Rehabilitation Restorative Justice Victims

Albert Eglash & the history of restorative jusitce

Albert Eglash was a psychologist in the 1950s working with incarcerated people. He saw the need for his clients to be accountable for their behavior that hurt others and saw its rehabilitation value. Eglash wanted people to understand the value in their making restitution when they hurt others. He presented a paper at a conference on restitution in 1975: Beyond Restitution-Creative Restitution which was published in 1977 Restitution in Criminal Justice: A Critical Assessment of Sanctions edited by Joe Hudson and Burt Galaway. The paper can be downloaded here: http://www.lorennwalker.com/uploads/articles/Eglash1977.pdf (If you have problems downloading the paper please email me lorenn@hawaiifriends.org and I can send you a copy).

Eglash’s paper reportedly is the first time the term restorative justice was used. See Bazemore: http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps/Bazemore.html

In his paper Eglash says: “A restorative approach of creative restitution accepts both free will and psychological determinism. It redefines past responsibility in terms of damage or harm done, and can therefore accept psychological determinism for our past behavior without destroying the concept of our being responsible for what we have done. Similarly, it redefines present responsibility in terms of our ability or capacity for constructive, remedial action and can therefore accept free will for our present, ongoing behavior and for our future contemplated behavior, without destroying scientific explanations of past behavior. Only in legislative justice are determinations of past and present responsibility independent.” p. 91

Eglash also said in the paper that: “For me, restorative justice and restitution, like its two alternatives, punishment and treatment, is concerned primarily with offenders. Any benefit to victims is a bonus, gravy, but not the meat and potatoes of the process.” p. 99

2 thoughts on “Albert Eglash & the history of restorative jusitce”

  1. hi Lorenn,

    i am actually writing on my bachelor thesis about Restorative Justice in the german criminal justice system. It would be great, if you could send me the article of Albert Eglash. I can’t find it anywhere, except here.

    Kind regards

    Edon

  2. Dr. Maria Łoś, Professor Emeritus of the University of Ottawa, notes that: “Grygier’s model code was consistent with his philosophy. All his life, he strived to minimize suffering rather than maximize happiness, to negotiate rather than impose, to promote sanctions that helped to heal and repair instead of avenging and punishing. His Model Code, like his life philosophy, combined the utilitarian imperative of pragmatic altruism with the Epicurean moral philosophy of common sense, friendship and internal harmony. The ideas behind the code were also influenced by his pioneering investigations of concepts of justice and law among the Inuit of northern Manitoba. ….. It is not often remembered that the now celebrated idea of “restorative justice” was introduced and elaborated in 1962 by W. T. McGrath and Tadeusz Grygier at a national conference of criminal justice organizations”.

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