Katherine A section 1

Abstract

Restorative Justice Against Police Brutality [Name]  [University]   Restorative justice is a method used to repair the harm done to the victim and to rebuild the relationships in the community. The main focus is after the crime was committed and how we can use restorative justice to bring the victim another form of justice. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate what different methods or ideas can bring this justice. The main goal is to look at the different methods of restorative justice. This case surrounds Natalie Johnson age 15 and Taeko-Nesha Holland age 7 from calumet city, Illinois in 1998. Natalie was waiting for her niece Taeko-Nesha in front of her elementary school. Natalie carried a stick when she would go on walks for protection against dogs. The police dispatch received a call of some type of disturbance coming from a group of students that went to Johnson's middle school. Police officers Picicco and Hintz were sent to investigate. They saw Johnson with a stick in front of the school; as she was waiting, she was swinging the stick back and forth while singing. The officers approach Johnson and one of them asked her if she can understand English two times. They then proceed to push her against a fence and take the stick from her. They even went further, they both pushed her onto the police car which caused her to bust her lip. She explained to the officers that she was waiting for her niece and they decided to wait for her as well. Johnson was compliant and did not argue with the officers. They were not handcuffed but they were put into the police car and brought down to the station. Once at the police station, they made the girls empty their pockets and remove any personal items. They asked seven-year-old Taeok-Nahesa if she had a gun. A female police officer patted down the girls. They were placed in cells for more than 2 hours without food. All while this was happening, the girl's guardians had no idea where they were. They finally called the parents of Holland who were also Johnson's guardians at the time to let them know where they were.  There were two engines used to collect information about this case. The first and main starting point was nexius uni.com. This search engine helped me narrow down the results which brought me to this case specifically. I used keywords such as police brutality and minor. I used the filters by year for the case to at least be in the 2000s. Although nexiusuni.com described the cased in detail, I felt as there was more information out there. To obtain further information, I chose the database casemine.com. This went further into detail about the day the girls got taken down to the police station. This search engine was similar to nexiusuni.com, I used the filters again to find the same case. Both search engines gave sufficient information about the case to get a better understanding of what happened. For the rest of my research, I plan on using these engines to further gather more research. Retributive The retributive model of justice refers to the negative consequences being at the same level to the crime committed. This model can also be seen as an eye for an eye. Retributive justice and revenge have a lot of similarities. (Leiser 2001) Research has shown that when the crime is more serious , it is more likely to be punished harder rather than in a fair matter. (Konradt, Okimoto, Garbers, & Otte 2020). There are many types of retributive methods. One that was used a lot was capital punishment; this method has been around as far as the 18th century. This punishment is the harshest form of retributive justice. It is used in cases such as murder, rape or treason. There are no serious sources that prove this method works as deterrent. This method also opens the door to more discrimination. Usually black and people of color are given the death penalty as a punishment. This method is also irreversible; which leaves room for a mistake. If the case opens up again and proves the persons innocence, it would be too late to bring them back. Another form of retributive justice would be mandatory sentences. These mandatory sentences are decided by a judge in court. There are a set of rules the judge has to follow in order to get the appropriate sentence this causes for some to receive lenient sentences. These mandatory sentences are causing overcrowding and unfit prison environments. Mass incarceration is a huge issue in the United States. This leaves room for human rights violations; causing more room for more crime within the prisons (Fagan 2016). There is not any evidence available that shows longer sentences to help reduce the amount of crime. It just gives it a chance to welcome more crimes. (Fagan 2016). There forms of retributive justice cause a lot of setbacks. There is no real rehabilitation. Utilitarian The utilitarian models of justice refer to punishment to eliminate future deterrence. It looks past the wrongdoing and ahead at the beneficial consequences of the punishment. (Rehren and Valerij Zisman 2022) This model dates back to the 19th century. A person’s life circumstances would be limited to make the decision of sentencing. For example, the person would receive a sentence that makes the community happy at the expense of the criminal. This theory believes if a certain amount of punishment is met to make the community happy, most people will stop committing more crimes. A con of the utilitarian models is that if the punishment goes unnoticed by the community , it will not be effective. Another con that does not make this theory effective is you cannot use moral culpability or remorse...