Author bio: William Wood is Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University. He teaches and researches in areas of restorative justice, youth justice, corrections, and crime and media. He holds a PhD (Sociology) from Boston College, and an MDiv from Union Theological Seminary.
This blog is an abbreviated version of an article recently published in the Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma. In the article, I explore the use of trauma-informed restorative approaches to offending by young people. I am a firm believer that trauma is at the core of much serious youth offending, and indeed many of the harmful and self-harming behaviours of young people. This has only become more supported by research over the last two decades that has found high rates of trauma and post-traumatic distress in youth offenders, particularly those in custodial institutions.
While trauma-informed approaches have come some way within educational settings, including the work of my colleagues at RPI, within youth justice settings it remans far less developed. Youth justice settings are also far more constraining for the type of work necessary to identify, let alone address and mitigate trauma and post-traumatic distress in the lives of youth offenders. Thus, while I am in full agreement with many advocates that call for the use of trauma-informed approaches in restorative approaches to youth justice, I am less optimistic this can be readily achieved without larger fundamental changes.
In this paper, I suggest several reasons why trauma and post-traumatic distress may present significant challenges to the use of RJ in youth justice contexts. I also give focus to questions of best-practice, particularly where there is no set standard of what such practice looks like at the intersection of trauma-informed and restorative responses to youth offending.
Restorative Justice, Communication, and Trauma in Young People
The first issue I raise is the problem of language and communication. RJ meetings are complex language environments. Young people are asked to give an accounting of their behaviours, and share their story of what happened and why. They are also expected to demonstrate understanding of harms they have caused, offer an apology for these harms when appropriate, and suggest ways they can make amends to victims and in some cases the community.
Within these expectations Snow (2013, p. 19) notes RJ meetings are “effectively ‘second language’ environments” for young people with communication difficulties. This is a particularly a problem because many youth offenders demonstrate substantial language delays or impediments.
We also know that some young people struggle with oral and non-verbal communication in RJ meetings, often to the point of adversely impacting RJ processes and outcomes. Young people are sometimes not able to provide basic accounts of their actions or other information related to their offense. The also sometimes do not understand what is being asked of them by victims, other participants, or the facilitator.
While language difficulties have historically been attributed to impeded development and social disadvantage in young people, more recent research has also linked these to abuse, neglect, and trauma in childhood and adolescence. Young people with trauma histories may also show decreased attenuation to and competency with non-verbal communication such as gestures, cues, and facial expressions, particularly in cases of childhood neglect. They may also be easily distracted and prone to fixating on particular words or perceived negative emotions from others, especially anger.
Restorative meetings for young people with trauma histories may thus pose several challenges related to language competency. Young people may struggle to give a sufficient recounting of events, including adequate demonstration of accountability. They may withdraw, avert eye-contact with others, and answer questions with short replies or noncommittal gestures. They may struggle to track the narratives of victims or focus only on specific parts of the victim’s story and description of harms caused to them. As Snow and Sanger (2011, p. 311) note, “young offenders who have undetected language impairments run the risk of appearing lazy, rude, or unmotivated, and this may be damaging in a Restorative Justice conference, for both the victim and the offender.”
Restorative Justice, Trauma, and Emotion in Young People
By design, RJ meetings are often emotionally difficult and charged settings. Participants are encouraged to express their emotions, and victims in particular are encouraged to voice the emotional impacts of harms caused to them. Anger, fear, guilt, confusion, and shame are all common emotions in RJ meetings, and the use of facilitated dialogue is designed to transform these negative emotions into positive ones to the extent possible.
Offender Trauma, Shame, and Conflict
One primary emotion RJ meetings are designed to elicit in offenders is shame. Positive shaming approaches, including Braithwaite’s theory of reintegrative shaming, have been integrated into many forms of RJ meetings. Comparison studies that have measured reintegration through reoffending have found RJ works at least as well or slightly better than conventional court practices. Qualitative research, on the other hand, has found cases where young people do not experience shaming as less stigmatising, may experience shame positively but do not think it will impact their future offending, or feel guilt or embarrassment and not shame as primary emotions.
Some of these differences are explainable by quality of program delivery or variations within RJ meetings. However, trauma research suggests further reasons why some young people may not experience shaming as positive in RJ meetings. Expressions of anger from victims and supporters are not uncommon and even encouraged through respectful dialogue. Yet, rather than being habituated to anger, aggression, and emotional conflict, young people with post-traumatic distress may be more attuned and sensitized to these emotions and situations. They may also miss the “positive” messages or cues communicated in RJ meetings, because hypersensitivity tends to be specific to threat cues such as anger but not for other emotions such as happiness or sadness. Young people with trauma histories also frequently experience low self-esteem, feelings of worthlessness, and self-blame for their victimization. Thus, in RJ meetings young people with post-traumatic distress may not be receptive to or able to internalise “redeeming” or positive affirmations of self-worth. Rather, they may focus on perceived negative messages or cues in the RJ meeting that reinforce poor self-image and existing shame rooted in their own victimisation or trauma.
Offender Trauma and Empathy
A second emotion RJ meetings are designed to elicit is empathy. Victims in RJ meetings often want to see the offender understands harms they have caused and are willing to try to make these right. When offenders are empathetic towards victims in RJ meetings, they are demonstrating a type of “active” accountability by validating the emotional experiences of the victim and showing they can understand the victim’s experiences from their own perspective.
Decreased empathy and callousness are well-known characteristics of offenders, particularly serious and violent offenders. Often referred to as callous-unemotional (CU) traits, these have historically been attributed to genetic or hormonal factors. Within the last two decades, however, research has increasingly found these may be linked to socialisation and environment. Empathetic capacity also tends to increase in transition to adulthood, such that low capacity is not necessarily a fixed trait, but for most young people a more malleable one.
The relative malleability of young people is one reason advocates argue RJ meetings present an opportunity for young people to learn how to express and demonstrate empathy. Research demonstrates many cases where young people effectively display empathy and remorse to victims in RJ meetings. However, research also shows some young people do not demonstrate clear empathetic or meaningful gestures of remorse to victims, including lack of and/or insincere apologies. As Bolitho (2012) has noted, lack of demonstrable remorse or poor affect do not necessarily denote lack of empathy. Some young people may simply be scared, not know what to say, or feel so ashamed they may say nothing.
However, a growing amount of research also recognises CU traits may emerge as a response to trauma, particularly in cases of “betrayal trauma.” Kerig et al. (2009, p. 1215) note, in response to maltreatment, young people may use “survival coping” where they “outwardly express defiance and callousness toward others while masking inner hopelessness, shame, and despair.” Such coping is often used to retain or gain emotional control over potentially distressing situations. This can be exacerbated by hypervigilance to a range of perceived threats or dangers in the young person’s environment, such that young people with post-traumatic distress may perceive situations and spaces as threatening that others do not, and respond through the use of survival coping mechanisms that may appear as unempathetic or callous behaviours to others.
Restorative Justice, Trauma, and Perceptions of Fairness and Respect in Young People
Offender empathy and shame play important roles in RJ processes and outcomes because they are core components of “active” accountability to victims and potential reintegration for young people. An ideal RJ meeting is thus one where a young person demonstrates accountability and remorse for their actions, victims are able to explain harms caused to them and receive information from the offender, participants gain a better understanding of one another, and there is consensus agreement on how the young person will make amends for harms.
Most RJ meetings achieve some but not all of these goals. Yet even when all these goals are not met, participants still often report higher satisfaction with RJ than conventional court practices. One reason for this is because RJ meetings afford participants opportunity to have their story heard by other stakeholders and justice system representatives, be listened to respectfully by participants and the facilitator, and play a decision-making role in the outcome of the meeting. These elements of RJ meetings are referred to as procedural justice, and research has long recognised that RJ meetings tend to be higher in levels of perceived respect, being listened to, and being treated fairly compared to conventional court processes.
Nevertheless, a smaller number of young people perceive RJ meetings to be unfair or lacking legitimacy. One reason for this is experiences of negative shaming, discussed above. Also, in some cases young people are or feel coerced into participating, which may also undermine the procedural justice elements of RJ meetings.
Research on trauma provides another reason why some young people may not perceive RJ meetings as fair or legitimate. “After facing an ongoing trauma, children sometimes do not display ‘overt diagnosable disorders,’ yet they ‘profoundly distrust people, expect betrayal, and lose faith that life holds any justice or meaning (Williams & Sommer, 2002, p. 227).” Often referred to as “negative emotionality,” such distrust is not uncommon in young people that have experienced significant victimisation or other harms, and is also linked to increased rates of offending, substance abuse, and risky behaviours in people with PTSD. While there is not a lot of research on the impact of negative emotionality in RJ meetings, research on the RISE studies in Australia found such emotionality to be a “key personality trait that affects how procedurally just offenders find these conferences” (Scheuerman & Matthews, 2014, p. 870).
As such, negative emotionality presents potential problems for RJ meetings. It may impact the ability of young people to engage with or cue into interactional demonstrations of respect and fairness seen by others as positive and prosocial. Young people may also bring a sense of inherent injustice and distrust of others into the RJ meeting, sometimes perceived as what is referred to as “defiance” in RJ and criminological literatures. As Walgrave notes (2011, p. 128) defiance is inhibitive to RJ processes and may result in “greater dismay and additional indignation in the victim and others, provoking escalation of the conflict, stigmatization, and secondary victimization.”
Behavioural Change and Trauma in Young People
Historically, RJ theory and practices have tended to view antisocial behaviour as a wilful choice or poor decision that can be remedied though targeted interventions, social support, and encouragement to take responsibility and make amends for harms caused to others. This does work for many young people, and RJ interventions perform no worse and often better than conventional court sanctions in reducing reoffending. However, research on young people with trauma histories suggests there may be limits to short-term behavioural changes following participation in RJ.
Effective treatment approaches for post-traumatic distress focus first and foremost on the well-being of the young person. This begins with addressing their immediate safety and acute social needs, then their immediate relationships, and then addressing their trauma and ongoing distress. However, this is difficult for young people who may not be able to find safe and secure places, extract themselves from harmful and traumatising relationships, and obtain sufficient social and therapeutic support – all of which are more pronounced in the lives of many young offenders.
Moreover, young people who live in communities with high rates of violence demonstrate increased rates of trauma and post-traumatic distress, as do social and cultural groups with collective and often intergenerational histories of oppression and social marginalisation. In these contexts, Ginwright (2018, p. 2) notes “current formulations of trauma informed care presume that the trauma is an individual experience, rather than a collective one.” This proposes challenges for RJ approaches that tend to individualise offending behaviours and “responsibilise” young people without sufficient attention to and support for existing family, health and mental health, educational, and other social issues in their lives.
In such cases behavioural changes in young people may be difficult without effective redress of the trauma events and corresponding behavioural, cognitive, and emotional responses that function to mitigate or alleviate post-traumatic distress. Several evidence-based approaches currently exist (see Morina et al., 2016). However, these take time and often require significant support, particularly in cases of CPTSD. Indeed, while there is an abundance of research that correlates trauma (especially CPTSD) with antisocial and self-harming behaviours, there is a paucity of evidence on the ability of trauma treatment to reduce reoffending in the short term.
Towards a Trauma-Informed Restorative Justice for Youth Offenders?
Emerging literature has generally taken the position RJ can function as a trauma-informed practice for offenders. Given the flexibility and participant-driven justice outcomes inherent to RJ processes, it is tempting to see RJ meetings as a space where the impacts of trauma and needs of young people can be more readily addressed, especially when contrasted against conventional youth court procedures.
In the context of youth justice, however, there are several issues. Primarily, trauma in young people is often undiagnosed. Children and adolescents frequently do not disclose traumatic events out of shame or fear, especially in cases involving abuse or neglect from parents and caregivers. Young people may also be normalised to such events as to not see them as remarkable. Post-traumatic stress responses are also sometimes mischaracterized as wilful or wanton offending, or misdiagnosed as conduct disorder or oppositional defiance disorder.
It is thus presumptive to think the needs of young people with trauma can be readily addressed in RJ meetings when these needs may not even be clear. Yet it is not the role of facilitators, victims, and other parties present in RJ meetings to make assessments of such needs, nor are they likely to have the training, experience, or capacity to do so. There is also the problem that raising or addressing trauma in an RJ meeting may unwittingly put the young person at further risk, especially where parents or caregivers who often attend such meetings as “supporters” may also be a primary cause of trauma in cases of abuse or neglect.
Indeed, the question of whether a young person’s trauma history should be provided to victims and others in the room is a difficult one. Who gets to decide whether this information is shared or not? Should young people be expected to talk about their trauma or its causes with people they do not know? Trauma is often rooted in deeply personal and shameful events in young people’s lives. Will they feel coerced to share this information within a “trauma-informed” setting as part of making things right to victims?
Putting offender trauma on the table in an RJ meeting also poses risks of stigmatising or pathologising the young person for their “trauma deficits.” Discussing trauma in the context of wrongdoing in an RJ meeting does not mean the causes and impacts of such trauma can easily be addressed. As Ginwright (2018, p. 2) notes, “trauma informed care requires that we treat trauma in people but provides very little insight into how we might address the root causes of trauma in neighborhoods, families, and schools.”
Using RJ meetings as a trauma-informed practice for offenders also assumes victims and other parties are willing or able to achieve a response to help meet the needs of the young person. This ignores a primary function of RJ as meeting victim needs and interests, and not simply turning victims into therapeutic agents for young people. Research on RJ already provides examples where undo focus is given to the rehabilitative needs of the offender, at the expense of victims. Focussing on an offender’s trauma may provide more flexibility and nuance compared to conventional court sanctions, but it conversely risks turning the meeting into a therapy session focused largely on the young person.
Implications for Policy, Programs, and Practice
While there are best practice guidelines for trauma-informed care, and also for restorative justice meetings, significant gaps in theory and practice exist between the two. It should not be assumed these can be easily blended into a “trauma-informed” approach to RJ without attention to issues raised above (and undoubtedly other issues not anticipated). There are, however, several policy, program, and practice implications that follow from the growing recognition of the prevalence and role of trauma and post-traumatic distress in young people who offend and may participate in RJ.
Trauma-informed systems
There is large consensus trauma screening should be routine in youth justice systems. Such screening is a fundamental first step for development, provision, and coordination of services for young people with trauma histories. Trauma-screening and provision of appropriate services should be a system-level approach to the wellbeing of young people, not the responsibility of RJ programs. Ideally this takes the form of increased systems integration and coordination between child, family, social, and youth justice services – with information shared and available to RJ programs to inform screening and suitability criteria for youth involvement in RJ meetings.
Trauma screening and Restorative Justice
Unfortunately, such screening and integration does not currently exist in most jurisdictions. Rather, RJ programs are often siloed within youth justice systems, or operate as community-based or non-profit service providers. For these reasons, we (Suzuki & Wood, 2017, p. 11) have argued the need for RJ programs to include screening not only for common criteria such as acknowledgement of guilt or seriousness of offence, but also to assess “whether youth offenders are cognitively and developmentally mature enough in terms of comprehensibility, emotionality and communication capacity.” At the program level, such screening is more practical and feasible than comprehensive trauma or other needs and risk-based screening tools, particularly where most RJ programs already utilise some form of screening and/or pre-meeting preparation.
Following this, trauma-informed approaches for RJ programs and facilitators should include assessment of whether an RJ meeting may pose further harms to victims and young people with trauma histories. In some cases, this may result in decisions to provide treatment and social support prior to RJ, or to screen the young person out of RJ until and if they are able to demonstrate sufficient cognitive and emotional capacities. Alternatively, in some cases the use of shuttle-mediation may be more appropriate, particularly in cases where young people wish to participate in RJ but have significant anxiety or other effects of post-traumatic distress likely to impede face-to-face RJ processes.
Such screening is also important because young people with trauma histories may not be impeded in their ability to understand, communicate, and demonstrate accountability and remorse for harms they have caused. Trauma research demonstrates numerous possible deleterious effects discussed above, but also shows marked variability of effects in young people who experience potentially trauma-inducing events. Stated otherwise, trauma histories should not be prohibitive to participation in RJ, but evidence of trauma and post-traumatic distress in young people may be.
Practice Implications
There are several practice implications for RJ meetings that may proceed where there is evidence or indication of trauma or post-traumatic distress in young people. I mention these cautiously, as there is currently no clear “best practice” for trauma-informed approaches to using RJ in youth justice settings. I also note the need for quality empirical research in this area. This is especially important for racial, ethnic, and Indigenous young people that are woefully overrepresented in youth justice systems in most western countries. Restorative justice has often not taken into account different and distinct cultural needs of young people, and in some cases this has contributed to further harms and poor outcomes. It is also important for young women and non-binary young people that evidence higher rates of sexual victimisation and other forms of gendered violence and harms.
In all cases, extensive pre-meeting preparation is vital. There should be clear discussion with the young person as to what they wish to share in their story. If the young person does not wish to bring up past traumatic events or ongoing distress, this should be respected by the facilitator and supporters. Alternately, if the young person indicates they may bring up such issues as relevant to their story, there should be clear discussion that other participants (especially victims and victim-supporters) may be supportive, but may also challenge the young person for “using trauma” to justify or excuse the harms they have caused.
Restorative practitioners that work with vulnerable young people in settings such as education often use rehearsals as part of pre-meeting preparation. Rehearsals are used to walk the young person through what the meeting will look like, what will be expected of them, and what challenges or distressing situations may arise (Burnett & Thorsborne, 2015). While some RJ programs use more extensive preparation in youth justice settings, many do not. Such preparation would be useful in cases of post-traumatic distress or acute anxiety, to allow staff to work with the young person on what they most want to communicate to victims and others, and to prepare short scripts prior to the meeting to help them alleviate anxiety about being put on the spot or not knowing what to say or how to act.
In terms of the RJ meeting itself, it may be useful to alter or amend the more traditional one-to-two-hour RJ meeting format. In RJ meetings used for domestic and family violence it is increasingly common for facilitators to employ designated breaks throughout the meeting to check in and debrief with participants, especially victims. Using a more punctuated structure in cases of young people with trauma histories can similarly allow for check in with both victims and young people, address issues that may be arising, and make changes as necessary to ensure the continued wellbeing of all participants. The use of dual facilitators is also becoming more common in cases of serious violence, especially gendered violence. There are benefits to using two facilitators, including having facilitators trained in offender and victim-based needs that can work more directly with each party prior to the RJ meeting, and enhanced tracking of the well-being of participants throughout the meeting.
These suggestions for program and practice implications are drawn from a “do no further harm” principle. Yet decisions to amend, delay, forego, or utilise RJ approaches such as shuttle mediation may not work as well for victims in some cases. However, a trauma-informed approach to RJ must first account for and attend to the reality that some youth offenders are also victims of violence, abuse, neglect and other harms that result in trauma and post-traumatic distress. Ample evidence shows RJ works well when young people can cognitively and emotionally understand the effects of their actions on others, and actively participate in acknowledging and repairing these harms. Before RJ can be a “trauma-informed” practice, however, it must take stock of the abundance of clinical and epidemiological literature that suggests some young people with trauma histories may not be good candidates for RJ meetings. Others may have “victim needs” of their own that must be first recognised and addressed in order for better “restorative” outcomes to be achieved for all participants.
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