Innovative Criminal Justice Course at Marian Court College

His was a feel-good story, a young man who worked through a parentless, hard-luck upbringing to become a football star. He earned a college scholarship in the process, always staying on the right side of the law— and it all threatened to unravel when he drank too much on the eve of his high school graduation. The inebriated player walked into a corner store, stole some junk food, and the manager caught him in the act. First came slurred words, then punches, then the police: the manager went to the hospital, and the football player was charged with aggravated assault, the scaffolding of his future collapsing under the weight of one very bad evening.

Is justice served by sending him to jail for a year? Or is he better off—is everyone better off—if he pays the storeowner’s medical bills, receives anger management counseling, and preserves his blemish-free record and path to a better future?

Those are the central questions posed under restorative justice, a philosophy embedded in the criminal justice curriculum at Marian Court College in Swampscott. It’s an alternative to our society’s legal system that operates outside of the courtroom, saving money and resources. And to hear the college’s criminal justice instructors talk about it, this millennia-old proposition is worth examining through a contemporary lens.

At its core, restorative justice looks at crimes not as violations of abstract laws, but as transgressions between victim and offender that can’t always be resolved with incarceration. It seeks to give a voice to the victim who’s generally silent in the courtroom, and it exposes the offender to the broader consequences of their actions. The penalties are aimed at rehabilitation, not retribution, and they seek creative ways to fix the damage done to the victim or the community at large. “It’s an individualized approach, versus the assembly-line justice we have at this point,” says Adam Stearn, associate professor of criminal justice at Marian Court College.

That assembly-line justice has contributed to overcrowded prisons, reduced funding for programs to curb recidivism, and few political incentives to change course. “Maybe the one bipartisan thing in this country is being tough on crime,” says Stearn. But the numbers give compelling reasons to find alternatives: According to a 2013 study from nonpartisan think tank MassINC, six in 10 Massachusetts inmates reoffend within six years of release. Additionally, as of 2013, the average cost of housing an inmate in the Massachusetts Department of Correction system was more than $47,000 per year, with the average time served 3.7 years. That doesn’t include the economic and social impact on a victim living with the fallout from the crime, or on the family that loses a bread- winner doing a prison term. “For those reasons, I think we have to at least look at something new,” Stearn says.

Restorative justice, however, is hardly new. The concept of bringing victims and offenders together after crimes has existed in cultures for millennia, from those of indigenous peoples, to English estates where barons had to punish wrongdoing serfs without taking them away from work.

Francis Brennan, chair and founder of the Marian Court College’s criminal justice department, first used restorative justice during his 22-year career in the army: As a battalion commander, when he faced a soldier who committed some infraction and showed remorse, Brennan would gauge their level of regret. For the unrepentant, Brennan went by the book, docking their pay, throwing them in the stockade, and filing paperwork that put a blemish on their record that would follow them into civilian life. But for the remorseful, he’d give them extra chores—painting, buffing floors—and after a few months, if the soldier stayed out of trouble, there was no record of the offense. “Invariably, you’d get a good soldier out of it because someone gave him a break,” Brennan says. You’d be hard-pressed to find advocates for using restorative justice in cases involving sociopaths and hardened criminals with miles-long rap sheets; instead, restorative justice is a better fit for mistakes made by otherwise good people.

Fifteen years ago, Brennan began wrapping restorative justice concepts into the criminal justice curriculum at Marian Court College, from the introductory courses on up. That contrasts with how schools have traditionally dealt with the concept—often only in a single class period in four years of education. It culminates with CJ340, the restorative justice seminar required of all 73 students enrolled in the college’s criminal justice program. The crux of the class is discussion around case studies intended to provoke meaningful discussion among the roughly 15 student classrooms. The aforementioned scenario of the football player’s night gone wrong is an example of one such case study, as is the 15-year-old who fires a paintball gun into a crowd as a prank only to cause someone in the crowd to lose their eye. Brennan and Stearn probe the students to think: Would you use restorative justice? Why, or why not? What’s the appropriate punishment? “You’d be amazed,” Brennan says, “as we go through these case studies, how the skeptics change their minds and say, ‘I still believe in the punitive system, we still need it. But I also see where it’s tremendously beneficial to society to have restorative justice.’”

More than 40 states use some form of restorative justice, including Massachusetts. Implementing restorative justice often starts with a district attorney looking at the merits of a case, the profile of the offender, and deciding whether restorative justice makes sense. If the victims agree that it does, a mediator leads face-to-face meetings between the offender and everyone impacted by the offender’s actions. Each party speaks uninterrupted about how the crime has affected them, whether it’s the fallout from lost wages, the stress of having been the victim of a crime, and other impacts that might never be addressed in the courtroom. “[After understanding that], it’s hard to go out on the streets without thinking about that person as a living, breathing human being,” Stearn says. From there, the district attorney consults with the victim about an appropriate punishment—which, depending on the crime, might include probation, anger management classes, financial restitution, or another penalty—and gives a recommendation to the judge overseeing the case.

Peabody District Court Judge Richard Mori, a Commonwealth judge since 1993 and part-time teacher at Marian Court College, deals with many cases that utilize restorative justice. Mori says his court has the resources to try only one jury case per day; for that reason, it makes more sense to try serious offenses—a domestic violence case, for example—in the courtroom, and find “alternative dispositions” for others, like a homeowner knocking down his neighbor’s fence and tearing up shrubs for encroaching on his property line. And one of the major benefits of Marian Court’s approach to restorative justice, he says, is that it shows that solutions don’t have to come from prosecution. “Some of these folks graduating are going to be cops, probation officers, building inspectors, health inspectors,” Mori says. “And I think it’s important to work with people, rather than just run down to the court and take out a complaint.”

Restorative justice requires an abundance of compassion—one of the core values of Marian Court College, says president Dr. Denise Hammon. “The emphasis that Marian Court College places on thoroughly teaching the theory and approach of restorative justice, in addition to the punitive system, enables our graduates to develop as members of society, who see the benefit of creating a more peaceful and serene society.”

Despite putting restorative justice front and center in the curriculum, Stearn and Brennan freely admit that some of their students never accept the philosophy of restorative justice—and that’s OK. “I don’t need every student to buy into it. They don’t need to change their mind—I have my very strongly held beliefs, but I respect others’ beliefs as long as they’ve come to a decision after taking in all the information.” And, in any case, even stubborn minds can change after four years. mariancourt.edu