Courtrooms, prisons and probation offices may not be most people's cup of tea, yet for eight Penn students currently researching an alternative form of justice in England, it is a summertime dream come true.
As part of a research project co-directed by Fels Center of Government head Lawrence Sherman, the students -- both undergraduate and graduate -- are spending their semester break getting up close and personal with a form of sentencing that is gaining traction in such places as Indianapolis and Canberra, Australia.
With a focus on shaming the offense, rather than the offender, and giving the offender the opportunity to repair the harm that has been done, restorative justice replaces a court appearance with a several-hour long conference between the offender, the victim and supporters of each. A specially-trained mediator leads the sessions, which can only be held once the offender has acknowledged guilt.
"It's a big departure from the idea that the state has to come in and gouge out an eye for an eye," Sherman, a criminologist, said. "This is basically coming in and restoring an eye for an eye, to the extent that that is possible."
The outcome may replace prison time with such substitute punishments as financial compensation to the victim and work done for the victim or community, according to the Center for Restorative Justice at the Australian National University.
However, as in the case of one convicted murderer that the study has worked with, the real reason that offenders would be interested in restorative justice is atonement.
"He knows that what he did, while drunk, was wrong, and he wants to be able to repay the moral debt and somehow hold his head up high again," Sherman said of the prisoner.
The effectiveness of using such a treatment -- which may reduce repeat offenses -- is what the $3.5 million study funded by the British government hopes to prove. The principal question is whether to mainstream restorative justice, which the British have already widely deployed in the juvenile courts.
To lay the groundwork for this randomized controlled study that will fully begin in September, some of the students are investigating the operation of the British judicial system, as well as searching for particular cases that will be eligible for this study: those involving murder, rape or domestic violence will not be considered.
"[The students] are sort of out there as advance intelligence on the current functioning of the system so we can go in and insert the restorative justice process with a great deal of precision," Sherman said.
To College senior Erin Miller, this means spending her days stationed in a lower-level court in Newcastle, in northeast England.
"We're taking qualitative data on how everything works... and also some quantitative data on how many of each type of crime comes through," said Miller, who called her work "the real nitty gritty."
She said that for the first few weeks of the research, which began in mid-June, the details of the experiment were still being ironed out between the British courts and Sherman. During that time, while the students still attended court, they could not discuss why they were there.
"They were just very confused -- there were these American students sitting in the court for no apparent reason," Miller said of the judges and lawyers, as the students could not even identify themselves with the University. "It looked very suspicious."
However, what fears the legal community might have had were unfounded, as they have since become more than interested in further applications of restorative justice.
"Everybody seems to be pretty open minded and sort of ready for change," Miller said.
In London, College sophomore Susan Francia said that her experience in the British courts made her realize how different they are from those in America.
"They make it more of a point that everyone in the courtroom understand what's going on," Francia said, adding that another custom is to bow upon entering a British courtroom. "In the American courtroom, there's a lot of technical terms and abbreviations that they just throw around, ones that the public or the defendant might not know."
In Oxford, two of the graduate students are examining the post-sentencing effects of the treatment. One student is working in a prison to look at the impact of conferences on the prisoners, and another is based in a probation office to help to set up the evaluation process for community-based punishments.
When the students, who are receiving only room and board for their efforts, arrived in England, they spent a week being trained in the concepts of restorative justice at Oxford University, which included many role-playing activities.
But their journey truly began after taking Sociology 233, a criminology class taught by Sherman that touched upon restorative justice. Since being presented with the opportunity to work in England, the Penn researchers have become devotees of their subject.
"A lot of times the victims don't get any closure," Francia said of traditional sentencing methods. "If I'm attacked by someone, if they hit me, I would probably be more scared if I didn't find out why they did it."
The students' English adventure also includes getting used to what some would consider a separate language, as well as a different culture.
"My big thing here is that everything closes very early, and it drives me crazy," said Miller. "If you're hungry on a Sunday, you're in big trouble."
By the time this first phase of the research ends on August 19 and the students make their way back to Philadelphia, they will have made significant strides on their paths to becoming lawyers, criminologists and writing their doctoral thesis on victims' recovery from crime.
"Knowing the quality of research that's going to be conducted here -- so well-funded over so many different areas -- it's just a really extraordinary experience for a student to be involved in," Nursing graduate student Caroline Meyer said. "What if we wind up proving everything that we think? The implications are really far sweeping."
