Reparative justice: The final stage of decolonization
| Author | Biko Agozino |
| Published date | 01 December 2021 |
| Date | 01 December 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14624745211024342 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue: Legacies of Empire |
Special Issue: Legacies of Empire
Reparative justice:
The final stage of
decolonization
Biko Agozino
Virginia Tech, USA
Abstract
Taking inspiration from Neo-colonialism: the last stage of imperialism, by Kwame Nkrumah
of the thesis by Lenin that Imperialism (is) the highest stage of capitalism, I postulate that
reparative justice is the final stage of decolonization (Nkrumah 1968). Based on the
argument in Counter-Colonial Criminology that imperialism is the general form of all types
of deviance in the sense that all acts of deviance seek to invade and colonize the private
and public spaces of others, I conclude that reparative justice programs addressing the
legacies of crimes committed by empires and corporations would signal the final stages
of decolonization. Contrary to the conventional assumptions in criminology that pov-
erty and powerlessness are the major causes of deviance, I suggest that power, not
powerlessness, is a more significant cause of all deviance by the powerful and by the
relatively powerless alike because the relatively powerless prey on those even more
powerless in the community while the majority of the poor remain overwhelmingly law
abiding and the rich get away with bloody murder, as Steve Box and Jeffrey Reiman
theorized (Box, 1993; Reiman and Leighton, 2020). Accordingly, the preferred societal
response to deviance should be reparative rather than punitive justice in keeping with
the decolonization paradigm in criminology and justice towards a more humane world
devoid of immigration control, repressive policing, the prison-industrial complex,
racism-sexism-imperialism, militarism, homophobia, the war on drugs, capital punish-
ment, homelessness, illiteracy, and without state power as class domination to make
way for the principles of taking from all according to their abilities and giving to all
according to their needs (Pfohl, 1994).
Keywords
colonialism, decolonization, justice, reparative, slavery
Corresponding author:
Biko Agozino, Department of Sociology, Virginia Tech, 225 Stanger Street, Blacksburg, VA, USA.
Email: agozino@vt.edu
Punishment & Society
!The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14624745211024342
journals.sagepub.com/home/pun
2021, Vol. 23(5) 613–630
Introduction
Reparative justice is not a popular paradigm within the European criminal justice
tradition. It is regarded as a ‘primitive’ system of punishment that was common in
‘acephalous’ or headless societies of the type that Tonnies called Gemeinschaft
(Weitekamp, 1993). However reparative measures have remained in some form
in modern justice systems but European writers tend to prefer the term restorative
or restitutory measures and sometimes confuse reparative justice as a synonym of
these other alternatives to custodial punishment. Reintegrative shaming has also
been confused with reparative justice whereas the offer of reparations may be
honorable and not shameful in cases of historic wrongs. Peter Young (1987) is
among the few who focused on the fine as a form of reparation that could go to the
victimized but he also pointed out that Neil McCormick established the fact that
reparations are not always punitive because they could emerge from a sense of
obligation by the offender to make some amends to the victimized even when there
is no conviction and a sentence of restitution or restoration of stolen property to
the rightful owner.
Europe is literally the creation of the Third World. The wealth which smothers her is
that of the underdeveloped peoples. The ports of Holland, the docks of Bordeaux and
Liverpool were specialized in the Negro slave trade, and owe their renown to millions
of deported slaves. So when we hear the head of a European state declare with his
hand on his chest that he must come to the aid of the poor underdeveloped peoples,
we do not tremble with gratitude. Quite the contrary; we say to ourselves: “It’s a just
reparation which will be paid to us.” Nor will we acquiesce in the help for underde-
veloped countries being a program of “sisters of charity.” This help should be the
ratification of a double realization: the realization by the colonized peoples that it is
their due, and the realization by the capitalist powers that in fact they must pay.
(Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, pp. 102–103)
In this papyrus, I demonstrate the lessons that criminologists could learn by paying
attention to the struggle for reparations by people of African descent in a non-
punitive response to the crimes of slavery, genocide, and colonialism (Agozino,
2020; Beckles, 2013; Darity, 2009; Obeng-Odoom, 2020). Reparative justice differs
from punitive justice by seeking how to address the wrongs done to the victimized
instead of being obsessed with how to punish the offenders. Following this intro-
duction will be a section on comparative arguments in favor of reparations, and a
section on why criminologists should reject arguments against reparations. Then
finally, a concluding section of the papyrus will highlight the lessons for criminol-
ogy and identify a theoretical framework suitable for the development of repara-
tive justice.
Reparative Justice is the title of a criminological discourse on the African
Holocaust otherwise known as the Trans Atlantic Slavery that was produced
as a videotext and subsequently uploaded to YouTube (Agozino, 2002).
614 Punishment & Society 23(5)
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