Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 17:15:26 -0400 From: John Wilmerding Reply-To: "Abolish (Capital Punishment)" Subject: Equity-Restorative Justice vs. 'Capital Punishment' Equity-Restorative Justice vs. Capital Punishment /or/ Equity-Restorative Justice; Restoring Lives and Society John Wilmerding General Secretary Campaign for Equity-Restorative Justice [Published in THE QUAKER ABOLITIONIST's Spring 1997 issue] While many of the world's great religious traditions sanction death as a penalty in response to the most heinous acts of violence, Friends are among the few who remain resolute in calling for the abolition of capital punishment. Why? What is the essence of the calling that apparently allows us to differ with so many others? Why do Quakers oppose the intentional taking of human life in any manner, and under any circumstances, as evil? In both spiritual and practical terms, can we find any justification for the death penalty? I submit that we cannot. Whereas advocates of the death penalty point to the phrase "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" as justification, most Biblical scholars agree that this appeal (which occurs three times in the Bible) was, in the contemporary contexts of the passages in which it appears, a call for proportionality and a reduction in the harshness of then-prevalent punishments. And my personal interpretation is that the early prophets who articulated that call fully recognized that an ideal state of affairs - a "restorative response to crime", if you will - would counsel one to go even further; to "turn the other cheek." Howard Zehr, a Mennonite and a leading writer and advocate in the field of restorative justice, maintains that for every mention of "an eye for an eye" in the Bible, the spiritual core concept of restorative justice is mentioned more than one hundred times. That core concept, little understood in most of today's Christian world, is Shalom (also known in Islam as Salaam). Most modern-day mainstream Christian traditions have lost the true meaning of this deeply important, even revelatory word and concept. This is illustrated by the fact that the English version of it - Salem - no longer has anything whatsoever to do with Shalom to most English and European-language speakers. What is this Shalom? What does it tell us about equity- restorative justice -- about justice itself -- and about divine intentions of how we humans should comport ourselves on Earth? What does the Biblical teaching of Shalom entail with respect to the death penalty? According to the late rabbi Steven S. Schwarzchild, "An adequate, though informal, definition of shalom, as used in Biblical, Rabbinic, and subsequent literatures, is approximated when people say that the peace they seek is not merely the absence of war or even of private violence, but the presence, and continuous growth, of all creative human powers. The many variants of the etymological root of Shalom in Hebrew usage make it clear that the basic idea can perhaps best be rendered in English by such terms as "wholeness," "integrity," etc ... Within that ethical totality called "peace" or "wholeness" all other human virtues and values are, therefore, subsumed. "Shall it not be that peace and truth is in my life!" declares Hezekiah to Jeremiah (II Kings 20:19), and Jeremiah himself conflates truth and peace even further with one another by speaking of "the peace of truth" (Jer. 14:13). "The deed of righteousness will be peace, and the work of righteousness quietness and security forever" (Is. 32:17). In such texts, to which many others could be added, truth, justice, righteousness, and grace are all collapsed into one value, and other moral values could easily be conjoined. Shalom, then, is a profound and all-encompassing concept. And justice is but one aspect of Shalom. Over the years, advocates for 'restorative justice' have refined their response to this teaching into practical, and even secular, terms to the point where there is now consensus that "Shalom Justice" mandates a primary focus upon human relation- ships, and only a secondary focus upon individuals and their acts. Equity-Restorative justice calls us to consider first and foremost the harm done by peoples' acts. It calls us to join together in community, in collective concern and response, to explore ways of rectifying that harm. And it calls for a return to the etymological root meaning of "corrections" ... instead of today's vernacular meaning of "punishments." Equity-Restorative justice asks us to hear "corrections" as meaning "working to- gether to make things right," to discard the colloquial meaning of the word "sanction" (usually thought of as 'a type of punish- ment'), and instead return to its etymological root meaning (from 'sanctus') of "holy act". Thus, as Kay Pranis, the Restorative Justice Planner for the State of Minnesota's Department of Corrections, says: "A restorative response to crime is a community-building response." Can the death penalty ever build community? Can it reconstruct lost relationships? Can it bring back those whose lives were lost? Not only does the death penalty fail to restore Shalom; it harms society further by increasing, sometimes doubling, its losses in terms of relationships. The death penalty harms the integrity of society. Most of the world's great religious traditions concede that killing a human being, whether intentional or not, cannot under any circumstances be construed as a holy act. They may express understanding of how homicide can occur in the heat of passion, driven by uncontrollable emotion and retribution. But there seems to be consensus that the killing of a human being is intrinsically reprehensible and sinful, and that carrying out the planned killing of a human being -- premeditated homicide -- is the very worst crime imaginable. The rationale that "one cannot teach that killing people is wrong by killing people" is oft-heard among abolitionists. Restorative justice takes this principle a step further by generalizing it, saying that retribution is not a valid component of sanctions. Paul McCold, the Quaker criminologist who is currently running a discernment process for the United Nations to arrive at an international working definition of restorative justice, believes that the harm done to "offenders" under current retributive practices is a leading cause of recidivism. When harm is done in the name of justice, the cycles of violence and crime are only perpetuated. Equity-Restorative justice calls for the mending of the 'fabric' of society by attending to the relationships among and between everyone involved in transgressive incidents. Thus, when viewed under an equity-restorative justice 'lens', punishment cannot have any beneficial effect. The word "punish" comes from the same root as the word "pain", and it is only common sense that healing is not promoted by the intentional causing of pain for pain's sake. Even given a victim-centered perspective, Divine will is served by allowing the perpetrators of "capital crimes" to live. In part, this is because partial 'restoration' can occur through such methods such as Victim-Offender Mediation. For example, with proper preparation, some murder victims' family members may derive positive benefit from meeting their loved ones' killers. Using this method, pioneered by the Mennonites, murderers may actually play a role in restoring the lives of the survivors to a greater degree of normalcy. And survivors -- if they so choose -- can also sometimes provide their loved ones' killers with a transformative experience, as opposed to stigmatizing shame. This can truly be an experience of "Shalom Justice" for all concerned, even in situations where the offender never walks free again and is never fully forgiven by the survivors. In an equity-restorative justice context, Jesus' admonition to his followers to pray "Forgive us our trespasses, as we for- give those who trespass against us" is not so much about individuals' acts of forgiveness as it is about the larger relational 'picture' of "Shalom Justice." The essence of Jesus' words is that when forgiveness occurs, a mending of the fabric of society occurs also, and everyone benefits. This is the heart of the Christian message. Equity-Restorative justice opens the possibility of receiving grace through transformation. This means that even the most stigmatized capital offenders can be redeemed, that even their lives can have value for human society. Indeed, their lives have value in the eyes of God. We must not claim for ourselves a role that should belong only to God: the ability to take human life. Instead, let us go forth and teach equity-restorative justice. Let us spread the news of it as part and parcel of the Christian message in order to fully allow God's desire for true justice to take place within our midst, in order that we might co-create shalom. +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | John Wilmerding is a member of Putney (Vermont) Monthly | | Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and is | | the Founder, Convener, and now General Secretary of the | | Campaign for Equity-Restorative Justice (CERJ) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+