RESIGNIFICATIONS AND POSSIBILITIES: THE INTERFACES OF RESTORATIVE JUSTICE AND EDUCATION IN THE CITY OF SANTOS /SP Cláudia Regina Mendes Carvalho, Flávia Maria Lourenço da Costa, Liliane Claro de Rezende, Rogéria Guimarães Alves Bernardes, Selma Martinez Simões Rodrigues de Lara

Abstract

Since its beginnings in the 1970s, when it emerged as a practice of humanization and pacification of social relations involved in conflict – in pioneering experiences in Canada, the United States and New Zealand – Restorative Justice (RJ) has been gaining strength as a possibility of confronting issues involving conflict, violence and crime. Present in the Brazilian reality since 2004, when – still in embryonic form and linked to the Judiciary – it began to integrate some isolated initiatives, Restorative Justice has been consolidating and multiplying since then. For Leoberto Brancher, one of the pioneering judges in this initiative, the difference in such practices lies in promoting the empowerment of individuals and communities to pacify conflicts, in order to interrupt the chains of reverberation of violence, opening spaces for reflection on the practices of formal justice – essentially retributive and punitive – based on an ethics based on dialogue, inclusion and social responsibility. Therefore, emphasizing the importance of negotiation, mediation and dialogue for conflict resolution – in line with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) – Restorative Justice has since been consolidating itself as a set of alternative practices that focus on individual change – and, consequently, on social transformation –, with the promotion of peace as its fundamental value. Precisely because of its characteristic of constant openness to new knowledge and new partnerships and its experimental and transformative nature, these practices have taken on different forms since their first experiences – in Rio Grande do Sul, the Federal District and the state of São Paulo. Thus, the richness of its multiple nature could already be observed and proven in its origins: if in the Federal District, its application was initially linked to the adult public, it was with young people, in compliance with socio-educational measures, that Rio Grande do Sul began its restorative practices, and in São Paulo, it distinguished itself by its rich partnership with Education and projects involving the Special Courts for Children and Youth. It was precisely this broad characteristic that ended up favoring the diversity and multiplicity of initiatives that followed, based on the pilot projects. Thus, in the state of São Paulo, the difference in such practices has resided, significantly, in the multifaceted nature of their experiences, as emphasized by Egberto Penido, judge responsible for the implementation of Restorative Justice in São Paulo – since the pilot experience in São Caetano do Sul, in 2005 –, and one of its main creators. It is precisely from this perspective that Penido highlights that, in the experiences in São Paulo, the guideline of Restorative Justice has been guided, from the beginning, by the capacity to belong to all spaces and all actors – the community, private and public institutions, the justice system – and cannot be monopolized by any specific institution, precisely because its legitimacy is inscribed based on an integrated, agency-based and inter-institutional action. It is in this same sense that educator and psychologist Monica Mumme – consultant for the Technical Section of Restorative Justice of the Child and Youth Coordination of the TJSP – emphasizes the importance of a differentiated and expanded view of situations involving violence. Emphasizing that recurring situations of violent acts are, in their essence, much more complex than they are normally approached, Mumme states that restorative practices arise from the observation that the usual procedures have repeatedly shown ineffective results in changing behaviors. For Mumme, this confirms the notion that Restorative Justice is not and cannot be reduced in any way to a conflict resolution technique, but must consist of a set of actions based on relational, institutional and social dimensions. Thus, in these seventeen years of restorative practices in the state of São Paulo, the character of ongoing construction inherent to restorative projects has been highlighted, where actions have always been developed based on the understanding of the importance of relational, institutional and social dimensions. Through the many partnerships established – such as with the Coexistence Laboratory, coordinated by Monica Mumme – it was possible to observe a continuous theoretical deepening of the guiding concept of the program, as well as a significant increase in restorative actions. Especially in the last five years, this fact could be significantly verified with the implementation of several projects and continued training of employees and technicians, in addition to the important expansion of actions to other districts, among them, the district of Santos, which made possible the implementation, the flourishing and deepening of the work of Restorative Justice in Baixada Santista.