Transcript Hidden Harm Families, drugs and alcohol

FDAP Annual Conference 2010
Building Bridges: Promoting
Attachment through Restorative
Justice
Michael Shiner
London School of Economics
Introduction
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Why is attachment important
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Attachment and drug use
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Restorative justice and reintegration
Attachment theory
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John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth
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Humans are relationship seeking
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The secure base
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Mental maps
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Attachment in adulthood
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Correlates and consequences
Attachment and crime
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Travis Hirschi (1969) Causes of
Delinquency
The Independent Committee on
Youth Crime and Antisocial Behaviour
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D.J. Smith (2010) A New Response to
Youth Crime
John H. Laub and Robert J. Sampson
(2003) Shared Beginnings, Divergent
Lives: Delinquent Boys to Age 70
Attachment and drug use
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Dean Whittington (2007) Beaten into
Violence: Anger, Masculinities,
Alcohol, Narcotics
Philip J. Flores (2004) Addiction as an
Attachment Disorder
Patricia A. Trehan (2007) A Woman’s
Place? Identifying the Needs of
Female Drug Users and Responses in
Drug Treatment Policy and Practice
Richard Pryor
I fell in love with the pipe. It controlled
everything I did. It would say: ‘Don't answer
the phone Rich - we got smokin' to do’.
Working with attachment
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Dealing with trauma and promoting
capacity for attachment
Therapy, therapeutic alliance, group
therapy (fellowship)
Criminal justice
What is RJ?
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Crime is a violation of one person by
another (interpersonal conflict)
When one person is violated by another the
focus is on problem-solving, on establishing
liabilities and obligations
Through dialogue and negotiation
Restitution is a means of restoring both
parties, reconciliation is the goal
Justice defined as righting relationships
What does restorative justice have
to do with attachment?
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Relational
Works through, and seeks to repair,
attachments
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Reintegrative shaming
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Communitarian
RJ and drug use
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Disconnect
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Effectiveness and victimless crimes
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Braithwaite (2001: p. 227) - A new
criminal law of substance abuse
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Laments way restorative justice is prone to ‘sweeping
substance abuse under the carpet’.
From punishment to injustice
Braithwaite (2001: p. 229, 233:
So, restorative justice sidesteps questions of
whether it is right or wrong to punish substance
abuse with the following move. If substance abuse is
part of the story of injustice, part of what is
important to understand to come to terms with the
injustice, then both the substance abuse and the
injustice it causes are likely to be among the things
participants will wish to see healed in the restorative
process.
…one can be a liberal opponent of criminalizing
victimless crime while supporting the criminalization
of effects or forms of substance abuse that do
endanger others. We can be opposed to prohibition
and support drunk driving laws.
RJ, motivation and recovery
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Motivation gap (readiness to change)
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Love and empathy = motivation
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Key to success of RJ
The hope is that the process of confronting hurts
and acknowledging shame to loved ones they care
about will motivate a commitment to rehabilitation
in a way that meetings with more unfamiliar victims
would not (Braithwaite, 2001: p. 228).
Recovery and making amends
Twelve steps:
Members made a list of all persons we had
harmed and became willing to make amends to
them all (step eight)
Members made direct amends to such people
wherever possible, except where to do so would
injure them or others (step nine)
A restorative drug strategy
The key institutional questions are
therefore not about whether to punish
but about how to trigger and support
problem-solving dialogue where the
people who count in this particular life
have a voice
Braithwaite, 2001: p. 242
Points of intervention
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Criminal justice settings
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Schools and youth provision
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Drugs agencies
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Prisoner release
Reading
Braithwaite, J. (1989) Crime, shame
and reintegration, Cambridge
University Press
Braithwaite, J. (2001) ‘Restorative
justice and a new criminal law of
substance abuse’, Youth and Society,
33 (2): 227-248
Roche, D. (2003) Accountability in
Restorative Justice, Clarendon