Nashville Bar Journal | February/March 2017 by Nashville Bar Association

Editorial |

Moving Towards Restorative Justice in Nashville (continued from page 11)

the child relies on his or her defense attorney to “win” the case. In the end, the victim has very little satisfaction, the youth does not have a good opportunity to learn accountability and responsibility, and the community has little chance of restoration. The court process often results in a permanent conviction on the child’s Juvenile Court record, which can eliminate future opportunities for the child such as obtaining certain types of employment. It is imperative that we move toward a more restorative justice system, especially with regard to our youth. If young people have an opportunity to understand their actions, accept responsibility for the harm they have caused, and play an active role in the restoration process, the likelihood of them reoffending is decreased dramatically. Also, when the victims have a genuine opportunity to express the nature of the harm and their ideas on how they can be healed, they are more satisfied with the process. The idea is simple: we do not solve the problem of juvenile delinquency by merely

locking children up or giving them permanent criminal records for every misdeed. We can only solve the problem of juvenile delinquency by increasing understanding, resiliency, responsibility, and hope in our youth. The Davidson County Juvenile Court currently is preparing for an upcoming pilot project on Restorative Justice. In order to bring a successful Restorative Justice program to Nashville, we have partnered with Sujatha Baliga and Impact Justice from Oakland, California. Impact Justice provides resources and technical support for jurisdictions interested in bringing restorative justice to their communities. In July of 2016, I was part of a contingency from Davidson County that visited Oakland and San Francisco’s Restorative Justice programs. The Davidson County contingency included individuals from the District Attorney’s Office, the Public Defender’s Office, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, and Juvenile Court. From this trip, we learned how successful Restorative Justice can be

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for the entire Juvenile Justice system— the children, families, victims, and community. In jurisdictions practicing Restorative Justice, it has been effective not only for minor offenses such as misdemeanor vandalism and assault charges, but also for more serious felony charges where the harm is more significant and there is a greater need for healing. Therefore, in our pilot program, we will focus on using Restorative Justice prior to the filing of a delinquency petition in a narrow class of cases—those in which a youth has committed a residential burglary that does not involve a weapon or bodily injury to the victim. Restorative Justice will be reserved for those cases in which the child has accepted his or her responsibility for the offense. Cases involving a contested issue about the facts of the case or identity of the offender will still go through the traditional court process. We are beginning with home burglaries because they often result in severe trauma to the victim. In these cases, victims often have questions which are not typically answerable in the traditional court system: Where did you pawn my grandmother’s jewelry? Why did you pick my house to burglarize? Were you casing my house before the burglary? Do you understand how terrifying it was for my family to find out someone had been inside our house? Anecdotally, we have learned of burglary cases that have gone through Restorative Justice and have resulted in a great deal of healing for the victim and the youth—where the victim’s fears of the unknown are assuaged and the youth comes to understand the serious impact of their actions. (continued on page 16)

NASHVILLE BAR JOURNAL | FEB/MAR 2017