Elonheimo H & Samela T (2017) Restorative approaches to community conflicts with an ethnic twist: An agenda for research and integration. A presentation held at NSfK Research Seminar, Örenäs Slott, May 10, 2017.

1. Restorative approaches to
community conflicts with an
ethnic twist: An agenda for
research and integration
May 10, 2017 NSfK Research Seminar
Henrik Elonheimo & Tuuli Samela
Faculty of Law, University of Turku
Henrik.Elonheimo@utu.fi

2. • Traditionally, the Finnish society ethnically very homogenous
• Unforeseen migration flow in 2015: about 32,500 immigrants / asylum seekers entered the country
 numerous reception centres were established quickly over the country – not without problems
• Media reports:
• worries of citizens’ fear that reception centers pose a threat to the safety of their neighborhoods
• violence between the locals and newcomers; reception centres attacked
• residents of the centers have had fights with each other
• Polarized public debate (tolerant vs. critical ones)
• Demonstrations for and against migration
• Researchers fear to comment, leading to self-cencorship
 A new source of conflicts has emerged in the Finnish society
 We need research data & good practices to alleviate tensions related to the clash of cultures &
to integrate newcomers into the Finnish society
Background

9. How do we handle conflicts?
• Avoidance (of difficult situations / people)
• Violence (illegal, unmoral, uneffective)
• Negotiation (demads a power balance between the parties)
• Court (slow, expensive, formal, superficial, win-lose)
• Restorative Justice (can overcome the shortcomings of the other
approaches)

10. Restorative Justice (RJ)
• Alternative to punishment and rehabilitation
• Academic theory that underlies e.g. victim-offender mediation
(VOM), school mediation, Family Group Conferencing
• Creates a continuum; different programs can be more or less
restorative
• Definition: Parties of crime / conflict gather together, with the aid of a
neutral mediator, to discuss what has happened, how it has affected
them, and what should be done about it.

11. RJ is supported by
• Positive accounts by the stakeholders (see, e.g Wachtel 1997)
• Empirical science (see, e.g. Sherman et al. 2015)
• That the restorative theory forms a coherent whole, being in line with
various fields of science (see, e.g., Elonheimo 2010)
 RJ sounds like a suitable way to resolve also multicultural conflicts.
However, we know from earlier research that the fine restorative ideals
are not always fully realised at the grass roots level.

12. Restorative Justice (RJ) in Finland
• The modern mediation movement covers various walks of life
• Over recent years, RJ has made huge progress in Finland in different fields:
• Crimes (VOM)
• Civil trials
• Family issues
• Work-related conflicts
• Schools (peer mediation)
• Environmental cases
• Street mediation
+ Restorative methods can also be used to prevent and mediate conflicts
between different population groups. One the latest applications of RJ is
neighborhood mediation & residence work in cases involving ethnic minorities.

13. The official status of RJ actors in Finland
• VOM is regulated by a special law (Act on Conciliation in Criminal and
Certain Civil Cases)
• Other fields of mediation are often projects conducted by NGO’s,
such as
• The Finnish Forum for Mediation (SSF; Suomen sovittelufoorumi)
• International Organization for Migration (IOM)
• Persons from immigrant backgrounds trained to act as mediators in a Let’s talk –project
• The Finnish Refugee Council (Suomen Pakolaisapu ry; an NGO specialised in
international refugee work)

14. Community mediation & residence work
• In 2006, the Finnish Refugee Council started to develop neighborhood mediation for the residence-related
problems of its customers
• Project “Kotilo” 2006-2014
• In 2015, the Council established the Centre for Community Mediation to provide community mediation
• = the main actor in the field ethnic mediation in Finland
• Unlike Kotilo project, the Centre is not based on unpaid volunteer mediators anymore. Furthermore, the focus is
more on the mediation process instead of just achieving an agreement.
• The Centre also developed residence work in the neighborhoods of new reception units to improve
relations between neighbors, feeling of safety, and homeliness of multicultural areas
• In autumn 2015, the Centre conducted residence work in 11 neighborhoods, organising meetings and finding out
the needs of people. Meetings were arranged either before or after the opening of a reception centre.
• Neigborhood mediation was initially motivated by the needs of the Refugee Council, and targeted at ethnic
cases. Today, neighborhood mediation is also being used in other cases. However, in this study, the focus is
on cases involving different cultures or ethnicities.

15. Definitions
Community / neighborhood mediation
• Dialogue facilitated by a neutral mediator
• Aims to help resolve various kinds of residency and neighborhood disturbances, difficult social situations, and
outright conflicts
• E.g., damaging property, disturbing behavior, breaking house rules, conflicts related to the use of common areas, problems
between the tenant and the estate manager
• Meant for residents, housing officials, property companies, tenant committees, and real estate managers
• Has 2+ parties; cases may concern even the whole apartment house
Community / residence work
• Larger efforts to prevent conflicts and promote good neighborhood relations, the safety and homeliness of
multicultural areas by the methods of mediation
• May involve arranging social events e.g. in a situation when a reception centre has been planned or opened nearby
Both
• Based on restorative principles
• Enable structured encounter and dialogue between stakeholders in emerging or existing neighborhood conflicts
• Free and voluntary services for the parties

16. General principles of RJ
• Empowerment, participation
• Stakeholders are the experts in their own case
• They have almost unlimited power
• Facilitative and impartial working method of the mediator
• Voice
• Open speech, using own words enhances understanding and learning & commitment to the
process and outcome
• Respectful dialogue
• Responsibility, actively repairing the harm (material, social, psyhological, emotional)
• Meeting the victim makes it harder to neutralize the wrong and the harm
• The perpetrators often find it hard to meet the victims face to face without the possibility to hide
behind their lawyers
• Offenders are expected to make good for what they have damaged
• Shame caused by wrongdoing can be overcome only by acknowledging and addressing it, and
repairing the damages
• Social healing, sense of community
• Communities need to be strenghtened, not dispersed (like in retributive or rehabilitative justice)

17. Reintegrative shaming
• Mediation is inspired by John Braithwaite’s (1989) theory of
reintegrative shaming
• Only the wrongful act is condemned, not the person
• Unlike in court proceedings, after the session, the offender is closer to
the normal, law-abiding society than before
• A successful restorative session culminates with gestures of
acceptance, inclusion, reintegration to end the shaming

18. Reintegrative ceremony
In court: status degradation
• Disapproval of the crime & the offender exclusion
RJ:
• Disapproval of the crime human status not degraded inclusion
(Braithwaite & Mugford 1994)

19. RJ is informal justice but not “justice of the
Wild West”
• Mediators are educated
• RJ theory guides the action
• Process is structured and safe (non-violent)
• Mediation is voluntary
• Modern conception of human rights sets the
boundaries to the application of RJ

20. Why a new study? Other projects related ethnic
RJ in Finland
• Albrect (2010) investigated RJ in cases of migrant minorities in Finland and in Norway
• Huhtinen (2015) delivered questionnaires to participants of neighborhood mediation during 2014. However, the
Centre for Community Meditation did not exist then and mediation practices were somewhat different than today.
• Ministry of Justice: TRUST project (ongoing)
• Focuses on the relations between different ethnic groups in localities with reception units, e.g. on the mediation conducted by
the Centre for Community Meditation in the city of Forssa in 2016 between the unit residents and local youth
• A multidisciplinary Finnish Academy project “Naapuruuskiistat ja asuminen Suomessa 2011–2015” (Neighborhood
conflicts and living in Finland 2011-2015)
• However, the project focused on Neighborhood conflicts in general, not on ethnic aspects
• Neighborhood mediators have been interviewed in a project called KatuMetro (Kaupunkitutkimus- ja
metropolipolitiikka)
• Länsitie 2016: a Master thesis based on interviews with neigborhood mediators
However, we need more research to empirically study neigborhood mediation practices in the context
of RJ in the conflicts between reception units’ residents and the local inhabitants.

21. Research aims
1) To contact reception centres to map the practices they have to prevent
and handle the conflicts that may arise between the residents of the
centres and the locals
• The conflicts may be concrete such as damaging property, breaking norms,
quarrels, violence or the threat of it, or more general and abstract worries (in
residence work)
2) Ultimately, the aim of the study is to release tensions between different
ethnic groups & to offer tools for the work to integrate newcomers better
in the society

22. Research questions
1) Parties of a conflict:
 How do they feel that the principles of RJ have been realised in mediation?
 How does the mediation experience contribute to their feeling of safety?
2) Reception centres:
 Are community mediation and residence work known and used in reception centres? Is there a need for those kinds of methods?
 Have there been conflicts between the residents of the reception centre and the neighborhood? How have these conflicts been
treated and to what effect? Has it been possible to prevent conflicts with some kind of neighborhood work?
 What kinds of practices do reception centres have for preventing and managing conflicts between the residents and neighbors?
3) Centre for Community Meditation:
 What kind of work has the Centre for Community Meditation conducted in reception centers and their neighborhoods?

23. Methods
1) E-mail survey to reception centres in operation
• Probably enables a low treshold for answering
• The informants are advised to write their replies between the questions
• The reception centre staff can choose who of them answers the survey
• In case of non-response, the researcher calls to the center to minimise attrition
2) Interviews of key actors (mediators, parties, Centre for Community
Meditation, authorities in municipalities with reception centres)
• The Centre of Community Mediation will aid in reaching those who have participated
community mediation and ask if they are willing to be interviewed
• The exact amount of the inteviews needed will become clear as the study proceeds
3) Observation of community mediation sessions (?)

24. Timetable
• Applying for the research permission from the Finnish Immigration
Service (now)
 E-mail questionnaire to reception centres (summer 2017)
 Follow-up by phone to decrease attrition
 Interviews of those who have participated in mediation (August?)
 The dissertation to be completed by the end of the year

25. A pilot study
• In spring 2016, those 9 reception centres were contacted where community mediation and
neighbourhood work were being used
• The aim was to map the practices related to conflict management between the reception centres and
the locals
• Only two centres replied, however…
• In the first unit, 3 sessions had been arranged of which one before starting the operation. In another,
one session had been held before opening and another as the unit was extended.
• At most, the sessions had included 20 neighbours
• The purpose of the sessions had been to introduce the units to the neighborhood and enable free
discussion. Instead of actual mediation, the aim was to prevent problems through openness and
collaboration.

26. Preliminary observations
• In the sessions, neighbours’ worries had surfaced, and remedies to them were jointly found
• The repondents assessed that the sessions had succeeded in calming down the atmosphere among the
locals, as they were given the chance to present their questions and discharge their worries
• In one unit, a common gardening project to grow food, and even a harvest festival, was being planned
between the locals and the unit residents
• Mediators’ skills to facilitate sessions with multiple participants need to be secured and improved
• Some sessions (by other organisers than Centre for Community Meditation) had been arranged poorly:
Facilitators had lacked skills necessary for guiding the session; the atmosphere had not been ideal; not
everyone dared to talk; the facilitator had not delivered enough information
 The principles of RJ are imporant to keep in mind
• Each centre creates it’s on ways to resolve conflicts and the possibilities of mediation are largely
unknown
• Residence work was welcomed as a helpful tool when establishing new units
• The informants called for a national operations model for mediation in the reception units

27. Discussion
• Important to offer low treshold service to avoid conflict escalation
• Violence or doing nothing can lead to long-lasting tensions between different
population groups
• Mediation can secure access to justice
• Not based on SES, not demanded legal knowledge
• Mediation has the potential to reduce human suffering & economic burden
on courts, apartment house companies, etc.
• RJ is actually better suited for community mediation than for the usual one-
on-one cases (VOM), because at the heart of the restorative theory is
activating a larger community than just the victim and the offender

28. Professional mediation?
• Organising and facilitating encounters between the conflicting parties is demanding
• Community mediation cannot rely on unpaid volunteer work
• In cases involving multiple stakeholders, mediators needs special skills to pay attention to
each participant
• Mediators need skills to
• support the ones in less advantageous position, such as migrants, so that they are not being exploited
• make everyone engage in social discussions; for some cultures, it might be harder, for the utmost
importance of saving face and not admitting guilt
• Also demanded from the mediators of ethnic conflicts: cultural sensitivity?
• How decisive the role of cultural background really is regarding the birth of the conflict and the way to
conduct mediation?
• Everybody should be treated equally in mediation and cultural backgrounds should not play a role?

29. RJ and resourcing
• The potential of RJ depends on how it is resourced
• How much can we reasonably require from mediation that does not enjoy the
institutional status and resources of formal litigation?
• The cost-benefit ratio of mediation is arguably good, and there are such intangible
benefits to mediation that contribute to empowerment and psychological and
emotional wellbeing of the parties that are unlikely to be reached by formal
proceedings
• Centre for Community Meditation offers neighborhood mediation and residence work
only in the biggest cities and the metropolitan area
• Like VOM, these restorative methods should be available throughout the country
• There is no reason assume that the relevance of “mediation with an ethnic twist” would
diminish in the future

30. Mediation as a human right
• Mediation is a tool to fulfill constitutional rights of participation
• CONSTITUTION OF FINLAND: The authorities need to promote
individual’s chances to participate in societal activities and influence
decision-making that concerns him or herself.

31. A tool for integration?
• How can we secure the integration of newcomers?
• In mediation, people can learn about each other’s cultures,
enhancing tolerance of cultural diversity, and breaking
down stereotypes & prejudice
• RJ can strenghten communities and enliven social ties
 Mediation can be utilized as a tool for integrative work,
giving voice, empowerment, and participation rights to all
alike