From Revolving Door to Open Road: Community Conferencing as an Alternative to Conventional Punitive Justice —by Eric Imhof

The Steel Door With Bars

Citing the court’s inability to translate arrests into the necessary jail time, the then-Baltimore City Police Commissioner Kevin Clark declared in 2004, in the midst of an increase in the trend of violent crime in the city, that the “revolving door needs to be replaced with a steel door with bars.” The problem, he insisted, was that over-burdened courts were demanding too much evidence to ensure conviction of arrested criminals. Instead of remaining behind bars, their cases were dismissed, and offenders were released again only to return to the street, where they inevitably committed future crimes. His sentiments convey what has become the conventional “wisdom” of crime-solving strategy, at least among our city leaders. That is, the solution to crime is more police, more arrests, and more convictions—more people in jail serving longer sentences.

Police Commissioner Clark made his statement in 2004. Since then, the homicide rate and the rate of overall violent crime in Baltimore have grown. Despite various city administrations’ and agencies’ numerous attempts to “get tough on crime,” the alarming homicide rate continues to inspire headlines in all of the city’s major publications. Meanwhile, the prison population not just of Baltimore but also of the entire country continues to rise. Already holding the worldwide distinction as the industrialized nation with the highest percentage of its population in prison, the United States justice system continues to incarcerate people at a steadily growing rate. About 1.5 million people nation-wide were serving time in prison at the end of 2006. That number is predicted to reach 1.72 million (up 13 percent) by 2011 (Pew Research Report).

The contradiction above should serve to highlight the ineptitude of the crime-prevention strategy endorsed by Clark in 2004 and also currently adhered-to by the majority of our city’s leaders. In short, more police presence and more people in prison do not necessarily translate into less crime. As our jails struggle to hold their over-spilling populations and courts are bogged down in a virtual gridlock of paperwork (and meanwhile we are monitored by cameras on increasingly infringing levels), crime continues to remain prevalent in all of Baltimore’s communities. And after years of failed strategy, communities all over the city continue to wrestle with the question of what is to be done. With nothing seeming to work, many activists, organizers, and other neighborhood leaders are searching frantically for alternative solutions to this overwhelming and deeply rooted problem.

The first step to finding such a solution, I argue, is to re-think the notion of justice entirely. We need to reevaluate what justice is and how it can be achieved. When I ask young people in the city what they think of when they imagine justice, they mention police sirens and courtroom scenes, their relatives being locked up, or orange jumpsuits. What they almost never mention are words like “fairness,” “responsibility,” “accountability,” or “equality.” Only when we redefine justice as an approximation of these ideas can we begin to enact a crime prevention strategy that actually achieves its stated goals: to decrease and prevent crime. Only then can we start to find alternatives to our failing justice system.

The Community Conferencing Center

There is at least one organization in the city that is doing encouraging work towards this end: the Community Conferencing Center. The Community Conferencing Center facilitates discussions among community members, as well as organizations, schools, and even government agencies in order to settle conflicts through a process of emotional honesty and collaborative decision-making. Their specifically trained staff members help conduct safe and structured meetings with people involved in a conflict or crime to discuss what happened, express how all of the parties have been affected, and collectively create a resolution to the situation. The Community Conferencing Center has worked with cases involving second-degree assault, breaking and entering, larceny, destruction of property, auto theft, and crimes as serious as murder. Though their brochure states more modest goals than transforming the entire justice system, and despite their insistence to me that they’re not exactly prepared to posit themselves as an alternative to prison in every situation, they are operating under a fairly revolutionary set of principles.

“People really do have the capacity to safely and effectively resolve many of their own crimes and conflicts themselves—provided they are given a good structure to do so,” explains Dr. Lauren Abramson, Executive Director of the Community Conferencing Center, adding, “Community Conferencing provides such a space and structure.” She continues, “It is important to include the entire community of people affected by a crime/conflict in resolving that issue (e.g. victims, offenders, their respective supporters, and anyone else affected by the situation),” because, “When people make their own decisions about how to resolve their own conflicts, those solutions will be effective, creative, and long-lasting.”

How It Works

When I attended a Community Conferencing training workshop last April, I was able to witness these principles in action. In role-playing sessions, we acted out conflicts using methods based on an underlying notion that justice, instead of being defined in strictly punitive terms, was best achieved when everyone involved consented to the fairness of the resolution—including the “offenders” of the crime. Sitting in a circle, each person involved in the conflict is able to speak about what happened and how he or she was affected by it. Each participant is also given the opportunity to be accompanied by a supporter: a family member or mentor or counselor. (Note that a lawyer doesn’t necessarily satisfy this role; in fact, lawyers are discouraged from attending the conferences.) After each person gets to speak about what happened and how she or he was affected, the group creates a solution that they feel adequately resolves the conflict and leads to a constructive outcome. An agreement is drafted and signed by all of the participants.

Now, if you are saying to yourself that this process sounds too good to be true, and that it is redolent of over-idealized notions of handholding, group hugs, or miraculous altruistic reconciliations, you’re probably not alone. Most people, even those who have agreed to participate in the conferences, are initially skeptical about the process. “How is just talking about what happened going to help anything?” is the most common critical question. In response to this question, and to give more insight into why people agree to attend the conferences, it is important here to note two aspects in particular.

First, one must understand that the conferences are initiated solely by referral. If a conference seems to be apropos, those involved and affected by the incident are contacted and briefed. This period of discussion among the prospective participants, which the staff officially calls “preparation,” is usually the most important and taxing part of the process. During the preparation, the methodology and goals of the meeting are explained to all those invited, and they are able to choose for themselves whether or not to convene. All of the participants of the conferences have to willingly consent to take part in the process.

Second, many of the referrals come from the Department of Juvenile Services (DJS), the Baltimore City Police Department (BCPD), and directly from school administrators. Most of these incidents involve youth at schools. Assault, theft, vandalism, and verbal abuse are common cases. In all of these cases referred from DJS, the case has been forwarded to them by the BCPD. The case is turned over from the police to Juvenile Services and then, in part as a way to soften their overburdening influx of cases, DJS refers it to the Community Conferencing Center in the hope that it can be resolved en lieu of the conventional legal recourse. If it can, the case is dismissed. If an agreement cannot be reached via conferencing, the case is sent directly back to its referral source and handled in its usual manner.

It becomes clear, in light of this fact, that a major incentive to participate in the conferences is the policy that if a collective solution can be reached, the case is dropped by DJS and the youth involved are able to avoid the time and money spent in courtroom proceedings and the future ramifications of further legal entanglements and sentencing. It is worthwhile to point out that for most the parents of the youth who are involved in the conferences, taking further days off work to settle legal disputes is something that they don’t have the means to afford. It behooves everyone to generate a solution that is amenable to all parties for no other reason than, in a strictly monetary analysis, it is more cost-effective to do so.

However, this economic incentive should not detract from the powerful impact that this process has in resolving disagreements and violent (or potentially violent) situations. While the looming threat of litigation or sentencing still plays a part in driving people to attend the conferences, it is shown by experience that when people do attend the conferences, they usually create a collective agreement—and that agreement usually has complete compliance. The notion that these cases can be settled en lieu of conventional court proceedings suggests encouragingly that the conferences might be a viable alternative to the current methodology of the justice system in dealing with disputes, conflicts, or crimes—at least those involving young people.

Why It Works

The fact that agreements are self-generated (and not, as it were, handed down arbitrarily from an external judge or jury) is what makes them effective. Over 98 percent of conferences result in an agreement, and over 95 percent of those agreements retain complete compliance by the participants. Moreover, young offenders who participate in the Community Conferences are 60 percent less likely to offend than those who go through the juvenile justice system. This success rate can be attributed to the methodology of the conferences: a methodology that allows everyone to express how s/he was affected emotionally in a safe environment and create a solution to their problem that is relevant, satisfying, and fair. In other words, the process allows people to solve their own problems collectively, without the necessity of litigation or exclusively punitive measures.

This seems to be a radical notion, counter to the conventional intuition that anti-social behavior and lawbreaking can only be punished by an external arbiter who is unbiased and divorced from the emotion of the situation—and that these punishments should be standardized and levied in a systematic fashion according to the decided severity of the crime. More importantly, it debunks the idea that the solution to such problems is more police and stricter sentencing.

Collectively decided solutions, by contrast, have been shown to be more constructive, appropriate, and meaningful than court-ordered sentences since, unlike such sentences, they are created by consent with all of the affected parties. And, because the perpetrators of the crime have to face the people affected by their actions directly, there is a greater level of accountability and responsibility for those actions. This sometimes emotionally wrenching and exhausting process allows the “offenders” of the crime to learn from their mistakes and take steps to prevent similar incidents in the future.

In addition to the incentives for attending a conference mentioned in the previous section, it might seem that another is that it is “easier” to participate in a conference than go through the court system; conferencing may initially appear to be less harsh or severe. However, contrary to this perception, the conferences are not always polite and pleasant. In fact, because there is such an emotional tension (and then release), they are often chaotic, turbulent, and, for lack of a better term, nasty.

“Although Community Conferencing is completely voluntary, and everyone is prepared to come up with an agreement to make things better, you have to remember that people still come to the conferences with very raw emotions, such as anger, sadness, and fear,” explains Nel Andrews, the Program Director at the Center. She continues: “The first two stages of the conference require people to discuss what happened and how people were affected by it. So, sometimes these emotions take center stage. With that said, some conferences (in the beginning) can feel out of control.”

She recounts a particular example that comes to mind:

“A high school counselor referred a group of four students (3 female and 1 male) and their families to CCC after it was discovered that there was a neighborhood brawl over the weekend—stemming from some altercations that happened in school. During school the next day many people were talking about the fight, and school staff realized that it was important to bring the families together so that they would have an opportunity to work it out together. A referral to Community Conferencing Center was made. The families of each student were contacted and due to the seriousness of the situation, everyone agreed to participate in a Community Conference the very next morning.

“The Allen family was out the door yelling ‘I’ll see you in court!’ Jessica’s mom had Jessica against the wall pleading with her to get control of herself. I followed the Allen’s into the hallway. They were quickly met by the principal, Ms. White, and pulled into her office. As Ms. White calmed Rodney and his parents down, I returned to the room where we had started the conference. Jessica’s mother was crying hysterically and trying to leave the building. She was on the phone with her sister (Jessica’s aunt). Ms. Barker (the school counselor) had taken Jessica and Denise into another room. Ms. Sander (Denise’s mother) was trying to console Jessica’s mother…. It appeared as though she was having little impact.”

Eventually, by working individually with the parents alone and then inviting the youth back into the group, Andrews, the principal, and the guidance counselor at the school were able to get everyone to come back into the circle and calm down. As the discussion continued, it was discovered that much of the conflict was due to emotional trauma that Jessica was feeling as a result of both losing touch with her friends and being sexually abused at an early age. After another half-hour of apologizing, explaining, and crying, the two youth who were directly involved in the conflict were able to reconcile, and the rest of the group followed suit. According to Andrews: “Jessica got up from her seat and walked towards Rodney. She held out her arms and as they hugged, she said ‘I miss you.’ Jessica held onto Rodney, still crying, she wouldn’t let go. Denise, also crying, joined the hug. Everyone was crying. Mr. Allen even excused himself from the room—perhaps a sign that he didn’t want all of the women to see him in such a vulnerable state. Once everyone was back in their chairs, they agreed that the conflict was over.”

On this remarkable two-hour turnaround from violent feud to collective agreement, Andrews comments that, “I don’t believe that the type of resolution that the group came to that morning could have been achieved had the participants not had a safe place to express the intense anger, frustration, and hurt they were feeling at the start. Being able to express those feelings in the most authentic way possible gave rise to the remarkable emotional transformation experienced by everyone.”

The emotional transformation that participants undergo during the conferences is drastically different than that generated by the prison experience, which usually leaves people indifferent, detached, bitter, or even depressed and outraged—all of which fuels repeat offense and recidivism, thereby working against the justice system’s stated goals of reduction and prevention of crime.

This phenomenon of arrest and repeat-offense is precisely the revolving door mentioned by Commissioner Clark. I agree—the revolving door needs to be stopped. But if we can learn anything from the work that the Community Conferencing Center is doing (and the success it has achieved so far), it is that there is an alternative to the “steel door with bars.” Instead of increased incarceration, longer sentences, and more punitive repression, we can replace the revolving door with an open road. This process allows people collectively to decide what is best for their own communities, working together to solve their own problems and, most importantly, help prevent those same problems from happening in the future.