The Good, The Bad, and The Street: Does ‘street culture’ affect offender communication and reception in restorative justice?
| Author | Roxana Willis,Carolyn Hoyle |
| Date | 01 January 2022 |
| Published date | 01 January 2022 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1477370819887517 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1477370819887517
European Journal of Criminology
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1477370819887517
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The Good, The Bad, and
The Street: Does ‘street
culture’ affect offender
communication and reception
in restorative justice?
Roxana Willis and Carolyn Hoyle
University of Oxford, UK
Abstract
This article examines whether and how ‘street culture’ affects offender communication and
reception in restorative justice. Drawing on an archival dataset of police-led restorative justice
conferences, we analysed the relationship between street cultural capital and offenders’ ability
to communicate during restorative justice. We explored how offenders’ social background,
measured by street cultural capital, and/or communication abilities affect third-party perceptions
of offender sincerity and their likelihood to reoffend. Results indicate that the embodiment of
street cultural capital may affect offender participation in restorative justice. Socioeconomically
disadvantaged offenders appeared more likely to experience communication difficulties, and were
less likely to be perceived by third parties as sincere or willing to desist from offending. These
findings are considered within a theoretical framework that draws on Bourdieu’s concept of
cultural capital, Skeggs’ notion of inscription and Loftus’ research on ‘attitude tests’.
Keywords
Restorative justice, race, street, cultural capital, Bourdieu, language
Restorative justice processes can involve victims, offenders, and community members
meeting to discuss the harms caused by offending behaviour (Marshall, 1999). They
provide offenders with the opportunity to account for their behaviour, to apologize to
victims, and possibly to make amends by undertaking an activity that symbolically or
materially restores the harm (Von Hirsch et al., 2003). Advocates of restorative justice
describe this as an empowering process, because it enables those affected by crime to
Corresponding author:
Roxana Willis, Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford, St Cross Building, St Cross Road, Oxford,
OX1 3UL, UK.
Email: roxana.willis@law.ox.ac.uk
887517EUC0010.1177/1477370819887517European Journal of CriminologyWillis and Hoyle
research-article2019
Article
2022, Vol. 19(1) 118–138
participate directly in its resolution (Zehr, 2015). Others raise rights-based concerns that
restorative justice could undermine offenders’ rights to a fair trial, proportional sentenc-
ing, and protection from discrimination (Ashworth, 1993, 2001, 2002). Although restora-
tive justice research has considered the potential for power imbalance and discrimination
related to gender (Hudson, 2002; Stubbs, 2007), ethnicity (Choi and Severson, 2009;
Muna, 2017), age (Hayes, 2017; Suzuki and Wood, 2018), sexuality (Walters, 2014;
Walters and Hoyle, 2010), and disability (Littlechild, 2011; Snow and Sanger, 2015), the
impact of socioeconomic background has received limited empirical attention.
This article revisits an archival dataset of police-led restorative justice conferencing
in the UK, and examines whether discrimination based on social background, measured
in terms of ‘street culture’, is evident, reflecting on implications for restorative justice
practice thereafter. Two cultural aspects of social background are of interest: how offend-
ers verbally communicate in restorative justice conferencing and how offenders present
physically. Although these factors are also relevant to victims (Willis, 2018), due to
space limitations we focus on offenders.
Consideration of cultural difference in restorative justice has focused on ethnic dif-
ference. Early restorative scholarship examined the suitability of restorative justice for
indigenous communities in New Zealand (Maxwell and Morris, 1993; Tauri and Morris,
1997) and Australia (Blagg, 2001; Daly, 2001; Nancarrow, 2006), among others. More
recently, research in the European context has examined how racial differences may
affect restorative processes (Albrecht, 2010; Campo et al., 2011; Gavrielides, 2014;
Muna, 2017). Language barriers among non-native speakers emerged as a prominent
theme, as well as challenges in managing different cultural communication styles
(Albrecht, 2010; Campo et al., 2011). Similar concerns about communication difficul-
ties have been raised in relation to the suitability of restorative justice for individuals
living with disabilities, such as autism and other communication disorders (Littlechild,
2011; Snow and Sanger, 2015). Less obvious, however, are communication difficulties
that relate to socioeconomic disadvantage, and how these intersect with other structural
factors, such as ethnicity.
Sociological research indicates that socioeconomic background significantly affects
how individuals communicate. We learn how to speak by engaging in the language prac-
tices of the communities we grow up in, which ultimately influences our communication
style, vocabulary, tone, and much more (Bourdieu, 1991; Taylor, 2016). A valuable illus-
tration of this can be found in Annette Lareau’s (2011) study of parental practices among
black middle-class and working-class families in America. Lareau found marked differ-
ences between the styles of communication cultivated in working-class and middle-class
homes. Parents in middle-class homes tended to engage in continual conversation with
their children, and, as a consequence, their children became comfortable in giving
lengthy descriptions, were able to enhance their vocabularies, and developed familiarity
with more formalized ways of speaking. In contrast, working-class parents in Lareau’s
study prepared their children for very different socioeconomic conditions, and Lareau
found language to perform a more functional role, with a preference for things to be kept
short, and body language sometimes preferred over lengthy verbal description. Such
classed-based communication difference could be significant in dialogue-strong pro-
cesses such as restorative justice.
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