Girls, peer violence, and restorative justice.

• Jurisdiction: Australia
• Date: 01 April 2008
• Author: Daly, Kathleen
• Published date: 01 April 2008
• Author: Daly, Kathleen

Drawing on the South Australia Juvenile Justice (SAJJ) project dataset, this article analyses youth peer violence ('punch-ups') with a focus on girl-on-girl assaults. My aim is to address and explain significant gaps in the empirical knowledge of gender and restorative justice, and in the aspirations and reality of restorative justice itself. Four points are made. First, of all the offence categories, the male and female punch-ups showed the least degree of offender remorse, positive movement between offender and victim, and victim satisfaction; and they showed the greatest degree of victim revictimisation and more negative outcomes of the conference process. This occurs because offenders may 'admit' to offending, but deny that their actions are wrong. Second, simple gender comparisons of offender and victim orientations in a restorative process are likely to produce misleading results, unless they are keyed to particular offence categories. Third, for girls' punch-ups, the status of 'victim' and 'offender' is contested, with both protagonists seeing themselves as 'victims' (or as 'nonoffenders'). Fourth, although some offending girls say their violence is justified, their female victims are hurt and traumatised, some with significant long-term effects. Implications are drawn for feminist analyses of girls' violence and for ethical practices of restorative justice.

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In the last decade, a large literature has grown about youth and restorative justice, although scant attention has been paid to gender-based variation. One aim of this article is to address a gap in the empirical knowledge of gender and restorative justice, with a focus on girl-on-girl assaults. A second is to explore the gap between the aspirations and reality of restorative justice itself. This gap arises, in part, because advocates have unrealistic aims, participants do not know what is expected of them nor how to act in a restorative encounter, and organisational routines may trump justice ideals (Daly, 2003; see also Trankle, 2007). My research on youth justice conferences in South Australia (1) shows that it is easier to achieve fairness than 'restorativeness', (2) sincere apologies are often difficult to achieve, and victims' ability to recover from an offence is contingent, in part, on the distress it caused them (Daly, 2005, 2006). On a variety of measures, I find that assaults between youth ('punch-ups') pose significant problems for restorative justice.

Punch-ups are a fruitful terrain to explore gender and restorative justice. In the South Australia Juvenile Justice (SAJJ) sample of 89 conferences, 26% were youth assaults, and in almost all, the victim-offender relationship was male-male or female-female. Although the number of cases is small, the data are rich: they contain in-depth observations of conferences and interviews of offenders' and victims' experiences of youth violence and of restorative justice.

Research Literature

Four bodies of research are relevant to this article: practices and research on restorative justice, studies of girls and peer violence, the advocacy and critical literatures on gender and restorative justice, and empirical studies of male and female offenders in a restorative justice process. (3) I note at the outset that the literature is remiss in several respects. First, analysts often give a sympathetic reading of offending girls' violence and its justifications, and of offending girls in a restorative process, but say little about the effect of girls' violence on female victims, or of victimised girls' experiences in a restorative process. Second, scant attention is given to the ethical problems that arise when offenders see their acts as justified by something victims did or said.

RESTORATIVE JUSTICE: PRACTICES AND RESEARCH

Restorative justice has varied definitions and referents (Johnstone & van Ness, 2007; Sullivan & Tifft, 2006) and varied practices in different legal and organisational contexts (Daly, 2002a; Dignan, 2006; McCold, 2006). My focus is on diversionary conferences for youth offenders, which is the major form of restorative justice in Australia and New Zealand. In a conference, an offender(s), victim(s), their supporters, other relevant community members, a police officer and conference facilitator meet to discuss the offence, its impact and how it should be sanctioned (or 'repaired').

Around the world and with few exceptions, restorative justice practices are set in motion only after a person has admitted to an offence; that is, they are used in the penalty (or post-penalty phase), not the fact-finding phase of the criminal process. Advocates claim that restorative justice is preferable to established criminal justice because it is a participatory and consensually based justice, not an adversarial one. The reason that it can be nonadversarial is that it does not adjudicate crime. As we shall see in the youth punch-ups, offenders may admit to committing offences, but minimise or justify them as having been provoked by victims. This contesting of 'facts' sets up an adversarial encounter.

A review of the empirical literature on youth conferences, drawing from Australia, New Zealand, England, and North America (Daly, 2001a, 2002a, 2003; Daly & Hayes, 2002; Maxwell et al., 2004; Maxwell & Morris, 1993; Maxwell et al., 2006; Morris & Maxwell, 2001; Strang, 2001, 2002; von Hirsch et al., 2003) finds the following: (4)

* Conferences are rated highly on measures of procedural justice, but are relatively less successful in achieving restorativeness (see endnote 1 for definitions).

* Conferences reduce victims' anger and fear toward offenders, more so than court.

* For offenders, there is a higher degree of perceived procedural justice and restorative justice in conference than in court processes.

* Conferences increase offenders' respect for the police and law more than court.

* Victims' sense of restorative justice is higher for cases that went to conference compared to court.

* Most participants are satisfied by the conference process, although the levels of satisfaction are often higher for offenders than victims.

These are general findings and, as such, they gloss over the ways in which specific offences differently affect victims' orientations to a legal process (whether conference or court), their emotions during and after it, and their sense of recovery. Discussed more below, the SAJJ data show that some offences, coupled with offender orientations, cause victims far more distress than others. When offenders minimise offences that cause victims distress, the abilities of offenders and victims to enact ideal elements in a restorative process (e.g., offenders taking responsibility for the offence and apologising sincerely for it) and to experience benefits from the conference process (e.g., reducing victims' fear and anger) are attenuated.

GENDER AND PEER VIOLENCE

My review foregrounds girls' violence toward girls, although I give some attention to boys. Two findings from the literature are pertinent. First, although boys' and girls' peer violence may vary, it is condoned and justified by youths as a rational response to behaviour that is perceived as wrong or threatening. Second, feminist analysts differ on the degree to which girls' violence is determined by male power and female subordination.

Social Contexts and Elements of Violence

Feminist analysts of girls' violence are concerned with bringing girls' accounts of violence to light and with understanding its meanings, contexts, and motives (Alder & Worrall, 2004). From conversations with about 100 girls in Glasgow, Burman (2004) and her research group find that girls' definitions of violence include both verbal and physical behaviour. Thus, when a girl verbally insults another girl, the verbally victimised girl can be transformed into an offender, who feels justified to retaliate with physical violence. Burman (pp. 95-96) finds that girls view physical violence acceptable in responding to verbal abuse in several contexts: to prevent 'continued harassment or bullying'; and to 'strike back in self-defense' when subject to gossip, being called 'a slut', or sexually demeaned in other ways. Other justifications include retaliating for 'stealing a boyfriend' and the need to 'stick up' for oneself, friends, or family members (p. 96).

From interviews with 35 girls, all urban and African-American, Miller and Mullins (2006) reach similar conclusions in identifying three situational triggers to girls' fights: gossip and rumours, including sexual rumours; challenges over dress and reputation; and boys (p. 45). Although these triggers suggest a specifically feminine rationale for fights, Miller and Mullins argue that there are points of overlap with boys' fights. In particular, they find that respect and readings of disrespect are 'central to both male and female conflicts' (p. 58) and that like boys, girls are engaged in 'status contests', that is, building 'reputations as "tough" and ... not to be "messed with"'.

Lockwood (1997) identifies similar triggers for male and female peer violence. Drawing from interviews with 110 youth (largely African-American, 36% female) in two schools in economically disadvantaged areas in the United States, he finds that in 84% of cases, the students took responsibility for their actions, but denied that they were wrong. The major justifications that youths gave were retribution (retaliating for perceived harm), compliance (to stop another from offensive behaviour), defence of oneself, and promoting one's image (defending one's honour and reputation) (pp. 4-5). Lockwood did not show whether the students' justifications varied by gender.

For gender differences in violence, Miller and Mullins (2006, p. 61) find that girls were less likely to use weapons, their injury to victims was less severe or lethal, and their conflicts were slower to 'escalate to violence'. Like others (e.g., Kruttschnitt...