What Is Justice for Victims of Civil Violence in Colombia, South America?

• In Event: 25.051 - Applied Moral Problems in Globalized Current Societies

Abstract

Restorative justice has become a real field of interest during recent years due to its implications for reconciliation in communities and nations dealing with protracted political and social conflicts (Bazemore & Umbreit, 2001; Wenzel & Thielmann, 2006; Witvliet et al., 2008). While retributive justice seems to be commonplace in societies with a strong system of justice, restorative justice has been a successful alternative to repair and reconstruct moral values and moral community in societies suffering from war and with a weaker justice system. In addition to South Africa, Somalia, and Nicaragua, now Columbia is another example of a nation attempting to develop a modified restorative justice model as it successfully concludes peace negotiations between the government and several rebel groups such as FARC. Modified restorative justice aims to reestablish social values and repair the relationships between offender, victim and community (Abdulkadir, 2011; Gomez, 2011). According to theories of balance (Heider, 1958), deservingness (Feather, 1999) and equity (Adams, 1965), retributive justice perspectives both prevent or deter the repetition of the behavior and reinvigorate the moral values challenged by the offense (Wenzel & Thielmann, 2006). However, restorative justice considers even the worst violations as conflicts between parties, and aims to promote mutual understanding through dialogue, respect, remorse and forgiveness. Thus, punishment itself is not the final purpose of modified restorative justice, and penalties are usually agreed among parties (Wenzel & Thielmann, 2006), such as community service or engagement in education programs with short imprisonments (Bazemore & Umbreit, 2001). The current study addresses the complex question of what Columbian victims think is fair punishment for people from either government or rebel sides as their nation tries to heal itself. Fairness is influenced by the intentionality of an act (to harm) as well as by the severity of the punishment itself; both can evoke strong emotions from acceptance to anger and disgust. Thus, this study’s aim is to test whether intentional information moderates Columbian war victims’ negative emotions when judging the fairness of retributive and restorative punishments, in response to a realistic scenario in which they imagine one of their relatives has been killed in front of them by an enemy combatant. The sample is 60 adult male and female victims of the armed Columbian conflict who report on the levels of wrongness of the offense and level of responsibility of the offender under two conditions of punishment (retributive, modified restorative) in intentional and non-intentional killing scenarios. Their physiological responses related to negative emotions are also recorded (adopted from Witvliet et al., 2008). Expected findings are that the majority of the victims will report support for modified restorative punishment even when the killing is intentional, but that their emotions will be negative and in conflict with their judgments, demonstrating that Columbia will need to help its people, as individuals, to heal now that completion of peace negotiations are at hand.

Authors

• John Anibal Gomez, Fordham University

• Ann Higgins-D'Alessand, Fordham University