ABSTRACT
Introduction Bazemore and Griffiths’ (2003: 340) review of police involvement with restorative justice in the United States bemoaned the absence of a ‘systemic vision’ for restorative policing. While they called for the institutionalisation of restorative practices within police organisations, they stopped short of articulating how this vision could be realised. This standpoint has become commonplace in the restorative policing literature whereby obstacles to change have been identified, but often without transformative solutions that are likely to be credible in operational policing environments. The sheer scale of change management required means that questions remain about the extent to which restorative policing can become embedded in an operational policing environment unless it is accompanied by a significant shift in the sociocultural meaning of police work as well (Clamp and Paterson 2013; also Chapter 6, this volume). Viewing restorative policing in this way requires not only substantially more commitment to developing more meaningful partnerships with communities, it also demands a radical shift in traditional policing practice – a shift that creates a number of tensions at the implementation level. We view the true potential of restorative policing as lying not in a single programme contained within the usual business and structures of policing organisations, but rather as philosophical framework through which to guide police interaction with the community it serves (see also Hines and Bazemore 2003; also Chapter 6, this volume). Thus conceptualised, restorative policing can be understood as a vehicle for delivering high quality community policing. As such, we suggest that in order for meaningful and sustainable organisational learning and change to take place, a twin-track approach is needed whereby leadership ‘from above’ is informed by a restorative philosophy that not only allows, but also actively encourages transformation from the ‘bottom-up’. In what follows, we develop our ideas within the context of the work already undertaken in relation to community policing. The reasons for this are twofold. First, community policing and restorative policing overlap in terms of their broader philosophies and strategies (as we outlined in Chapter 1). This means that rather than reinventing the wheel, we are
further developing thinking about policing that has been in existence across neoliberal societies for over three decades. Second, restorative policing offers frontline staff the tools to both bolster and structure their discretion (which has been largely missing from the literature on community policing) in terms of dealing with problems affecting local communities. From this perspective, we seek to draw out ways in which police officers can use their discretion to view offending (particularly by younger offenders) on the basis of its structural causes and to develop strategies (i.e. by withholding punishment and enforcement) to deal with this in a more restorative way. While this approach demands creative thinking around how officer discretion might be responsibly enhanced, we also argue that if policing organisations are to implement restorative justice in a sustainable way, then both frontline staff and communities need to be involved in the design, implementation and monitoring of local initiatives (Kurki 1999). Drawing on the policy implementation literature, this chapter explores what this strategy would involve and makes suggestions for how such an approach might be realised. However, a number of caveats need to be drawn before we proceed. First, it must be acknowledged that there are a number of limitations to the community policing literature and restorative justice literature when it comes to implementation. Often there has been little understanding of the community’s role and generating citizen participation has commonly been found to be a difficult task (see, for example, Clamp 2014b). Furthermore, priorities and routines vary across police forces within a country (and across countries) and the approaches and rationales underpinning crime control can vary greatly. For example, within the United States, Leena Kurki (1999: 6) notes: ‘some efforts rely on heavy streetlevel enforcement, while others emphasize citizen involvement, better quality public services, delivery of community-based treatment, or diversionary policing that withholds enforcement as a way to build relationships with communities’. This creates a challenge in terms of developing a strategy that can be adapted according to the specific context and challenges faced by different policing organisations. Second, there has been little attempt to measure the extent to which the rhetoric of community empowerment, involvement and partnership building becomes reality, and where efforts have been made, the results that have emerged have not been particularly encouraging. Many applications of community policing and prosecution are not fundamentally different from traditional approaches, although they may shift control to local levels and include the community in law enforcement efforts. In fact, Kurki (1999) suggests that at times, community policing strategies can actually result in a more punitive response to crime because it takes so seriously the types of behaviour that affect quality of life within communities. We further acknowledge that the reality for restorative policing is the same and that there are proponents who, like us, call for the integration of restorative justice values and processes within policing organisations and those who are vehemently against it (see Chapter 4, this volume). For many critics of police organisations, the combination of increased community involvement alongside enhanced police discretion raises fears of democratic authoritarianism.
