Importance of perception PDF

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Importance of perception...

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programs encompass many types (e.g. victim-offender mediation, family group conferencing, and sentencing circles) (Kurki, 1999) and are used differently in an international context, with an emphasis on conferences within Australia and New Zealand and the use of victim-offender mediation in the USA (Daly, 2001). In contrast to traditional court processing, which focuses on retribution, deterrence, and incapacitation, programs that emphasize restoration promote higher levels of reintegrative shaming (RS) and reduce the experience of disintegrative shaming (DS) (Harris, 2006; Tyler, Sherman, Strang, Barnes, & Woods, 2007). RS entails the community condemning the criminal act and not the offender, allowing offenders to repair ties with others, which fosters interpersonal expectations that offenders become committed to follow (Tyler et al., 2007). DS, in contrast, is akin to stigmatization and precludes the offender’s membership in the community, promoting involvement in criminal subcultures (Braithwaite, 1989). These forms of shaming are distinct concepts that can cooccur within a RJ conference (Ahmed, Harris, Braithwaite, & Braithwaite, 2001), although the goal of RJ programs is to foster RS while discouraging DS. RS has been identified as an integral part of RJ practices (Van Ness & Strong, 1997), while DS mostly dominates traditional court processing (Sherman, 1993). We argue, however, that it is premature to assume that most or all offenders perceive the RJ process as being highly reintegrative and less disintegrative. Regardless of how RJ programs are implemented, the type and degree of shaming that is experienced may largely depend on the personality traits of the offender. Using data from the Reintegrative Shaming Experiments (RISE), we concentrate on the RJ conference in order to test the commonly held assumption that RJ programs are reintegrative by specifying how the offender personality traits of negative emotionality and low constraint affect the underlying social psychological dimensions of RJ: the perceived experience of procedural justice (PJ) and shaming (Tyler et al., 2007). PJ refers to the fairness of methods used in the decision-making process (Tyler, 1988) and is presumed to influence the level of reintegrative and DS experienced (Daly & Hayes, 2001). The processes we describe and test also should be relevant to all RJ programs as they entail similar practices (Latimer et al., 2005) that hold offenders liable for their acts by incorporating the community and varying forms of supervision (Bazemore, 2005). We expect the personality traits of negative emotionality and low constraint to facilitate perceptions of injustice and the experience of DS by individuals, because these characteristics are associated with increased irritability and the tendency to view situations in a hostile manner. Specifically, individuals high in negative emotionality are more likely to perceive events as stressful and respond aggressively, while individuals who are low in constraint tend to reject social norms, seek thrills, perceive situations as aversive, and, similar to individuals with low self-control (Agnew, Brezina, Wright, & Cullen, 2002) may differentially interpret others’ actions by perceiving unjust treatment where others may not (Piquero, Gomez-Smith, & Langton, 2004). Further, we propose TRAITS AND RESTORATIVE JUSTICE 853 that perceptions of PJ mediate the relationship between personality and shaming, such that negative emotionality and low constraint lessen perceptions of PJ, which in turn reduces the amount of RS and increases the amount of DS experienced. Understanding how personality affects the pathway outlined above advances our understanding of variation in the experience of shaming and highlights the importance that perceptions may play in RJ. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. First, we outline the central aims of RJ and detail the relationships between PJ and shaming. Second, we highlight how personality traits may influence offenders’ perceptions of the RJ conference. Using a sample of 498 conference participants from RISE, we illustrate how personality traits influence the experience of shaming through offenders’ evaluations of PJ. Finally, we consider the implications of how perceptions of the RJ conference may influence conformity with the law....