The Environment on Our Doorsteps: Community Restorative Justice and the Roots of Sustainability

The Environment on Our Doorsteps: Community Restorative Justice and the Roots of Sustainability by Katherine Sloan McCabe A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science (Natural Resources and Environment) in the University of Michigan December 2009 Thesis Committee: Associate Professor Dorceta Taylor, Chair Professor Ivette Perfecto ii Abstract The leading paradigms of sustainability are fraught with tremendous shortcomings and ambiguities in relation to both peace and justice, and lack any significant discourse on the necessity of radically transforming our political institutions to incorporate sustainability issues into the development agenda. In an effort to address these shortcomings, a new paradigm called just sustainability has emerged. Just sustainability is an approach that recognizes the inseparable nature of social and environmental justice and sustainability, and pushes for organizations and governmental institutions to become more aware of the relationships that exist between inequality, injustice and environmentally unsustainable practices (Agyeman 2005). This study provides a critical assessment of Community Restorative Justice (CRJ), a grassroots, community-based initiative in the north of Ireland dedicated to creating change through an empowering, participatory process to build a just community that is tolerant, responsive, and inclusive. Restorative justice is a response to crime and anti-social behavior that is “aimed at repairing the harm caused by a criminal act and restoring the balance in the community affected by the criminal act” (Government of British Columbia 2006); central to many restorative justice programs—CRJ included—is the idea that crimes are committed against individuals or communities as opposed to the state. Since its creation in 1996, CRJ has come to play an integral role in the continuing Irish peace process, as it provides alternatives to punishment violence through its conflict mediation and education services and stresses above all else that those most affected should have the opportunity to participate in the regenerative process. Until recently, few scholars have thought to emphasize the roles that peace and justice can play as strategies in a sustainable development framework, let alone the contributions that an organization such as CRJ can make to both the environmental justice movement and broader struggles for social and economic equality. This paper seeks to demonstrate how the work of CRJ and its place within the greater West Belfast community contribute to a more solid foundation for just sustainable development through efforts toward local decision-making, participation and empowerment, and the reclamation of community/sovereignty; the reconfiguration of relationships within communities and between different levels of government; and the connections between violence, inequality, quality of life, and community development. The assessment of CRJ and its place within the context of just sustainability will provide an alternative conceptualization of the connection between issues of human security, development, and environmental justice. The analysis of this integrated approach can be applied to both the current sustainability discourse, as well as current grassroots activist efforts to create more creative, proactive, and effective strategies that are holistic in nature and recognize the critical links between economic opportunity, social welfare, and quality of life. iii Acknowledgements I would like to express my appreciation for the guidance and support of my advisors, Dr. Dorceta Taylor and Dr. Ivette Perfecto, during the research and preparation of this thesis. I would also like to thank the many people who contributed to my research. I am particularly indebted to Teresa Clarke for her experience, insight, and assistance along the way; to Tom Hartley for taking me under his wing and providing me with many valuable contacts; and to Max Sussman for his fierce editing skills and limitless patience. iv Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii List of Appendices v Chapter I. Introduction: ‘The environment on our doorsteps’ 1 II. Belfast: ‘The city at the heart of the conflict’ 13 III. Justice, Sustainability and the “Green” Issues 31 IV. Understanding Justice and Sustainability as Rooted in the Community 54 V. Peace-Building on the Ground: CRJ and Sustainable Development 67 VI. Conclusion: ‘The process which leads to peace’ 102 Appendices 111 Works Cited 119 v List of Appendices Appendix A: Interview Schedule and Sample Questions Appendix B: Deprivation Map for Northern Ireland Appendix C: Religious Geography of Belfast Appendix D: Principles of Environmental Justice Appendix E: Comhar’s Framework for Sustainability Appendix F: Community Restorative Justice’s Structure and Process Appendix G: Sample Community Charter, CRJI 1 Introduction: The environment at our doorstep Policing, justice, and quality of life in the north of Ireland “The British government were found guilty in the European Court of Human Rights for torturing me. They used the same techniques as the Americans are using in Abu Ghraib prison today, and the people who carried those acts out on behalf of the British government were policemen. I don’t know if any of those people who carried that out are now senior people in the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). So there needs to be a resolution of the past wrong-doings of the police. In terms of the work I presently do, it is very clear there needs to be a civil police service that is working for a safer community and that is prepared to work alongside the community to create a safer place for me, my family, and my community to live in” (qtd. in McCarney). It was with mixed emotions that Jim Auld spoke of his feelings on whether Irish republican political party Sinn Féin should give their support to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in order to move closer to a power-sharing government in the north of Ireland. Auld is the director of Community Restorative Justice, a community- based mediation and conflict resolution initiative headquartered in Andersonstown, West Belfast. While hundreds of men were rounded up and imprisoned when Britain reinstituted its internment policyi in 1971, Auld was one of 14 so-called “hooded men” who were subjected to various forms of sensory deprivation and torture by the British security forces for days after their arrest. None were ever charged with committing any crime (Conroy 7). Auld’s voice is only one amongst many who expressed concern in 2007 about how far the police service had come over the past thirty-six years, and whether it was in the best interests of the nationalistii people to support the police before they had been shown to be accountable to all the communities they are purported to serve. In the course of the Irish peace process, few decisions have been as contentious, as divisive, and as integral to the devolutioniii of the political institutions as the move towards the acceptance of policing by the nationalist community in the Six Counties. To make such a decision would require nationalists to put the peace process before their own personal or community experience, wrote Jim Gibney in the Irish News. In late December of 2006, 2 Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams called for a special ard fheis (meeting) to debate the party’s stance on policing, the first step towards a future acceptance of the PSNI. “Of all the decisions republicans have taken over the last decade of the peace process this one tugged at every republicaniv fibre, at the core of what it means to be an Irish republican,” Gibney wrote shortly after the announcement was made. What made the decision so contrary to core republican values was the fact that Catholic, nationalist/republican communities have been without an acceptable police force for the past 35 or 40 years. British state forces have been at the forefront of ensuring the continuing dominance of the unionistv majority at the expense of the minority, and their actions were focused on guaranteeing Catholics accepted that dominance and did not rebel. It was the criminal justice system that ensured that acceptance—or at least their new place in the unionist state, explains Harry McGuire, the head of training at Community Restorative Justice. When the late 1960s saw a widespread mobilization of civil rights activists take to the streets to demand justice and equality for Catholics, protestors in the north of Ireland were met with force. “It was the local police that were using the force,” remembers McGuire. “People who were protesting in a peaceful way were literally beaten off the streets in a very brutal manner” (Maguire, “An Introduction”). The British government eventually responded to the growing disorder on the streets by sending military troops to take over a policing role in 1969 (Ellison and Smyth 72). The police were completely withdrawn, and the British army then performed its military role. McGuire explains, “From 1969 until about 1976, there was no police presence in communities like the one we’re in today—in working class, nationalist- republican communities. Policing for all intents and purposes then slipped off the agenda” (Maguire, “An Introduction”). Within the nationalist, working class communities, however, locals were still in need of some form of policing to deal with crime and anti-social behavior. The absence of a legitimate policing service did not mean that there was an absence of crime. As a result, they turned to informal structures that were beginning to develop in the community. Citizens sought guidance from paramilitary groups like the Irish Republican Army (IRA), who had come to be regarded as protectors of the community; though the 3 IRA did not see themselves as a police service and did not have the much-needed resources, the policing role would later fall to them out of necessity (Maguire, “An Introduction”). The initial reluctance on the part of the IRA soon gave way to community pressure. The IRA saw themselves as a guerrilla movement, but given the political and military context of the time, they were forced to deal with community policing (Liam Stone).

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