals dates back to 3,500 years. For example, the Code of Hammurabi provided that “if a man destroys the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye. If he breaks a man's bone, they shall break his bone. If a man knocks out a tooth of a man of his own rank, they shall knock out his tooth.” In fact, the Law of Moses stipulated that “thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” (Exodus 21: 23-25). Thus, criminals must get the same measure of crime that they have committed.

About two decades ago, Political Scientist James Wilson, posited that wicked people exist, and these wicked people (criminals) lack the inhibition against misconduct or eccentricity; they value the excitement and thrills of breaking the law, they have a low stake in conformity, and are willing to take greater chances than the average person. In the view of Wilson, if criminals could be convinced that their actions will bring severe punishment, only the irrational would be willing to engage in crime.

Restraining offenders and preventing their future misdeeds, he argued, is a much more practical goal of the criminal justice system than trying to eradicate the root causes of crime: poverty, poor social amenities (like schools and hospitals), family break-ups and other economic deprivations, and society has no choice. Wilson continued that nothing avails except to set criminals apart from innocent people. And many people — neither wicked nor innocent, but watchful, dissembling, and calculating of their chances — ponder our reaction to wickedness as a clue to what they might profitably do.

Having dogmatically boxed ourselves into this retributive process, the same system has closed its eyes to other processes that could also be effective in fighting crime, rehabilitating criminals, helping victims, and keeping our society safe and sound. The challenge now is whether or not our justice delivery system should continue going this route in the face of an almost crumbling system. We have, for long, held on to the belief that prison is the most effective response to crime, almost treating these criminals with no dignity without thinking about its impact, their families, the political administration, and society. However, if you treat human beings as wild animals, abusing them at every turn, they tend to respond as wild animals do. In any case, more than 90 per cent of inmates are released into the community. Thus, humane treatment is not just a moral issue; it's a practical issue. (May 1999).

The view that “if you don't send criminals to prison to make them suffer for their actions they will not change,” lacks support. In fact, there is a weak perception — without any support — out there that other alternatives to punishing crime are not as effective. May et al (1999), argue that there is a general idea that leniency contributes to criminality and that the only response to increased criminality is tougher punishment. So we find ourselves in the get-tough-on-crime syndrome. In the end, our society has made more laws, made punishment more stringent, and put more people behind bars. Unfortunately, our criminal justice delivery system has become a national tragedy. Our prisons are critically crowded, and it is clear we have lacked answers as to how to build ourselves of the overcrowding crisis.

Since most of these criminals get back into society, anyway, will it not make sense to focus on some reformative, rehabilitative, or restorative aspect of the justice delivery system? One of the prominent justice delivery philosophies has been the belief that providing psychological or educational assistance or job training to offenders makes them less likely to engage in future criminality (US. Department of Justice). Processes like this could either take place while offenders are in and out of prison so that prisoners could make a transition from institutional life back into society. This process is important not only for the inmate who has been released but also for society.

Concerns have also been raised in and about our justice delivery system as to why some judges decide to put offenders who commit minor offences behind bars, when other alternatives other than incarceration could be better than prison which serves more as training grounds for criminals, with petty criminals often coming out as hardened criminals after a short sentence. Judges could utilize community corrections alternatives—community service, fines, day reporting, intermittent incarceration, etc—for offenders who had not committed serious offences and who have had limited criminal histories. Community service, for instance, has a two-process approach. It makes a conscious effort of reintegrating the offender into society while making the offender contribute something to society.

It is fair to say that the Law Reform Commission charged under the Law Reform Commission Decree, National Redemption Council Decree 1975 (NRCD 325) with a responsibility to revise, reform, and modify the laws of Ghana, proposed, sometime ago, to come out with proposals to the criminal justice system that will see a radical change in the sentencing of convicted criminals. The main import of this proposal sought to bring community sentences, suspended sentences, conditional discharge, compensation orders, and curfew orders for certain classes of offences and offenders.

No matter how this is done, however, much emphasis should be put on reforming rather than punishing offenders. The consequences of such over-emphasis on retributive justice have been severe, it has not served the national good, criminals have not changed the way we wanted them to, and society has seen the worst. One of the defining moments of history was the call at the 2000 United Nations (U.N.) Congress on the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders for a resolution for all nations to encourage restorative justice, which resolution passed unanimously.

Restorative justice, for instance, comprises the idea that because crime hurts, justice should heal, and especially heal relationships. It is a process in which all stakeholders have an opportunity to discuss the hurts of a crime, how they might be repaired, how recurrence might be prevented, and how other needs of stakeholders can be met. Societies with the highest imprisonment rates in the world — the United States, Russia, and South Africa and most executions — China — have been sites of important innovations in restorative justice. It's not too late for us. This is our time! It is common sense to know that to reform criminals by placing them in prison is based on a fallacy.

While we are it, anyway, we could also spend some time to answer the following questions: Why do people commit crimes? Why has recidivism been so low? Why do some stop committing crimes? Why do some continue even after they are punished?

Credit: Godwin J. Y. Agboka [Email:[email protected]]
The author is a Doctoral student in International Technical Communication and an MA student in Criminal Justice.