NORTHAMPTON — The Northwestern district attorney’s office as well as six Hampshire County police departments announced Thursday that they will be working alongside a nonprofit to bring a model of restorative justice to the area that seeks to divert some adults out of the criminal justice system.
The law enforcement agencies have partnered with Communities for Restorative Justice (C4RJ), a nonprofit that has already partnered with 25 municipalities in the state, as well as the Middlesex and Suffolk district attorney’s offices. The nonprofit this fall will begin training a group of 10 volunteers who either live and work in Hampshire County in restorative practices. The group will begin taking referrals from police departments of incidents that qualify for the restorative justice program beginning in early 2021.
Typically, when a crime occurs, police identify a suspect, and that person is charged in court. Police under the C4RJ model still investigate a crime and identify suspects, but officers alongside C4RJ volunteers can instead decide to divert a qualifying case from the court and refer it into the restorative justice process where the volunteers will then work with the offender. Restorative justice is “a process to involve, to the extent possible, those who have a stake in an offense and to collectively identify and address harms, needs and obligations, in order to heal and put things right as possible,” according to Dr. Howard Zehr, a criminologist who helped pioneer modern restorative justice.
“People are looking to see alterna tives to the traditional criminal process,” said Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan. “I think it’s a progressive step.”
The six police departments involved are Northampton, Easthampton, Amherst, Hadley, South Hadley and Ware. Each of these departments can refer cases to C4RJ volunteers, and prosecutors from the district attorney’s office can also refer cases from any police department in the county, according to the initiative. Each participating police department and the district attorney’s office has committed to paying $2,500 each per year for administrative costs of the program.
Some people quickly expressed concerns about the new partnership. Northampton resident Emily Coffin created a petition Thursday that urges Northampton Police Chief Jody Kasper and other city leaders to “hand control, funding, and administration” of any restorative justice program to an entity outside of the Northampton Police Department and the DA’s office. Police are involved in funding and case selection, however, restorative justice meetings are led by C4RJ volunteers. In a phone interview, Coffin argued that the police giving funds to the nonprofit shows why there’s a need for a new city department that could hold a contract like this and “house community care and community well-being.”
“I think there’s an inherent power dynamic in the police department holding the contract to this nonprofit,” Coffin said. “The city is missing an opportunity to find someone else to hold that contract.”
The petition, which had over 100 signatures as of Friday afternoon, demands that officials demonstrate plans to have any restorative justice program be community-led and blasts them for rolling out such a program without community feedback. Coffin said they believe that officials should have had the newly-formed Policing Review Commission weigh in on the program.
For a case to be diverted to the restorative justice process, the victim has to agree and the offender must also agree and take responsibility for the crime. Sullivan said a case could be diverted to the restorative justice program even after a person has been formally charged with a crime. He also said that mostly misdemeanors will be eligible for this process, such as vandalism.
If a case is diverted from the court process and into the C4RJ model, volunteers from the nonprofit get assigned to the case. Once C4RJ volunteers meet with affected parties, including the victim and offender, they begin what the nonprofit calls the “circle process.”
During the first “opening circle,” the offender, the victim, a police officer trained in restorative practices, C4RJ volunteers, and possibly even other community members sit together and confidentially discuss the incident. According to the C4RJ website, it’s during this opening circle where the offender says what happened, the victim speaks about the crime’s impact and the group works toward a consensus plan of how the offender will repair the harm done.
According to the nonprofit’s website, C4RJ volunteers offer support as the offender works to meet these obligations made during the opening circle, which may include “letters of apology, restitution, service, and reflective exercises.” About two or three months after the first circle, everyone meets again for the “closing circle” where the offender reflects on what they learned and the victim and others acknowledge the work done. If everyone in the circle is satisfied, the matter is closed and returned to the police with the intent that the case will be closed.
“I think seeing is believing when you see how the restorative justice process works … and how, in so many ways, an offender can be transformed by this process,” Sullivan said. “They get enlightened as to what the impact was.”
“And on the same token, victims have a voice and they feel more empowered and they feel a sense of justice that may not have happened in an ordinary criminal process,” Sullivan continued. “I look at it as a great opportunity for the community to have an impact on our justice system.”
South Hadley Police Chief Jennifer Gundersen said restorative justice is a way to reduce recidivism among offenders which she said will lead to fewer victims who will be re-victimized. She said the process could help offenders “truly understand the effect that they have had on society, on relationships and their neighbors.”
Northampton Police Chief Jody Kasper said that if an offender does not want to agree to terms set during the restoration process, the case could be pulled and put through the traditional court process.
“I really think that this process empowers the victims — they have more control over the outcome,” Kasper said of restorative justice. “Likewise, the benefit to the person who committed the offense is that they have to take responsibility for it. They have to sit and listen to the impact that their crime had on the victim.”
Asked how she sees restorative justice fitting into the wider conversations and protests regarding police reform happening in the city and across the country, Kasper said, “What people want right now is they want data-driven, community-driven approaches to criminal justice. And I think restorative justice fits both of those.”
Michael Connors can be reached at mconnors@gazettenet.com.