In search of restorative justice

The Daily Pennsylvanian presents The Road Ahead, a new series devoted to delivering expert opinions on some of the issues that now confront us in the wake of America's renewed war on terrorism.

September 11, 2001. I was in Leicester, England, on day two of launching a national field experiment for the British government. The day before, at Westminster Abbey, Commissioner Sir John Stevens of New Scotland Yard had announced the Penn-led project with the director of the National Probation Service. The new idea to be tested is that reconciliation might work better than retribution in trying to prevent violent crime.

As I watched the World Trade Center towers collapse, I began to see the broader implications of our experiments in "restorative justice." For thousands of years, local communities have tried to prevent endless cycles of violence by repairing the harm caused by violent crime. Reparation agreements were the basis of English law until the Norman Conquest. Modern England will go back to the future with us in testing meetings between victims and offenders with their respective friends and families. These efforts to find voluntary ways to restore crime victims are designed to reduce repeat offending, as well as victim retaliation.

The theory draws on research showing that many criminals believe they are acting morally. Change their morality, and you may reduce crime. Our Australian experiment with restorative justice reduced repeat crime by 38 percent in a randomized controlled trial, one of the strongest tests in science.

Criminology has found increasing evidence that strong moral beliefs may cause as much crime as weak moral beliefs. Yet my field has done little to apply these findings to the moral beliefs of terrorists. When 20 people are willing to commit suicide to attack our "evil" country, the rational choice explanation of crime must be carefully reasssessed.

Strong moral beliefs flourish in periods of "great awakenings" of religion, such as the one that led to Penn's founding in 1740. Other great awakenings have led to the abolition of slavery, to women's suffrage and to Social Security. On a much smaller scale, restorative justice tries to cause personal moral awakenings in the lives of criminals. It is hard to find changes in people's morality that have been caused by brute force alone. Whether terrorism could be stopped by great or personal moral awakenings against fundamentalist violence is an option that few have explored.

Criminology is well-equipped to explore such options with its broad, multi-disciplinary perspective, linking history, neuroscience, economics, psychology and sociology. Criminology is also committed to helping police and other government agencies discover what works best to prevent violence. With the support of a generous benefactor, Penn will soon be playing an even larger role in this vital area of research.

On Monday, Oct. 15, Penn students can return from fall break to attend the dedication of the new Jerry Lee Center of Criminology. University President Judith Rodin will open the event at 10:00 a.m. in Zellerbach Auditorium. Former Attorney General Janet Reno, Police Commissioner John Timoney, scholars including Cambridge University criminologist David Farrington and leading English police officials will offer their visions of the future of criminology. Paul Leighton, a former police chief in Northern Ireland, and Penn Professor Stephen Gale will speak directly to the misguided morality of terrorism. As we plan for the Lee Center's World Conference next March 12-14 on Policing Terrorism, we hope to expand the boundaries of knowledge on the causes of murder -- of all kinds, on any scale.

Penn is the university that built the first computer, educated the first woman member of the U.S. cabinet, and published the first definitive scientific analysis of murder. The author of that study, the late Professor Marvin Wolfgang, first came to Penn to study with Professor Thorsten Sellin. The new Lee Center of Criminology stands firmly on the shoulders of these two Penn giants. Perhaps that perch will help us see better down the road ahead to discover an end to terrorism.

Lawrence Sherman is a professor of sociology and director of the Fels Center of Government and the Jerry Lee Center of Criminology. He serves as president of the American Society of Criminology.

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