CRITIQUING THE CRITICS OF PEACEMAKING CRIMINOLOGY: SOME
RATHER AMBIVALENT REFLECTIONS ON THE THEORY OF "BEING NICE"
Pp 101-134 in Kieran McEvoy and Tim Newburn (eds.),
Criminology and Conflict Resolution. London: Macmillan, 2003.
Jim Thomas, Julie Capps, James Carr, Tammie Evans,
Wendy Lewin-Gladney, Deborah Jacobson, Chris Maier,
Scott Moran, and Sean Thompson
Northern Illinois University / DeKalb, IL 60115 (USA)
(10 April, 2000)
(Early draft of paper forthcoming in: Kieran McEvoy and Tim Newburn (eds.),
Criminology and Conflict Resolution. London: Macmillan.)
We are indebted to Kevin Anderson, Jim Edwards, Kieran McEvoy, Harry
Mika, Richard Quinney, Dennis Sullivan, and Larry Tifft for sharing
their insights and stimulating our thinking. We also thank colleagues
and others at the 1999 American Society of Criminology annual meetings
in Toronto for tolerating our often persistent questions about
peacemaking.
=====================================================================
CRITIQUING THE CRITICS OF PEACEMAKING CRIMINOLOGY: SOME
RATHER AMBIVALENT REFLECTIONS ON THE THEORY OF "BEING NICE"
Nobody is very likely to consider a doctrine true merely
because it makes people happy or virtuous--except perhaps
the lovely "idealists" who become effusive about the good,
the true, and the beautiful and allow all kinds of motley,
clumsy, and benevolent desiderata to swim around in utter
confusion in their pond (Nietzsche, 1966: 49).
In the past decade, a growing number of scholars have attempted
to integrate "being nice" with theoretical precepts. Peacemaking
criminology reflects one such attempt. Perhaps because it blends
scholarship and praxis with an ideology of social harmony and unity,
peacemaking criminology (PMC) risks being seen as something less than
a rigorous intellectual position, and more as a philosophical belief
system. As a consequence, one goal for advocates lies in expanding
the tenets of PMC beyond the pale of co-ideologues in order to avoid
the criticism that PMC is just another effusively "feel good" doctrine
promulgated by confused idealists.
The essays in this volume attest both to the recent growth of the
peacemaking perspective in criminology, especially the restorative
justice variant, and to the diversity of ways that practitioners have
attempted to implement its tenets in research and in practice. Yet,
the increased interest in peacemaking criminology in the past decade
also has led to corresponding questions about its practical utility
and intellectual consistency. Is the perspective useful as a means to
reduce crime? Or, is it simply a catch-all phrase used by politically
and intellectually diverse advocates, with little substantive value
beyond mobilizing for group hugs and a mass chorus of "We Shall
Overcome?" This chapter examines whether PMC has sufficient
intellectual relevance and significant potential for realistic
applicability, or whether it is simply a muddle-minded means for
idealists to become "effusive about the good, the true, and the
beautiful."
Our entry into this project began when the volume's co-editor,
Kieran McEvoy, accepted the suggestion that our graduate seminar on
the U.S. criminal justice sytem write a collective article. For some
of us, criminal justice is a practitioners' field in which peacemaking
seems quite alien. For others of us, peacemaking is something we do
in our daily lives, something that seemed unrelated to our academic
pursuits. A few of us are actively involved in attempts to humanize
prisons. All of us were skeptical of the perspective of peacemaking
criminology, not so much for what it represents, but for the apparent
confusion surrounding the central tenets, the lack of clear strategies
for implementation, and the inability or refusal of many adherents to
address the hard questions of how we, individually or collectively,
ought respond to specific instances of violence of all types.
Although some of our commentary may seem critical, we are
unequivocally sympathetic to the perspective, and it influences much
of our own work. Yet, we have collective reservations about adopting
the term as a mantel around which to wrap either our research or our
praxis without first assessing what we wear when we don it. Many of
our concerns seem either unaddressed by advocates, or, worse, ignored
as irrelevant to peacemaking goals. This risks reducing PMC to a
feel-good ethos while limiting adherents to preaching to the choir.
In re-examining our own views about PMC, we begin by summarizing its
primary characteristics. Next, we examine several criticisms of the
perspective, and finally we identify its potential utility for
mainstream scholars, policy makers, and practitioners.
We offer two preliminary caveats to guide readers. First, our
collective intellectual ambivalence occasionally translates into
discursive mood swings as we attempt to balance the extreme PMC
positions with those we consider more credible. However, it is likely
that these swings reflect the diversity of PMC advocates at least as
much as our own attempts to sort through them. Second, the occasional
critical tone of our own effort reflects in part our agreement with
critics on some points and our frustration with some of the leading
PMC advocates to address the critics. Nonetheless, if we successfully
balance our swings, our commentary suggests ways to address some of
the most severe criticisms by illustrating the perspective's potential
for intellectual development and social action.
What is Peacemaking Criminology?
Perhaps we take peacemaking criminology too seriously.
Then again, perhaps we should ask why we ought take it seriously
at all. It probably depends on how we define it, where we see it
located in the pantheon of social theory (if at all), and of what
practical, ideological, or substantive relevance it has. There is no
doubt that the perspective has become more visible in recent years.
One irony, however, is that the more visible it becomes, the less
substance it seems to have. Who, after all, can dispute that it's
better to be nice than not nice, and that pain and suffering should be
avoided?
The first difficulty in assessing peacemaking criminology begins
with identifying a clear, reasonably encompassing definition, or even
isolating a group of precepts that binds adherents. The perspective
is not a theory, because it lacks an identifiable core of readily
testable postulates or claims, contains more vision than explanation,
and does not seem amenable to modification when confronted with
contentious factual or other challenges. In fact, many advocates of
the perspective seem to avoid addressing criticisms. It is not a
systematic philosophy, because it contains no well-articulated
premises or rigorous method for critiquing, testing, or advancing
knowledge. Although identified with the discipline of criminology,
peacemaking criminology is not a discipline, because it possesses no
integrating set of systematic theories or method or immediately
obvious policy-oriented guidelines. Therefore, we begin our
exploration of PMC by initially viewing it as a perspective, or a
stance from which to view and comment upon objects within our gaze.
A peacemaking perspective in the social sciences is hardly new.
Three decades ago, Curle (1971) articulated a detailed theory of
strategies for replacing conflict with peace, and journals such as
Humanity and Society have long nurtured a social science humanistic
perspective. But, as the bibliographic entries in this volume
indicate, the emergence of a distinctly criminological form of
"peacemaking," although it emerged over 20 years ago, has mushroomed
primarily in the past decade. The growth occurred largely as a
response to the perceived futility of the warmaking metaphor that
dominates crime control research and scholarship (Arrigo, 1999;
Kraska, 1999; Pepinsky, 1998a) and in part as a response to the need
to integrate criminal justice theory and practice within a broader
framework of basic human needs.
Although origins of PMC are often attributed to Richard Quinney
(Akers, 1997; McEvoy and Gormally, 1997), The seeds of a kinder,
gentler mainstream criminology that responded to human needs rather
than reacted to human misdeeds were sown especially by the works of
Tifft (1979), Tifft and Sullivan (1980) and Pepinsky (1979). In
arguing for minimalist state control structures and spiritual
rejuvenation as the preconditions for a just society, Tifft (1979)
offered one of the earliest systematic attempts to establish a base
for a criminology of peacemaking. Tifft's responsive anarchism was a
call for a society based on love, one that attends to essential human
needs. Stressing empathy for the plight of others, he argued that
existing social structures and forms of interaction perpetuate human
misery, and that crime and misery are irrevocably intertwined.
Spiritual rejuvenation requires empathy with those who, because of
their social position, are more likely to be relegated to life
conditions characterized by structural inequality, existential
despair, and physical or mental suffering.
Developing a similar theme of a humanist social science, Pepinsky
(1979: 250) observed that, "rather than trying to find out what is,
the humanist uses data to calculate what can be." In doing so, he
contributed to criminology a transformative set of ideals to guide the
emerging perspective as a research direction. In later refinements,
Pepinsky (1988) argued that there is a direct relationship between
violence and social unresponsiveness that occurs through processes of
depersonalization. Like Tifft, Pepinsky challenged us to rethink our
conceptualization of crime and suggested that an act of crime is
conventionally defined by nuances of context and motive, a distinction
he rejects (Pepinsky, 1988: 551-553).
The articulation of an explicit peacemaking perspective in
criminology arguably began with the works of Richard Quinney (1988a,
1988b, 1988c), and further developed by others, such as Anderson
(1989) and Pepinsky (1998a, 1995, 1988). Pepinsky and Quinney (1991)
reshaped the perspective with 20 articles by peacemaking proponents in
a single collection that addressed the PMC tradition, integrated PMC
with other genres such as feminism, and then connected the perspective
to radical/critical criminology. Their collection not only increased
the visibility of the perspective, but it also cast a wider
intellectual and ideological net than had previous works by uniting
scholars who had been writing on the periphery of explicit peacemaking
issues.
Quinney, the prime mover in moving PMC from the fringes of
criminological awareness toward the center, was the most articulate in
arguing that conventional criminological theory was impoverished. For
Quinney, "No amount of thinking and no amount of public policy have
brought us any closer to understanding and solving the problems of
crime" (Quinney, 1988a: 67). What is needed, he argued, is a
fundamentally new paradigm, one that recognizes that crime is but one
form of violence among many, including war, debilitating social
formations, destructive forms of interaction, and structural factors
that suppress human potential. This requires a pro-active approach to
crime and justice characterized by a focus on universal social justice
as the prerequisite to elimination of predatory behavior.
However, the diversity of practioners' views clouds a clear image
of the contours, implications, and content of peacemaking criminology.
Despite, or more likely because of, the growing diverse interest the
perspective, like six Pirandellian characters, it remains in search of
a unifying set of authors to provide it with a unique identity. Many
proponents view peacemaking criminology as simply a term used to
bridge the macro-micro theoretical and policy chasms between social
structure, the criminal justice system, and the individual.
What, then, is peacemaking criminology? Few, if any, leading
adherents see it as a theory. Most would accept Sullivan's view that:
...peacemaking criminology is a perspective, a way of
looking at the world which on the most intimate of levels
means human relationships--how we form them, how we maintain
them, and how we restore them when things go wrong
(Sullivan, email communication, Dec. 2, 1999).
Although not all agree with Mika's coalition-building vision of
PMC, he nonetheless confronts the definitional problem in an attempt
to recast it as a way of pulling and holding diverse ideological
groups around a core of shared humanism:
I prefer to think of peacemaking criminology even more
informally, where it is a comfortable conversation between
individuals who subscribe to a very broad range of critical,
dialectical, and reflexive orientations to justice (Mika,
1999).
Although helpful, these definitions are vague on content and
ambiguous on practices, leading both critics and sympathetic observers
to judge the perspective abstruse and lacking practical substance. For
example, Akers (1997: 183) sees PMC as little more than a vague
utopian vision that, while laudable, is of little use as an
explanatory model for crime or for processing offenders. The tendency
of leading proponents of the perspective to ignore or dismiss such
criticisms creates such credibility problems and feeds the view that
PMC advocates are merely lovely idealists swimming around in befuddled
confusion.
Addressing the Critics
Is PMC internally consistent such that it even makes sense to
talk about it as a coherent body of thought, other than "it's nice to
be nice?" Or, does it offer something substantively new with which to
supplement, even replace, conventional criminological theory?
In pulling together the most salient criticisms of PMC, we drew
from five sources. First, published commentaries directed attention
to problems conventional scholars identify with PMC. However, unlike
the acrimonious debates surrounding the emergence of critical
criminology in the 1970s (Inciardi, 1980; Taylor, Walton and Young,
1974), PMC has not yet generated such passionate opposition. We
attribute this partly to the relative newness of the perspective,
partly to the degree to which critical perspectives have become
mainstream, and partly to the possibility that PMC is not taken
seriously by mainstream scholars either as a threatening alternative
perspective or, more damning, as a viable intellectual position.
Electronic discussions groups, or "listservs," provided a second
source of criticisms. The discussion group of the Critical Criminology
Division of the American Society of Criminology
(http://www.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim) was particularly useful, and we
also drew from other groups specializing in peacemaking issues such as
restorative justice and opposition to capital punishment. A private
discussion group created to discuss peacemaking provided additional
critiques. Third, we solicited email commentary both from PMC critics
and advocates. Fourth, Web publications provided additional
commentary. However, because of the inconsistency and often poor
quality of Web material, we used it primarily as heuristic guidelines.
Finally, we drew most heavily from conference sessions and formal and
informal discussions with critics and advocates attending the 1999
annual meetings of the American Criminological Association in Toronto.
Because many of the criticims of PMC came from sympathetic observers,
and because many of the observers expressed friendship with or
collegial affiliation with leading PMC advocates, their comments were
used with permission on the condition of anonymity.
One might ask, as did one advocate, "Why bother responding to
critics at all? It's better to just do peacemaking rather argue."
There are several compelling reasons for responding to criticisms of
PMC. First, many criticisms, such as as PMC's similarity to
functionalism, are based on misconceptions that, if unaddressed, take
on an iterative, self-perpetuating character. Second, responding to
critics moves PMC away from the perception that it is only a "feel
good" philosophy that elevates ideology above critique and discourse.
Third, by raising critical issues, we can generate discussion of
demonstrable shortcomings in the perspective as a way of overcoming
them. Fourth, addressing criticisms against PMC also helps identify
differences within the perspective by illustrating the various
intellectual traditions that influence practitioners. Finally,
addressing the intellectual and other problems increases PMC's
credibility, and hopefully raises recognition of its viability.
From published literature, electronic sources, and conference
interactions we selected the most common or (to us) most interesting
criticisms and sorted them into five broad thematic categories. We
call these categories "syndromes" to capture the image of symptomatic
imbalance between PMC and scholars expressing discomfort with it. The
five syndromes focus on the criticisms that PMC is incompatible with
Marxian/radical theories; is theoretically akin to functionalism; is
inherently conservative; reflects overwhelming intellectual chaos; and
lacks intellectual or empirical credibility.
Some of the criticisms are relatively simple and can be expressed
briefly. Others, more complex, require more elaboration. We respond
directly to three of the critical syndromes, but two others--those of
"chaos" and "conservatism" we expand in separate sections.
THE MARXIAN/RADICAL SYNDROME
Although there is little in PMC that is explicitly Marxist, it is
often associated with Marxian, radical/critical, or conflict theories
because some of the most visible proponents are associated with those
theories. For example, Quinney's early works (1978, 1974, 1970)
reflect influences of phenomenology, Marx, and conflict theory,
prompting one commentator to describe him as "conventional, conflict
oriented, critical, neo-Marxist, and more recently prophetic"
(Friedrichs, 1980: 48-49). Others, such as Tifft and Pepinsky, have
also been classified as critical criminologists (Friedrichs, 1980;
Thomas and O'Maolchatha, 1989) or within the radical conflict
perspective (Beirne and Messerschmidt, 533-534; Williams and McShane,
1994: 162-16).
However, the peacemaking perspective seems to some critics the
antithesis of traditional "radical" positions such as conflict theory,
critical theory, or Marxian-oriented perspectives. Akers (1997: 184),
for example, has argued that it is contradictory to claim Marx as a
significant theoretical basis, because of Marx's own emphasis on class
conflict and non-rejection of violence as the means for social change.
In this view, the Marxian warmaking metaphor of social struggle and
the necessity of class conflict lie in opposition to a vision of
peacemaking. Bohm (1997: 132) notes that PMC can be criticized for
extreme idealism and excessive focus on transforming individuals
rather transforming society. Some radical theorists suggest that PMC
advocates have sacrificed the radical/Marxian emphasis on social
action to utopian contemplation:
...we challenge progressive academics to also think about
Marx's simple, but profound thesis that while the
PHILOSOPHERS HAVE ONLY INTERPRETED THE WORLD IN DIFFERENT
WAYS, THE POINT IS TO CHANGE IT. We believe that it is time
for criminologists to stop THINKING about peace and to start
MAKING it (Currie and MacLean, 1995: 108; all italics in
original.
Others within the Marxian tradition are skeptical of the ultimate
value of PMC to significantly change repressive structural conditions,
arguing that:
...reforming subparts of the totality to make them more user
friendly (informal) is actually "another turn of the
ideological screw" (Rick Abel) whereby folks are coopted
into believing that something important has changed when it
has not and that instead of dealing with the wider
structural issues, these are further masked. Then, if the
outcomes are more humane but problems persist, the
mainstream can blame the alternatives for failing, being too
lenient etc., and thereby excuse themselves while holding on
to power (Henry, 2000).
Whether PMC diverges from or contradicts Marxian or any other
theory may be a matter of profound indifference to PMC advocates, but
because the criticism is used to discredit PMC, it is worth
addressing.
THE FUNCTIONALIST SYNDROME
A second concern with peacemaking criminology raised by critics
at the American Society of Criminology conference centers on a
perceived congruence with functionalism. While this criticism was
neither the most common nor the most serious, it is one of the most
interesting, both because of the nature of the claim and because it
has been used against Marxian-oriented perspectives in the past. The
view that PMC resembles functionalism is based on the perception that
both share the concept of "harmony" as central to the position, that
both are excessively utopian, and that because Marx was an (alleged)
functionalist, PMC's Marxian/critical roots also carry functionalist
baggage. Unlike the core of conflict theory, which holds that
conflict is a fundamental part of the social process and that all
societies rest upon constraint of some members by others (e.g.,
Chambliss and Siedman, 1971), the leading PMC advocates reject the
necessity of conflict, or "negative peace," which is any coercive
apparatus--such as the criminal justice system--used against people
who challenge a preferred social order (Quinney, 1998: 358). Because
the basis of peacemaking lies on establishing harmony and reducing the
structural conditions, status hierarchies, and interactional styles
that facilitate conflict, some skeptics have suggested that, if we
substitute "consensus" with "peacemaking," we have a variant of
functionalism. In this view, the telos of peace or harmony is seen as
driving social behavior and institutions. Because of functionalism's
tenets that all social systems are based on consensus (Parsons, 1937)
or that crime is "normal" (Durkheim, 1951), it is seen by some as
inherently conservative (Bohm, 1997: 84) or at best as fulfilling the
liberal ideal of the world (Smith, 1966). Dahrendorf (1958) argued
that functionalism is another form of utopian theory, and as such,
neither fruitful nor realistic. Others (eg. Fallding, 1972; Szymanski,
1972) have argued that Marx was, in fact, a functionalist. Hence, for
some critics it then follows that because the peacemaking perspective
also is based on consensus and harmony, is utopian, and underlies
Marxian perspectives, it is likewise a de facto conservative
teleological view.
THE CONSERVATIVE SYNDROME
A third criticism also suggests that PMC is conservative, not
because of ideological or theoretical assumptive premises, such as
those found in functionalism, but because of an irony inherent in the
core values of advocates. In this view, voiced especially by
political militants and community activists, the emphasis on peace and
the over-riding tenet to reject conflict, especially violence,
ultimately supports, even strengthens, an oppressive status quo by
espousing a passive, impotent, and generally ineffective belief system
that leads to martyrdom rather than social change. For example, some
critics point to Quinney's (1993) existential reflections espousing
personal and intellectual mysticism and wholistic spiritualism as
evidence of the "beastly beatitudes" of PMC. Others cite Quinney's
(1991: 348) observation that peacemaking criminologists need not
directly engage in conflict but, can instead bear witness to the
suffering brought about by exploitation, poverty, greed, hate, and
inequality as evidence of excessive pacifism at a best, "acquiescence
to evil" at worst. In the critic's view, victims do not need
witnesses, they need warriors:
Kitty Genovese {a woman stabbed to death in New York City
while 38 people witnessed the attack for 35 minutes and
failed to report it} had witnesses who watched over nearly
two hours as her assailant stabbed her to death. She didn't
need witnesses. She needed someone to intervene. And that's
my problem with peacemaking criminologists. They are silent
on the question of how we should intervene in unpleasantness
(Anonymous conference critic, 1999, American Society of
Criminology Meetings).
Some critics judge that the spiritual unity advocated by
peacemaking criminologists presupposes a hive mentality that would
replace democratic pluralism with homogeneous passivity (Anonymous
conference critic, 1999, American Society of Criminology). In the
view of these critics, direct conflict, whether in the form of hostile
arguments, direct confrontation, or even the necessity of physical
intervention, may be necessary to fight injustice or reduce harm.
Failure to do otherwise, in this view, is simply self-indulgent
intellectualist idealism that a privileged few can enjoy at the
expense of others less fortunate.
THE CHAOTIC SYNDROME
A fourth criticism centers on the seemingly chaotic diffusion of
intellectual threads, a tendency toward excessive hyperbole, seeingly
naive or contradictory views, and the lack of a clear definition of
"peacemaking." These critics point to the ideological, polemical,
discursive, and intellectual diversity of those advocating a
peacemaking approach to justify the claim that PMC is little more than
a hodge-podge of disconnected ideas. In this view, PMC is a dogmatic
ideological ideal, one not requiring serious thinking and therefore
not deserving of being taken seriously. Unfortunately, these critics
are aided by the occasional hyperbole or shoddy thinking of adherents,
especially by those who push the limits of pacifism by remaining
silent on the question of how to deal with violence and those who
commit it.
For example, the argument that we should expunge not only deeds,
but words or even thoughts that are "warlike," that generate "negative
peace," or that make others feel bad, seems not only unrealistic, but
dangerously utopian. Gilligan (1997) is among those extending the
peace metaphor beyond advocating social justice by calling for social
arrangements that eliminate destructive emotional states, such as
feelings of shame. For Gilligan, the emotion of shame is the primary
cause of all violence. This would seem not only to lack empirical
credibility, but also subverts the work of other scholars associated
with PMC. For example, Braithwaite (1989), often cited by peacemaking
scholars as a significant exemplar, argues the opposite: A society's
capacity to instill in an offender the recognition of an offense and
to generate a corresponding internalization of empathic
responsibility--shame--constitutes a powerful social control
mechanism. Unlike Gilligan, who sees shame as a necessary, albeit
insufficient, cause of violence, Braithwaite sees it both as a means
of social control and as a peaceful way to redress a wrong after a
violation has occurred. Such an irreconcilably bipolar spectrum on
such fundamental concepts makes it difficult for some to find a
credible intellectual core.
Other critics point to the view that holding persons, including
offenders, responsible for their actions, reinforces the warmaking
rather than peacemaking model. Perhaps because he is considered a
leading PMC scholar, Harold Pepinsky often becomes targeted as one of
the more extreme examples of polemical aerobics. In advocating what
he describes as the Navaho style of response to social breaching,
Pepinsky argues that healing and reconciliation through dialog are
preferable to the concept of responsibility:
Everyone leaves a truly balanced conversation free to choose
what s/he does next. To the Navajo as to me, it is a
contradiction in terms to make someone responsible; rather,
a peacemaking process liberates one's heart to be in tune
with others and to continue taking turns in interaction.
Participating in a balanced conversation stimulates one's
assumption of responsibility (Pepinsky, 1998b).
The principle of balance and reconciliation underlies the
practice of restorative justice, a form of conciliatory social
response to offenses, seen as a way to implement PMC programs.
Critics note that the underlying assumptions of this approach include
the belief that there is a consensus on a "spiritually correct" and
universal normative order; that participants possess the ability to
assess an offense and resolve it; That all parties participate willing
and are not subject to norms subtlely coercing obedience; and that
status and other power asymmetries will not intrude in the process.
However, one criminal justice practitioner responsible for integrating
restorative justice programs both within and outside of the
conventional criminal justice process became somewhat more critical of
the ideal following his own experiences:
I have been thinking about the concept {of restorative
justice} in terms of my own tribe's history and
culture...I'm skeptical about the concept working
effectively. Restorative justice is derived from communities
that could restore balance because of several constraints.
Religion has traditionally played a major role. In the Osage
tradition, in order to pay respect to Wa-kon-da (God), one
would live a very structured and purposeful life. Daily
ceremonies, adherence to many tribal customs, and the
structure of the society itself, depended upon these
beliefs. Furthermore, each of the twenty-four tribal clans
had their own specific sets of ceremonies and brought their
own unique contributions to the tribe as a whole. If a
tribal member was not in harmony, loosely defined here, the
clan or tribal priests would take notice (Personal
communication, anonymous Illinois criminal justice agency
practitioner, February, 2000).
In this view, the appeals for implementing the perceived peaceful
practices of other cultures make nice rhetoric, but they are at best
misguided and at worst dangerously misconceived for several reasons
(Levrant, et. al., 1999). First, peacemaking practices may hide
deeper control elements that are far less peaceful, of which the
"balanced conversation" is the most visible outcome. Second, the
practices may be just one social response among many, and reserved
only for less-serious transgressions. Third, restorative practices in
other cultures may be more than an attempt to reconcile victim and
offender; they may also be a means of mediating between other
competing caste, class, or kinship groups. Finally, restorative
practices emerge from and are located within a cultural context of
duties, obligations, and expectations. Therefore, seeing them as
something that can be readily translated into a viable practice in our
own system may be unrealistic.
"Balanced healing conversations" between victims and offenders
may seem a nice ideal, skeptics argue, but they tend to be reactive
rather than proactive, and there is little evidence that they
contribute--even in cultures that practice them--to less frequent
predations than in cultures that do not. Further, the definition of
"balanced conversation" might not be shared by all participants, and
the call for what some see as "forced reconciliation" can be seen as
perpetuating, even intensifying, the feelings of powerlessness and
predation by victims. Critics suggest that this type of excessive
hyperbole and linguistic gerrymandering contributes to the confusion
of PMC's core ideas. Although Pepinsky is not alone in the use of
hyperbole, some critics find his style typical of a "cavalier use of
words and twists of phrase that leaves readers shaking their head"
(Anonymous conference critic, 1999, American Society of Criminology).
Among the examples provided in the 1999 American Society of
Criminology conference discussions included the rejection of prisons
(Mathiesen, 1998) or the call to govern them democratically (Pepinsky
1998: 2), the suggestion that a surgeon who accidentally causes a
patient's death during a heart operation should be held a criminal
(Pepinsky, 1988: 546), or that "obedience" is part of the warlike
culture and should be opposed (Pepinsky, 1998b). One ASC conference
critic, citing Pepinsky (1998b), argued that some PMC advocates tend
to exaggerate the warmaking metaphor of conventional criminology with
questionable lexicological twists:
We follow the warmaking approach when we join others in
trying to separate or disconnect our destiny from that of
our enemies--those who in our eyes embody violence.
"Offenders" is a word we use for enemies. We follow the
peacemaking approach when we accommodate victims instead,
weaving ourselves together in trust that we have friends to
be safe with whenever violence threatens or hurts (Pepinsky,
1998b: 242).
Some critics argue that the heart of peacemaking necessarily
requires that individuals, as moral agents, accept and act upon their
responsibility to others. Further, the goal of peacemaking is, at a
minimum, to promote acquiescence to a harmonious and egalitarian
social order and the acceptance of one's duty, which is a form of
obedience, to the normative authority of the principles of peace.
Therefore, it arguably follows that rejection of concepts such as
responsibility, shame, or obedience, subverts one essential goal of
peacemaking, which is to socialize social members to follow a
pre-ordained set of pre- and proscriptive harmony-inducing norms. In
addition, say critics, rhetorical ploys that rely on selective
lexicological twists or evoke simplistic metaphors and images subvert
clear thinking and conceal the problems of PMC as an intellectual
position and as a viable instrument of praxis.
THE (IN)CREDIBILITY SYNDROME
A fifth criticism is that, allegedly like many critical/radical
theories, peacemaking criminology lacks empirical credibility (e.g.,
Inciardi, 1980). The perspective contains no explanatory postulates,
and its claims are inherently unamenable to hypothesis construction
and testing. Akers (1997: 183-185), for example, argues that PMC
fails to offer a theory of either crime or the criminal justice sytem
that can be evaluated empirically. He argues that although its social
goals may be compatible with some religious tenants, and although it
might be possible to construct testable claims, it remains a
philosophy and a utopian vision rather than a testable body of ideas.
Critics variously identify several difficulties with testing
peacemaking postulates. First, the concept of peace, or at least
variables reflecting the concept, cannot easily be operationally
defined. Second, the concept of peace, or at a minimum indicators of
it, must be conceptualized as an independent variable, a task
associated with positivism, which many PMC advocates reject as either
intellectually or ideologically viable. The common response that
"peace is the absence of conflict" is unsatisfactory, because one can
have peace, even "positive peace" (Quinney, 1998: 358), in a context
of social oppression. Third, the factors that "cause" or are
associated with peace are not easily identified. There is, suggest
critics, no compelling reason to think that "fairness,"
"responsiveness," or even the vague concept of "justice" are necessary
a priori conditions of peace. Is it possible to satisfy the
structural requisites for peace (even if we could identify them) and
yet have the peace process subverted by conflict-laden interactional
processes resulting from power asymmetries in gender, race, or class?
For example, interactional processes that facilitate a positive group
identity of personal status for all those involved in an interaction
could be classified as a peaceful interaction. Enough of these
collectively might create overall peace. However, if these conformed
to an accepted social order in which power relations were concealed as
the result of ideological blinders, such as can occur in subtle forms
of interaction influenced by racial or sexual cues, by what criteria
do we evaluate "lack of peace," especially if unnecessary forms of
social domination are invisible? Fourth is the problem of finding
reliable data, qualitative or quantitative, with interaction as the
unit of analysis. Fifth, critics suggest that even if data were
obtainable, the development of a conceptual representation of the
chain by which peace results would be insurmountable. Finally, even
if the "causes" of peace were established, it would be difficult to
demonstrate that the absence of these attributes leads to non-peace.
If unanswered, These criticisms would seem to leave PMC with
neither practical nor intellectual utility or credibility. The task
before us now is sorting out those criticisms possessing merit and
those that do not and then assessing what remains in the balance.
Responding to Critics
One problem in working through the various criticisms--and this
may be the primary problem in trying to define it--lies a
little-discussed intellectual tension between adherents. Arguably,
those working within PMC are primarily influenced by either the
Enlightenment or the Romantic intellectual traditions. Although both
traditions share several modernist characteristics, such as a humanist
ontological and epistemological centering and a primacy of human
agency as a force in progressive social change, they are separated by
a fundamentally different world view of humanity and knowledge:
Whereas for the Enlightenment-scientific mind, nature was
an object for observation and experiment, theoretical
explanation and technological manipulation, for the
Romantic, by contrast, nature was a live vessel of spirit, a
translucent source of mystery and revelation. The scientist
too wished to penetrate nature and reveal its mystery; but
the method and goal of that penetration, and the character
of that revelation, were different from the Romantic's.
Rather than the distanced object of sober analysis, nature
for the Romantic was that which the human soul strove to
enter and unite with in an overcoming of the existential
dichotomy, and the revelation he sought was not of
mechanical law but of spiritual essence. While the scientist
sought truth that was testable and concretely effective, the
Romantic sought truth that was inwardly transfiguring and
sublime (Tarnas, 1991: 367).
For some, perhaps a minority, PMC possesses a way to integrate
Enlightenment principles of progress and humanism into theory and
practice (McEvoy, 2000; Mika, 1987, 1992; Mika and Zehr, 1998).
Others, influenced more by Romanticism's de-emphasis of reason and
celebration of the "inner soul," view peacemaking criminology as a
spiritual enterprise. Quinney's nine observations on which his own
foundation for peacemaking lies embody a rejection of many
Enlightenment principles and embrace a Romantic style that typifies
much PMC:
(1) Thought of the Western rational mode is conditional,
limiting knowledge to what is already known. (2) The truth
of reality is emptiness; all that is real is beyond human
conception. (3) Each life is a spiritual journey into the
unknown and the unknowable, beyond the egocentric self. (4)
Human existence is characterized by suffering; crime is
suffering; and the sources of suffering are within each of
us. (5) Through love and compassion, beyond the egocentric
self, we can end suffering and live in peace, personally and
collectively; (6) The ending of suffering can be attained in
a quieting of the mind and an opening of the heart, in being
aware. (7) Crime can be ended only with the end of
suffering, only when there is peace--through love and
compassion found in awareness. (8) Understanding, service,
justice: All these flow naturally from love and compassion,
from mindful attention to the reality of all that is here
and now. (9) A CRIMINOLOGY OF PEACEMAKING [italics in
original}, the nonviolent criminology of compassion and
service, seeks to end suffering and thereby eliminate crime
(Quinney, 1991: 3-4).
PMC's critics tend toward an Enlightenment-based critique of
PMC's "Romantic wing." This one-sided focus exaggerates the empirical
weaknesses while ignoring the Enlightenment-influenced aspects.
Although the implications of PMC as a merging of two traditions are
beyond the scope of this paper, our discussion emphasizes the shared
features of Romantic and Enlightenment advocates. Our own thinking
lies firmly within the Enlightenment tradition, but as in most
attempts to create dichotomies, the two traditions sometimes overlap
in our thinking and discourse.
Distinguishing between the Enlightenment and Romanticist
characteristics of PMC is useful for at least four reasons. First,
this shared framework suggests basic compatibility rather than
necessary opposition. Second, an Enlightenment foundation sets PMC
apart from other perspectives that might advocate peace based on the
authority of religious doctrine rather than rational critique. This
distinction is useful when contrasting PMC with other so-called
"peacemakers," such as the "Religious Right" or "Christian Coalition."
Third, the Enlightenment tradition suggests a line of empirical
inquiry and action for many PMC scholars who have been influenced it.
Finally, by recognizing the overtones of the Enlightenment tradition
underlying PMC, we can more easily avoid critics' reduction of it to
little more than spiritualism, anti-rationalism, or relativism.
We begin our responses to the criticisms by first examining the
Marxian connection. We pay more attention to this criticism not
necessarily because it is the most serious, but rather because
addressing the underlying issues provides an opportunity to display
fundamental--but not immediately obvious--features of PMC in a way
that both illustrates the perspective and highlights similarities and
differences amongst PMC adherents. Other criticisms can be managed
more directly and are thus more parsimonious. We address the
criticisms of "intellectual chaos" and "conservatism" in separate
sections on PMC as metaphor and social praxis in order to integrate
and build on ideas presented in the following section.
THE MARXIAN/RADICAL SYNDROME (Redux)
Because so many peacemaking scholars are associated with Marxian
or conflict-oriented theories, the criticism that these perspectives
are incompatible with and even subvert the PMC position might seem
intellectually devastating. However, there are fundamental
congruences between Marx and PMC. The integrative power between
Marxist and more humanistic or spiritual philosophies has been
illustrated by Arrigo's (2000) development of Marxian social justice
theory, Anderson's (2000, 1991, 1989) attempts to unify Marx, Gandhi
and other humanistic scholars, and Quinney's (1988a, 1988c)
replacement of western thought with eastern philosophy. Anderson
(1991) has offered a compelling argument that the core of Marxian
praxis is grounded in a humanistic framework that, like peacemaking
criminology, espouses a peace-based culture and society.
In addition to shared humanism, the PMC and Marxian perspectives
share at least four common features: Partial grounding in
Enlightenment principles, a belief in the possibility of transcendent
values, a view of human nature as malleable and containing potential
for "good," and a commitment to emancipatory social action, or praxis.
THE ENLIGHTENMENT BACKGROUND. Both Marxian/radical and
peacemaking traditions are shaped by Enlightenment principles. Among
these include the belief in the power of reason; the potential for the
accumulation and application of knowledge to contribute to theoretical
understanding; the belief in the value of rational control,
technological enhancement, and mass communication; an adherence to
established norms of testing validity claims; acceptance of the view
of the possibility of establishing transcendent value premises; and
the belief in the possibility of progressive social change through
human intervention.
However, these Enlightenment features are not shared with equal
enthusiasm by PMC scholars influenced by Romanticism. Quinney (1991:
3), for example, has challenged the "Western rational mode" of knowing
as conditional and incomplete, and Pepinsky (1988) has challenged the
utility of positivism in criminological research. Others (eg,
Pepinsky, 1995; Tifft, 1979; Tifft and Sullivan, 1980) tend to
emphasize decentralization and the role of the passionate individual
in creating social order. Further, judging from the lack of empirical
analysis and assessment of tenets and claims, there would seem to be
an indifference among PMC proponents to conventional empirical
scholarship. However, it would be premature to assume that PMC
scholars within the Romanticist tradition reject rationalism or
claims-testing, because the perspective is built on the power of
critical thought and the value of empirical illustrations of the
debilitating nature of contemporary social systems.
TRANSCENDENT VALUES. Both PMC and Marxian perspectives are based
on the premise that it is possible to establish a set of fairly
immutable core values on which to ground behavior and social action.
Quinney (1998) has argued that, at root, criminology is a moral
philosophy. The goal for Quinney and others thus becomes substituting
the existing philosophy that guides criminal justice theory and
practice, and which fails to provide adequate ethical guidelines for
research or social action, with one that is more responsive.
Like PMC advocates, Marx proceeds from an unexplicated, but
nonetheless visible, value system that includes an a priori
Kantian-like categorical imperative similar to the fundamental PMC
premise: Oppression is wrong. Derived from Hegel's theory of
Objective Spirit reinterpreted through a materialistic framework,
Marx's condemnation of oppressive social arrangements and
corresponding exhortation to struggle for alternatives aims to reduce
or eliminate unnecessary forms of social domination and control. In
part deontological, and in part constructionist, Marxian and PMC
perspectives each formulate precepts for action and interaction that
recognize the fundamental moral imperative of "doing good." Yet, both
acknowledge the socially contingent nature of dominant value systems
that subtlely facilitate conflict by reinforcing the ideological
edifice of dominant social relations while obscuring alternate value
precepts that would enhance, rather than subvert, a peaceful society.
HUMAN NATURE. Another way to examine the relationship between
Marxian-informed and peacemaking perspectives lies in teasing out
their respective views of human nature. "Human nature" is an ambiguous
concept that risks debates over whether behavior and "urges" are
socially constructed and contextual, or instead essentialist and
hard-wired into us. Here, we use the term "human nature" heuristically
(and cautiously) to describe how each perspective begins from, builds
upon, and seeks to nurture a social order based on a similar vision of
humanity. Each presupposes that developing to the fullest our
individual and social potential is a fundamental condition of our
species. Both perspectives see an innate dignity in our species, and
protecting and enhancing that dignity is an integral part of each.
Peacemaking criminology implicitly rejects the premise that we,
as a species, are innately violent and committed to self-interest
(Gil, 1999). The destructive behaviors and debilitating social
structures that often characterize our culture result from a variety
of factors. These include constraining modes of knowing, ideological
systems that maintain non-coercive conceptual machinery for
maintaining an oppressive social order, social institutions that
create and reinforce destructive and unjust social relations, and
forms of interaction that perpetuate individual pain and suffering
that results from power inequities and inegalitarian social
arrangements. Both Marxian/Conflict and PMC perspectives see us not
so much in struggle with our own nature as we are with the social
forces that suppress human potential.
Although he never directly addressed human nature, there is in
Marx's writings an implicit view of it based on a distinction between
"animal nature" and "species nature" (Marx, 1975: 277). The former we
share with other animals, but the later is exclusive to our species,
and begins when we organize to produce our means of subsistence (Marx,
1974: 42). The justification for the emancipatory potential of a
Marxian perspective draws from this distinction. While people may as a
species share innate characteristics, they also possess a socially
contingent nature that depends on the material conditions that shape
and are shaped by how people create and express their life (Marx,
1974: 42). As a consequence, material conditions may either constrain
or facilitate attempts to develop our full species potential. This is
significant for two reasons. First, it promotes the view that human
nature is malleable and socially contingent. Second, it follows from
this that predatory crime is not an inevitable consequence of "human
nature."
This underlying non-essentialist ethos in Marx's early writings
is not only consistent with, but the basis for, the humanistic
development of peacemaking criminology. As Wozniak (2000) has argued
in illustrating Erich Fromm's relevance for PMC, a humanistic-based
perspective can become a powerful tool in "sensitizing criminologists
to the ways ways that alienation penetrates the fabric of macro-level
social institutions and, on the micro-level, the lives and minds of
individual actors." Anderson (2000), too, cogently illustrates the
humanistic, non-violent underpinnings of Marxian-informed theory and
practice by integrating Marx, Critical Theory, and Fromm to develop
the peacemaking potential of Marx's ideas. This provides the
foundation of the PMC project as one of actualizing Marx's "species
being:"
On the broadest level, then, peacemaking criminology offers
us a view of life in which, negatively, we seek to put an
end to violence, to those acts that deny our persons
validity, that dismiss who we are, that keep us from
finding, as Kierkegaard might say "that self which one truly
is" (Sullivan, email communication, Dec. 2, 1999).
PRAXIS. Finally, both Marxian and peacemaking perspectives view
the human actor as the fundamental agent both in social control and
social change. For both, existing social arrangements and
accompanying ideology constrain our ability to recognize, articulate,
and act upon the sources of unnecessary social domination. For Marx,
through our work on our "objective world," we duplicate ourselves in
consciousness and in the "reality" of the social structures,
institutions, and forms of interaction we create (Marx, 1975: 277).
Because this also reproduces the conditions that restrict realization
of our full species potential and objectifies and degrades our species
life, social action includes the inter-related tasks of transforming
both consciousness and social structure. Peacemaking criminology also
emphasizes the role of human agency in the individual and social
transformative process. However, unlike the Marxian perspective, which
focuses heavily on the need to change structural arrangements as the
primary form of praxis, many peacemakers adopt a more idealist
approach, and tend to view transforming individual consciousness and
existence as the first necessary step toward changing structure. For
some, altering the social structure begins with a spiritual
transformation of the human psyche, which will direct our subsequent
action:
When our hearts are filled with love and our minds with
willingness to serve, we will know what has to be done and
how it is to be done. Such is the basis of a NONVIOLENT
CRIMINOLOGY (italics in original; Quinney, 1991: 12).
Other PMC scholars, however, emphasize a more structural view.
In summarizing the foundations of PMC, Mika provided a succinct
summary of the integrated necessity for examining social structure
while simultaneously expanding conscious understanding of the
peacemaking goal and ways to attain it:
So we have said, I think, that: 1) Peacemaking criminology
is premised on developing an understanding of the social
bases of structural and interpersonal violence and their
engine power in its coat of many colors that both creates
and perpetuates the harms in contemporary life that
undergird human interactions and social arrangements.
We have also said, I think, that:
2) Peacemaking criminology is equally premised on
developing an understanding of peace, on finding in our
collective response to harms a justice that is participatory
and inclusive, attentive to the root causes of harms and
their prevention, driven by the satisfaction of needs and
achievement of equal well-being (Mika, 1999b).
Despite congruences, there are, of course, substantial
differences between Marxian and peacemaking perspectives. By
identifying similarities, we do not minimize difference, especially at
the theoretical level. For example, few peacemaking scholars have any
interest in such fundamental Marxist theoretical issues as emphasis on
the commodity relations of capitalism, the theory of surplus, the
labor theory of value, necessity of class struggle, or the tendential
decline in the rate of profit. Yet, substantial theoretical
differences should not obscure common themes that overlap in each
perspective, that illustrate that the two are not only compatible, but
also converge on many fundamental points.
THE FUNCTIONALIST SYNDROME (Redux)
The criticism that the peacemaking perspective is inherently
conservative because it shares the functionalist core assumption that
societies are based on consensus reflects at least three errors. The
first is a fatal false analogy: That two perspectives employ similar
concepts does not make them homologous such that they share similar
domain assumptions or premises. To suggest that functionalists and PMC
adherents employ "harmony" or "consensus similarly confuses
functionalism's assumptive concept with PMC's prescriptive use of the
term as both an ideal state and a form of transformative praxis.
Second, functionalism, a macro theory for understanding social
structure, deemphasizes micro-analytical issues and the significance
of the human agent in creating, maintaining, and changing the social
order (Wallace and Wolff, 1999). The PMC perspective, by contrast,
combines macro-micro analysis by focusing on the structural factors
that contribute to crime and the conditions that facilitate it and on
how oppressive conditions are recreated through language, status-based
interaction, and ideology. More importantly, PMC emphasizes the
necessity of bottom-to-top social change and sees individual praxis as
one means by which to shape a more harmonious, less violent world.
world.
Finally, despite the iterative power of the "functionalism is
conservative!" mantra, nothing inherent in either the background or
domain assumptions of functionalism require such an immutable
conclusion. In attempting to develop a neo-functionalist theory that
overcomes the criticism of conservatism, Alexander (1998) identifies
several congruences between neo-functionalism and neo-Marxism. He
argues that functionalism can readily be reformulated to develop its
conflict and critical potential. In fact, a cogent argument could be
made that functionalism is consistent with a radical/humanist
perspective:
If there is some wisdom in the saying, "You have to know the
system to beat the system," then functionalism can help
those who are dedicated to radical social change to a fuller
understanding of how the system operates (Wallace and Wolf,
1999: 65).
THE (IN)CREDIBILITY SYNDROME (Redux)
Some critics contend that peacemaking criminology lacks
credibility not only because it is not "science," but also because it
offers nothing that religious groups had not offered earlier:
Long before the peacemaking criminology label was
adopted by Pepinsky, Quinney, and others, the in-prison
religious programs and the many prison ministries run by
churches and lay groups were practicing peacemaking; they
have long applied the tenets of love and peaceful
reformation of offenders, by persuading them toward a
religious commitment and lifestyle incompatible with
committing crime and causing suffering (Akers, 1997: 183).
The judgment that peacemaking criminology represents little more
than a secular repackaging of religion is unconvincing. Although PMC
principles and programs dovetail nicely with the agendas of many
religious organizations, at least three characteristics set them
apart. First, unlike most religous organizations such as prison
ministries and similar groups that use carceral institutions as
recruiting grounds (e.g., Colson, 1978), PMC strategies do not promote
acceptance of a formal doctrine, but rather advocate humanism as form
or social change. Second, religous organizations tend to have a
narrower action focus, one that rarely extends to broad social issues.
Third, PMC has a wider range of actions on more levels. Finally,
religious factions attempt to establish and maintain peace among its
members, but in doing so tend to promote out-group/in-group
dichotomies.
A more devastating criticism of PMC lies in the accusation that
it is unamenable to empirical assessement. Defense of empirical
credibility might strike especially those PMC proponents influenced by
Romanticism as unnecessary, even anathema, because it saps energy that
could be invested in promoting the concept of peace. However, because
the perspective is being pursued by academics who try to persuade
other academics of the viability of the perspective, we offer several
reasons why peacemaking advocates should encourage empirical
assessment of peacemaking principles and programs. First, peacemaking
is presented as an intellectual positionn; therefore, rigorous
scholarship would promote, not hinder, its development. Second, new
scholars accepting academic positions where tenure requires
publication may be discouraged from pursuing a line of inquiry that is
seen as neither rigorous nor intellectual, but instead is viewed as a
conversation among co-ideologues. Third, supporting evidence is
useful when making claims. Therefore, substantiating that a
peacemaking alternative is "better" than the present model requires
more than prophetic rhetoric, sermonizing, or homilies. Credibility
depends on evidence. Fourth, policy formulation and implementation
require evidence to answer the question: "What works?"
Critics correctly adduce the difficulty of operationally
conceptualizing the concept of peace to underscore the testability
problem. However, conceptualizing the concept of "peace" is no more
difficult than epidemiologists' attempts to operationalize "health"
when alleviating suffering by identifying symptoms and their
hypothesized source. Peacemakers might argue that their goal isn't to
engage in research or test hypotheses, but rather to transform the
world through social action. That these advocates dismiss the need
for conventional research is not dispositive of the possibility of it.
In fact, the utility of peacemaking criminology is no less testable
than the tenets of any other criminology perspective, such as symbolic
interaction, labelling theory, or rational choice models. If, for
example, we posit a relationship between social inequality and crime,
a reasonable hypothesis, then testability becomes easier. If we posit
that, to reduce crime, criminal justice agencies should implement
policies or programs associated with PMC such as education,
victim-offender reconciliation, restorative justice practices, or
conflict mediation, then we can readily test the outcome with such
conventional quantitative or qualitative methods, as comparative
analysis or experiments. We could also take a random sample of
communities that implement restorative justice in a similar fashion
and compare those with demographically similar communities that do
not.
Identifying and testing factors that are associated with peace is
equally possible. Do social responses to crime that are less punitive
than incarceration lead to such possible outcomes as reduced
recidivism, less serious offending, or other measurable consequences?
Do programs built around social responsiveness have the expected
consequence of reducing suffering? Does reduced suffering lead to
reduced crime? Does the reduction of racism or sexism in a community
or within experimental groups lead to reduced crime or recidivism?
Does implementation of empathy therapy rather than obedience training
have a similar outcome?
Quinney (2000: 21), often considered the most spiritual of
peacemaking scholars, has observed that "What is important in the
study of crime is everything that happens before the crime occurs."
Despite the vagueness of the observation, it nonetheless is grounded
in a domain assumption that a discernable set of factors generates a
particular outcome, and that by altering those factors we alter the
outcome. Whether the precedents of crime are grounded in social
structure or human agency, and whether reshaping those precedents by
reducing shame, suffering, or unfairness is irrelevant. What matters
is that the action-oriented philosophy of peacemaking criminology
generates a number of testable claims. For this reason, the
perspective clearly has the potential to be more than "a vague utopian
vision" of little explanatory use for understanding or fighting crime.
It contains rich possiblities for understanding the etiology of crime
and identifying remedies that are testable through either the canons
of normal science or Deweyian pragmatism.
The intent of this section has not been to overcome the
criticisms we identify, but rather to suggest directions for resolving
them. Even if resolved, however, peacemaking criminology still faces
the perception that it is excessively ideological and therefore cannot
appeal to mainstream scholars or practitioners. The final question
remains: "So what?"
Peacemaking as Criminal Justice Praxis
We have so far argued that peacemaking criminology is consistent
with Marxian/radical theory, that it bears no resemblance to
functionalism, and that it is fully amenable to empirical evaluation
and critical assessment. In this section, we address the two
remaining criticisms by illustrating how, through the variety of ways
in which it is being implemented, PMC is neither conservative nor
chaotic. By identifying ways it has been implemented, we address the
"chaos syndrome" by suggesting that critics and advocates alike should
pay more attention to practioners who, while not as visible as some of
the high-profile advocates, are more deserving of attention as
exemplars who implement PMC principles.
If the peacemaking perspective is to be more than merely a
rallying mantra, then it should have direct policy implications for
the criminal justic system, or ate least peripheral implications for
societal change that would bring the system more in line with the
vision of peace and love. Some critics suggest that peacemaking
criminologists, while effusive about the good, the true, and the
beautiful, are too muddle-minded to offer anything of policy
significance (Akers, 1997: 183). If correct, this criticism would be
fatal. Fortunately, as the articles in this volume and elsewhere and
various demonstration projects attest, this criticism is not
sustainable. To compartmentalize PMC into the standard criminal
justice components of police, courts, and corrections does violence to
both to the perspective and its application. In practice, peacemaking
efforts are geared toward breaking down the conceptual barriers that
narrow our thinking and to expanding our thinking to see criminal
justice agencies as interconnected with and grounded in broader social
processes. Fuller's (1998) four-fold typology suggests several levels
on which peacemaking criminology could be or has been implemented.
The broadest level involves organization around international
issues that can be addressed locally. The second, institutional, level
includes focusing on governmental agencies (especially the criminal
justice system), political or social structures, or embedded cultural
practices (such as racism or sexism). Third, interpersonal action
invites assessing and changing how people interact with one another in
ways that enhance what Habermas (1981) recognized as the
intersubjective forms of domination that repress realization of
individual and group potential. Finally, the intra-personal level is
a call for individual transformation and individual
self-actualization.
INTERNATIONAL/GLOBAL ACTION. Some PMC advocates begin with a
macro-level analysis that requires fundamental changes in social
structure as a way of establishing the foundations for creating a
peaceful social order. Following the adage that "none can be free
until all are free," a balanced and harmonious existence at the micro
level cannot occur without recognizing the origins of
socially-structurally induced violence (Gil, 1999). On the global
level, peacemaking criminologists offer a vision of an
interconnectedness between all things, similar to the Marxian doctrine
of internal relations. This requires making governments more
responsive to its own people as well as people affected by its
policies, and to oppose war or other means of violence as a way to
pursue social justice (Cullen, 1999). The goal, as Elias (1991)
argues, is to work for peace by promoting human rights both on the
streets and among nations. One way to do this between conflicting
political groups is by recognizing that all parties share an equitable
status in the process, identifying common ideological ground on which
to build a lasting commitment to peace, and implementing future
conflict-resolution mechanisms (Currie and MacLean, 1995: 100).
INSTITUTIONAL/SYSTEMIC ACTION. At the institutional level,
peacemaking challenges unresponsive and repressive systems of
government, economic systems, religious systems. By examining how
institutions have developed and how they implement rules and policies
and create the ideological and related apparatus necessary for
control, action can take many trajectories. Groups working to reform
the criminal justice system, such as prison reform and anti-capital
punishment organizations, community/police neighborhood councils, and
similar collectives provide one line of direct action. Caulfield
(1999) nicely demonstrates the variegated peacemaking intersections
between feminism, the military, and criminal justice for research and
policy. Grassroots projects also provide a short-term strategy for
promoting social justice, as Barak (1991) illustrated in his study of
a community-based homeless shelter.
Institutional action can occur within the criminal justice system
in many ways. In law enforcement agencies, community policy, enhanced
informal dispute resolution, and police-community involvement are a
few viable options. For example, although aware of political,
practitioner, and other barriers, Volpe (1991) suggests police-citizen
mediation programs as one way of implementing peacemaking practices in
the criminal justice system. This, she argues, would shift the
emphasis from an adversarial process to one of conflict resolution
between disputants. At the judicial level, peacemaking criminology
offers a way to move from the current punitive model of retributive
justice to one based on responsiveness to the needs of society, the
victim, and the offender. Although some peacemakers reject the concept
of punishment and confinement, most do not, and neither concept is
incompatible with PMC. The goal is to balance the needs of all parties
rather than exact a "just measure of pain." Prison-oriented
peacemaking activity includes working for the attrition of prisons
(Knopp 1991), "Alternative to Violence Projects" in which volunteer
facilitators enter prisons to conduct workshops on restoration,
healing, and emphasizing individual responsibility (Bitel, 1998), or
developing peace-oriented self-help or "healing" programs that teach
nonviolence (Rucker, 1991).
Community-oriented examples of a peacemaking process are
reflected in neighborhood associations, "peacemaking courts" of native
Americans such as the Navajo (Pepinsky, 1998a: 3) or other indigenous
societies (Melton, 1995; Tomaszewski, 1997). Fuller (1998) develops a
list of additional social/institutional level targets for policy,
including drug legalization, opposition to capital punishment,
increased emphasis on rehabilitation of offenders, expansion of
community policing, aggressive gun control, implementing peacemaking
programs for youth, especially as a way of dealing with gang culture,
and implementing peacemaking alternatives in the court system.
INTERPERSONAL/INTRAPERSONAL ACTION. The third and fourth levels
of Fullers's (1998) action typology focus on individuals as they
interact with others and as they engage in their own personal
development. At the interpersonal level, peacemaking criminology
invites reflection on the ways in which power asymmetries are
recreated and maintained in every social encounter. Once recognized,
the goal is to change attitudes about and ways of social interaction.
At this level, PMC:
....has to do with a way of life and a choice to live a
certain way with and among others, a way that refuses to
seek and exercise power and that means ultimately redeeming
our words and selves out of the marketplace (Sullivan, 1999,
personal Communication).
Finally, the intrapersonal level refers to how we treat ourselves
and invites personal transformation. Knopp (1991: 184) argues that
the first step in social change is consciousness raising, "or seeing
the need for the new." This requires "learning how to organize and
construct the new," which she sees as a new restorative-justice model,
especially in crimes of sexual aggression and violence. Growth on the
intrapersonal level requires that we be gentle, forgiving, and learn
how to make peace with ourselves (Fuller, 1998: 41).
Activity on these four levels overlaps and builds off the others.
One effective way to integrate them is through education, especially
the promotion of wholistic peace education (Mackey, 1998) or justice
literacy (Brush, Caulfield, and Snyder-Joy, 1998; McEvoy and Mika,
1998; Sanzen, 1991; Sullivan, Tifft and Cordella, 1998). Such programs
combine to promote individual growth while raising consciousness that
alters behaviors and suggests avenues for systemic and global
participation. A second way to integrate peacemaking in criminal
justice, and one that is beginning to receive attention by mainstream
practitioners (Boyes-Watson, 1999), is programs based on restorative
justice. As Sullivan and Tifft (1998) remind us, restorative justice
is intertwined with all levels of existence, including the work place,
home, and in interpersonal communication. This suggests that
restorative justice transcends the reactive component of the criminal
justice system, making it a powerful integrative approach (Bazemore,
1998).
We have argued that, although peacemaking criminology has not yet
overcome many of the problems that keep it out of the mainstream, many
of the criticisms either lack foundation or can be successfully
addressed. We also identified several ways that peacemaking
criminology has been or can be implemented in the criminal justice
system. However, this still has not brought us to closure to a
definition or summary of the perspective. That we attempt in the next
section.
Peacemaking as Metaphor
Many of the definitional and other problems of peacemaking
criminology dissolve if, rather than demand a clearly focused
definition, we instead see the peacemaking perspective as a metaphor
that juxtaposes Pepinsky's (1998a) imagery of war, violence and
conflict against that of harmony, reparation, and healing. When
understood as a cognitive mapping device, the perspective becomes a
lens through with which to reframe and suggest alternatives to
existing responses to social offense and control.
Different metaphors produce different sets of images through
which to view, interpret, and act upon our world. Metaphors provide
icons and mapping techniques for interpreting and acting upon the
social terrain. Metaphors also allow us to examine and discuss our
objects from several perspectives, employing various sets of images.
This expands our concrete knowledge of, as well as our insight into,
the topic of choice. By replacing the metaphor of war with that of
peace, we redirect our gaze to an alternate recoding of aspects of
social existence into a more fruitful set of images. To paraphrase
Brown's (1976: 178) observation in a related context, the choice is
not between scientific rigor and peacemaking criminology, but between
more or less fruitful metaphors, and between rejecting metaphors of
violence or being their victims.
Like all critical metaphors, that of peacemaking directs
attention to symbols of oppression and suggests strategies for
reconceptualizing crime and social control and their relationship to
our fundamental social existence. As metaphor, even the excessive
hyperbole of some of the more extreme commentators is more easily seen
as bathos, a rhetorical trope by which mundane discourse is
exaggerated to produce richer images of analytic significance. As a
metaphor, peacemaking criminology is both a sensitizing concept and a
set of heuristic images that become transformative elements in a
dialetical process of changing both individual consciousness and the
social conditions that bread unnecessary forms of social domination.
As metaphor, peacemaking criminology may best be seen as a means for
coalition building. It cuts across ideological boundaries by
suggesting forms of praxis that range from something as simple as
creating new forms of consciousness at one end to more idealistic
calls for fundamental social, political, and cultural changes on the
other.
Finally, the metaphor of "peacemaking" merges the Romantic and
Enlightenment intellectual traditions into a dialectical blend of
science and spirit. By recognizing the power of the metaphor to unify
two ways of viewing, thinking about, and acting upon our existence and
our social world, it becomes easier to understand that the two
traditions are not in opposition, but supplement each other. Our own
exploration of peacemaking criminology led us to three conclusions
that, for us, helped clarify the perspective. First, PMC constitutes
a paradigm shift, or a new direction for developing theories, methods,
concepts, and forms of action for reducing crime. Second, PMC offers
a redemptive rejuvenation for criminal justice practitioners,
scholars, and offenders. Finally, the perspective challenges our
thinking not only about crime, but about the fundamental foundations
of our social existence.
Conclusion
Our final assessment of peacemaking criminology reflects not so
much a conclusion, but rather a beginning, a redemptive call to
action. Ultimately, the value of peacemaking, whether grounded in
criminology or some other enterprise, lies in the degree to which
individuals can transform themselves, their interactions, and their
social institutions away from a violent and hostile environment and
toward one that is more conducive to fulfilling the "species being" of
which Marx spoke. As a consequence, the criticisms that PMC is
utopian, idealistic, and ambitious remain valid. However, these
should be considered attributes rather than weaknesses. Peacemaking
is nothing less than an integrative new beginning. The metaphor of
peace guides the interplay between self-transformation and broader
social change, and provides a powerful weapon of critique in doing
battle against violent metaphors and actions.
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