How can a female rape victim “heal” or feel “empowered” by meeting face-to-face with their abuser? Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
“For far too long, this city’s answer to every societal problem was to throw people in jail.” In an impassioned speech in 2019, the Mayor of New York City announced comprehensive reforms to the criminal justice system (CJS). “We lost generations to mass incarceration”, continued Bill de Blasio, “mostly young men of colour”.
An investment of $391 million would address root causes of incarceration by funding mental health services, housing and rehabilitation, along with a programme named “Community Based Violence Reduction”. So far, so good. But the reforms would also redefine how victims and offenders should be dealt with, with increased funding to “restorative justice” in “serious felony level cases that would otherwise result in detention and incarceration”.
Restorative justice (RJ) is described as an alternative to prison; it is a non-punitive response to criminal behaviour. The idea is to bring together the person who inflicted the harm (the “responsible person”, in RJ terminology) and the victim, often in the presence of community representatives. The perpetrator is supposed to accept responsibility for the harm inflicted and reach an agreement with the victim about how to make amends.
De Blasio’s reforms were welcomed by prison reform campaigners, as well as pretty much every liberal in the State. Alissa Ackerman, a sex crimes policy researcher at California State University and one of the few facilitators of restorative justice sessions for rape victims, has said that RJ, “allows survivors to have their pain heard and stories acknowledged, and is an opportunity for the person who caused the harm to be accountable for their actions”.
I spoke to one proponent of RJ, who asked not to be named “in case I am seen as colluding with carceral white women”. White himself, he is a newly trained lawyer in Washington DC, specialising in “replacing the racist system with a true healing process for both parties”. “Anti-rape feminists are probably responsible for more black men being incarcerated than anyone else in modern-day America”, he says. “Locking up African Americans is a product of slavery.” Ben went on to suggest “community resolution” and “non-violent strategies” to address sexual assault.
But for feminist activists campaigning against male violence, who have seen the consequences of the reforms up-close over the last three years, RJ constitutes the very opposite of justice.
Sarah, whose name I’ve changed, runs a support service for victims of male violence in NYC and is “appalled” that RJ is becoming a substitute for criminal justice sanctions. “What we are seeing is what we have seen forever”, she tells me, “which is the under-policing and under-protection for women, including women of colour. But some BLM activists are claiming that feminists calling for CJS sanctions for rape and domestic abuse is flat-out racist, because black men are overrepresented in the prison population.” As a result, she told me that “black and brown women, indigenous women … are the ones who are bearing the consequences of us not holding men accountable for their violence. They are the ones who are being murdered and raped and their abusers are walking free.”
According to the ideals of RJ, after a crime is committed the offender and the victim should meet face-to-face. The victim is not to blame or judge the perpetrator, but rather describe the impact of the offence, in order to “heal” and become “empowered”. RJ sees victim and perpetrator as equal, both in need of support and understanding. Supposedly modelled on the conflict resolution practices of certain indigenous cultures, there is much talk of circles. Healing circles are held for the perpetrator, before a sentencing circle takes place; later, there are follow up circles. The outcomes may include an apology or financial compensation. Some participants, including the victim, sign a confidentiality agreement.
RJ is considered a suitable remedy for domestic violence, childhood sexual abuse and sex trafficking, among other violent crimes predominantly committed by men. Most of these crimes are committed against women by men known to them: male family members, partners and colleagues. “The perpetrators have worked very hard, often for years, to condition the person they are abusing to not disclose, to minimise, to protect his emotions: to protect his character publicly”, says Sarah. “They’ve been using manipulative tactics to inspire self-doubt, blame and fear, in the person they are abusing.”
And victims of this kind of abuse may feel coerced by RJ practices, which are conducted, as Sarah said, “without any understanding of the dynamics of power and control, the impact of a trauma-coerced bond, and also the amount of time and commitment that it actually takes to elicit genuine behaviour change in abusers”.
I meet with Diane, whose name I’ve changed, at a café in Harlem, NYC. She was introduced to me by her rape counsellor. Diane was seriously sexually assaulted by a senior member of her church, having been targeted and sexually harassed by him for months. “I decided to report him to the police, despite the fact that my community is rarely well served by the cops.” Diane and the perpetrator are African American. “There are too many vulnerable young people in the church, and I didn’t see why he should poison the congregation.”
The perpetrator, considered to be a man of “good character”, with no criminal convictions, admitted to the lesser charge of inappropriate sexual touching, denied committing serious sexual assault, and agreed to partake in RJ.
“I was contacted by the local service that runs these things,” says Diane. “They told me it was important that we reach an agreement and rebuild trust. I was told nothing could be gained from taking him on a route where he could end up in jail. It felt like I had no choice.”
But having read up on RJ, Diane decided not to participate in it. “I was judged and blamed by the service”, says Diane, “as though I should have accepted the scraps from the table and have him say ‘sorry’ or whatever. He got away with what he did to me, and a man like that pretending to regret what he did would just be lies.”
One report, published in 2016, is often used to justify replacing criminal sanctions with RJ. It is entitled “Restorative Practices in cases of Intimate Partner Violence, Sexual Assault and Dating Violence: A Roundtable Discussion”. While it claims that RJ focuses on victims of violence and their needs, the report also ironically reveals who is actually centred in the process. One attendee is quoted as saying about perpetrators of male violence: “Do we actually blame them as a perpetrator when they were violated at a young age?”
To be taken out of the criminal justice system and put in a situation where everybody is required to empathise with him — including his victim, who is forbidden from blaming or shaming him — is a violent man’s dream come true.
Like most on the Left, I believe that only the most dangerous criminals should be locked up. I have criticised the fact that the most vulnerable and disenfranchised are most likely to be in jail. But the campaign to end male violence is my life’s work. Victims have to come first. One service provider working with sexual assault victims describes reports from young survivors in California that they are “sick of going to rape circles”. She has also heard from women and girls of colour being pressured to engage in RJ instead of making police reports.
While RJ is not yet widely practiced throughout the US, it is growing in popularity in several states — and threatens to become federal policy. In its 2022 budget, the Office on Violence against Women requested $25 million, “to support restorative justice responses to domestic/dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking, and research, evaluation, and technical assistance related to such responses”.
The media consistently reports that research shows RJ is very successful. One paper, by Mary P Koss, is often cited. Koss asked victims to complete a survey about their PTSD symptoms before and after they engaged in RJ, and concluded that victims who complete an RJ process exhibit a marked decrease in those symptoms. But PTSD symptoms almost inevitably decrease as time passes after the traumatic event. Asking the victims and perpetrators of serious crimes to “hug it out and move on”, as Sarah describes it, was simply not shown by the research to be effective.
I asked several experts on violence towards women if there is any reliable data about the efficacy of RJ and was met with a resounding “no”. When I spoke to Marcia, a veteran advocate for victims of male violence, she pointed out that in cases of domestic violence, putting the perpetrator and the victim in a room together is “outright dangerous”. Perpetrators of domestic abuse, and of sexual assault, are more likely than any other offenders to repeat their crimes — often against the same victim. But the well-publicised evaluations of RJ don’t include follow-ups that measure the recurrence of violence within domestic abuse scenarios.
Marcia asked for anonymity because “right now there is so much intolerance on the Left that even those of us who are part of the Left fear retaliation if we don’t conform.” She emphasised that rape victims want their rapists prosecuted, but with the Left advocating for RJ, victims “feel that there is no movement standing behind them. They feel utterly alone.”
The idea that serious, sexual and violent crimes should be dealt with by “community leaders”, outside the criminal justice system, is shockingly naïve at best. At worst, it is re-victimising women, and giving perpetrators a free pass. Liberal cities like New York are conducting an experiment with women’s safety and lives — and ignoring whatever they have to say about it.
Julie Bindel is an investigative journalist, author, and feminist campaigner. Her latest book is Feminism for Women: The Real Route to Liberation. She also writes on Substack.
bindelj 
“Supposedly modelled on the conflict resolution practices of certain indigenous cultures” – Oh dear. I expect those cultures weren’t the ones who came out on top in the long run.
I’m reminded of the case of the Moriori people of the Chatham Islands, who shared common ancestry with New Zealand Māori. The Moriori practiced a pacifist culture known as “nunuku” (named after a 16th century leader, Nunuku-whenua), which might be seen as an extreme version of Attic Greek Xenia, or hospitality. All very commendable, but when the considerably more warlike Māori arrived from the mainland, equipped with newly-acquired muskets, any Moriori who weren’t slaughtered were carted off and enslaved.
Singing cum-by-yah didn’t help much then and it still doesn’t. If self identified “progressives” don’t have the stomach to admit that given actions deserve given consequences, it is past time for them to cede the room to the grown-ups.
It’s telling that “forgive and forget”, in such circles, means forgive the perp and forget the victim. Now that really is unforgivable.
Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat (literally: Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first deprives of reason) seems to apply to the left wing ideology of the West.
I was a lefty my entire life, but i have to agree with you today.
Welcome to the fold. It’s been a long struggle. Most thinking people come around, eventually.
Likewise. I found, reading Orwell’s essays, a ring of familiarity in his described experiences. The tension between observed reality and the cherished utopian fictions grew daily. By the time I was finding myself trying to maintain an honest relationship with reality whilst attempting to pay due homage to an increasingly unhinged Party line, the house of cards, inevitably, collapsed. Doublethink, indeed.
So welcome, the best of luck to you, and to us all!
For more on this idea:
http://markmcmillion.com/whom-the-gods-would-destroy-they-first-make-mad/
“Anti-rape feminists are probably responsible for more black men being incarcerated than anyone else in modern-day America” …when I see statements like this, from well-meaning, well-educated and supposedly intelligent people, I really feel close to despair. Where to begin? “Anti-rape feminists” – as opposed to those pro-rape feminists I guess!? And no acknowledgement that maybe, you know, the perpetrators (whatever their skin colour) are kind of responsible for their actions and should be accountable for them? If you break that link between actions and consequences, where do we end up? Nowhere good, I would suggest.
I doubt anyone is pretending that “lock ’em up and throw away the key” is the perfect answer, or would deny that people who have committed crimes also need help and be given every chance to turn their lives around (to the extent they are willing to accept such help). Nor that the cycle of abuse and deprivation that too many people are born into is not a tragedy that blights whole generations, and we need to do all we can to address that. But never at the expense of justice, never in a way that fails to protect the vulnerable and the victims.
All too often, fine-sounding but mis-used concepts like RJ are advocated by those (yes, very often white) who are acting out of guilt on the one hand, but also from a position where they are unlikely to bear the full consequences of the failures of such policies. It’s the poorer people, disproportionately people of colour and most likely to be both the victims and the perpetrators of violent and sexual crime, who will always suffer the most from any refusal of the criminal justice system to do its job properly.
“Supposedly modelled on the conflict resolution practices of certain indigenous cultures, there is much talk of circles. Healing circles are held for the perpetrator, before a sentencing circle takes place; later, there are follow up circles. The outcomes may include an apology or financial compensation.”
This honestly seems like some sort of barbaric tribal practice once stamped out by colonial officers in darkest Africa in the 19th century, yet subsequently revived by naive white people who want to allow wife burning and witchcraft because they think interfering with the ‘natives’ is somehow racist. These (white) liberals really do seem to despise women.
They’re very selective about which Indigenous people they choose to emulate. The Iriquois tribe, in which female leaders had a strong voice, used to kill rapists and batterers. I’m opposed to the death penalty, but I’d rather see rapists killed than released to terrorize women and children.
“The idea that serious, sexual and violent crimes should be dealt with by “community leaders”, outside the criminal justice system, is shockingly naïve at best.”
Not just the States, sounds like the institutional response to the grooming gangs ( overwhelmingly Muslims from SE Asia) in the NE of England. It speaks volumes, that Julie, “of the left” is talking to people “of the left” who feel constrained in telling the ‘truth, because of potential recrimination and ostracism by ‘allies’ and ‘co-religionists‘, from the ‘left’, They dare not express anything that might hint at prejudice, lest they discover that maybe, sometimes, when you see smoke, there might, actually be a fire, and that sometimes, just sometimes, not all prejudice is without foundation. But then Julie should be well aware of that, because she has no problem, or restraint, or so it seems, when it comes to being prejudice against ‘adult humans, with sperm’ (males). All I can say then is “Thank god for Anne Crier MP (Labour/left)” who actually had the ‘balls’ to stand up and say what she saw !
The poor modern identitarian left is very confused. People of this tendency admit that there are bad men (yes, bad men!) out there – mostly Vladimir Putin, and calls for a WW3 to stop them. But they can’t see that there are bad men closer to home who need to be stopped in their tracks and put behind bars.
But yes, restorative justice does have some role – but I would limit it to crimes against property.
These kind of ‘leftists’ are just as callously indifferent to the victims of Putin’s atrocities, demanding an end to military aid to force Zelensky to ‘negotiate a settlement’ which will obviously involve sacrificing millions of people to a murderous regime. All from a position of safety and comfort thousands of miles away, of course!
Didn’t indigenous cultures engage in “healing circles” or what have you because they did not have the wherewithal to build prisons and the alternative was blood feuding? I don’t think it was just the romanticized “indigenous cultures” didn’t Saxons, etc, pay weregeld for a killing? Honestly, trying to pretend that you’re implementing some kind of “wisdom” from pre-modern societies in which such practices are used because otherwise somebody is putting an axe through your skull is just bonkers. Also maybe that is the missing piece, you, Mr. Rapist, will be proper sorry and not ever do it again or I or my clan will stab you to death at a time and place of our choosing. Prison might be the option they’d prefer then.
Obviously someone should accuse them of cultural appropriation if it’s based on indigenous practice and watch them tie themselves in knots.
Nobody on the left, currently shrieking about gun control, will draw any causal link between the state’s withdrawal from its duty to protect its citizens, and the individual’s desire to have some means of self protection.
This is why, after being a progressive Democrat for my entire life, I am now voting for Republicans. The Dems did NOTHING to protect Roe v Wade, and it was the Dems who erased women from the abortion debate.
Solving the issue means that you can’t run (and raise money) on the issue. It’s like the story of the young man who just graduated from law school, and took over his father’s practice while he was away for a week. Upon returning, he proudly announced to his father that he had resolved a case that his father had been managing for 20 years. The father responded, “You fool! For twenty years I have been living from that case!”
This is an excellent article and when Julie Bindel investigates a subject she can uncover important and disturbing realities. The RJ programmes that Julie describes do seem like an inappropriate and ineffective way to deal with serious violent offences and a disaster waiting to happen. We now know what happened when the New Labour government secretly legalised the rape of underage girls twenty years ago: the rape gangs that social workers, police and the government knew about grew and spread (especially in South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester) and the number of victims rose from dozens to hundreds to thousands. Letting rapists in New York off through RJ will lead to an increase in rapes in New York. Victims and women who claim to be feminists should not co-operate with RJ programmes.
However, the advancement of RJ programmes intended to deal with rape cases in parts of the USA is not surprising. The influence of the BLM movement on this policy is depressing but not unexpected but then the BLM movement has always been a fraud and Martin Luther King did more for black people than the whole of the BLM movement ever will. The USA is also the home of the idea that allegations of sexual violence on university campuses should be dealt with by the university authorities rather than the police, an idea which doesn’t seem to have worked but which some students in the UK want to copy.
There are lots of people on the left and in the joke that is the fourth wave feminist movement who need a dressing down, starting with anyone who thinks that a racist is worse than a rapist.
The Iriquois punished rape by banishment (a death sentence) or torture/execution: https://borishabric.wordpress.com/2021/12/17/how-native-american-women-inspired-the-womens-rights-movement/
The purpose any sensible justice system is to reduce offending by the perpetrator and potential perpetrators. Of course, rapists and other perpetrators are often damaged individuals who may have suffered their own traumas but if the focus remains on reducing further offences rather than providing therapy for the perpetrator effective sanctions must be applied. If there are no effective sanctions the perpetrator and other potential perpetrators have no incentive to resist their baser instincts. Restorative justice is clearly unjust for the individual victim and society. Of course it saves a lot of money in incarceration costs so will be popular with bureaucrats and those who focus on the perpetrator.
Those who support restorative justice are often on the left but don’t spend much time worrying about how those who are racist, homophobic, transphobic, anti-immigration etc. etc should not be judged but should just talk through their trauma with the victims of their dislike.
Libs are enamored with their new idea. Real-life consequences are ignored.
I’m not a feminist, but I’m also not a woker. Bindle is correct on this topic.
Who is New York’s most famous rapist? Harvey Weinstein. How would Harvey Weinstein’s victims and the people who spoke out against the culture that enabled and protected Harvey Weinstein feel if the result of all the journalistic work and feminist campaigning to break the silence surrounding him was that a healing circle was held for Harvey Weinstein? When he was found guilty in a court of law and jailed people celebrated. Why are courts and jails right for rich fat white rapists who raped women working in the entertainment industry but wrong for other rapists who raped less famous women?
I imagine it’s mostly about race and power. White or wealthy, go to jail. If neither, the perpetrator is endowed with the privilege of victimhood, and regarded as devoid of agency, so blameless for his actions. RJ may be convenient for the perpetrators, but it also views them as as unformed beings, maybe as children, that cannot be wholly responsible.
“Like most on the Left, I believe that only the most dangerous criminals should be locked up. I have criticised the fact that the most vulnerable and disenfranchised are most likely to be in jail. But the campaign to end male violence is my life’s work.”.
So what you say, is that “not locking people up” is right in the abstract, but for this issue you know about, it’s a bad idea. Have you no thought that for other victims, of other crimes, not punishing the perpetrators of their crimes may also be highly inappropriate?
In reality, people who do bad things must be treated in a way that benefits society, not them. They have lost the right to be specially considered by hurting others. What must be most importance is the good of society. Whatever the ethnic makeup of the perpetrator.
Rapist and molesters don’t stop raping. That’s why they should at least be locked up for life. Pederasty and pedophilia are cyclical. The victims grow up to be the abusers. You have to remove them from society immediately.
We have heard repeated calls from feminists that young men to be re-educated regarding their attitudes toward women. The Office on Violence against Women has responded by requesting $25 million toward that end.
The re-education should be done in schools before offences take place, failing that – in prison!
Reminds me of buying off families of murder victims in Arab culture.
It would be nice if the Government could coordinate a program which intends to “restore” sex offenders to healthy and normal places in society. However as this article tangentially indicates, no government can’t do properly do this without abusing rights & protections for other vulnerable groups. Non-profit organizations, particularly those from religious groups, are the only ones to have shown competence operating these kinds of programs while ensuring respect & protection for victims.
Try telling that to victims of sexual abuse by priests which was covered up for years! Dealing with sex abuse adequately and allowing victims to seek justice does not infringe on the rights of any other groups. Victims come from all demographic groups, especially the poor and marginalised!
RJ originated in left-wing thinking and is an extension to the more general movement to reduce incarceration and replace it with other remedies for criminal behaviour. Another example of this approach to dealing with crime is the call by some to essentially abolish prison for women… the rationale being that women who commit crimes need help not jail. Overwhelmingly though, it’s black men who are incarcerated and need help. The approach may be flawed but it’s an attempt to deal with the bigger problem.
A lesser known side of this story that took 5 minutes to find for any one who is interested. The ‘white male’ lawyer be more right than he knows.
Perhaps a little uncomfortable for the dominant narrative and one Julie I think will not be exploring on Unherd on any where else any time soon.
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780203016091/child-abuse-gender-society-jackie-turton
“One of the most significant concerns regarding the long-term harm that may be inflicted by female sexual abusers was highlighted in some research projects concerning male sexual offenders. Groth (1979) found that sixty-six percent of the rapists in his study reported child victimisation by female perpetrators. Petrovich and Templar (1984) found that fifty-nine percent of rapists in their study had been sexually abused by a female. Briere and Smiljanich’s (1993) data from a self-report survey found,
‘among the sexually abused men who reported sexual aggression against women, 80% had been sexually abused during childhood by a female perpetrator. In other words, sexual activity during childhood with an older female strongly predicted later sexual aggression against adult women . . . childhood sexual victimisation by females is a particular risk factor for later assault directed at adult female victims. (sum-marised in Mendel 1995, 62)’
Cavanagh Johnson (1989) also noted in her literature review a number of studies that concur with Mendel’s observation and suggested that it was important to note ‘the high percentage of the most aggressive male sexual perpetrators who were molested by women’ (p. 572).
It is important to recognise that sexual offences committed by women should not just be viewed as ‘male-like’ behaviour (Renzetti 1999); these offences need to be considered in context, taking into account power differentials and the restrictions of gendered structures, alongside an analysis of the rationale of the offenders. Nevertheless, the sexual abuse of children by women is hardly an insignificant matter, and it can(not) be denied, excused, and minimised.”
It certainly seems ridiculous that the left thinks violent crimes can be dealt with through RJ, as is the potential with nonviolent crime.
The problem that loses this author a hearing is her complete focus on men as evil, violent and unredeemable and women as never playing a role in intimate partner violence or false accusations of date rape, sexual assault, etc.
For example, she gives only the church woman’s account of a “serious” sexual assault but dismisses the man’s admission of inappropriate sexual touching.
She has a 100% conviction rate.
The author is not focussing on men as evil, only sex offenders who are overwhelmingly male. Women can also dish out domestic abuse in relationships, but victims of any kind of abuse never play a role in it. The fault is always 100% with the perpetrators regardless of gender.