The #MeToo movement and restorative justice: exploring the views of the public

Abstract

The study examined 'the day after' the #MeToo protest, and proposes channeling the outcry of millions of women toward developing and establishing alternative mechanisms for dealing with sexual offences, focusing on restorative justice conferencing. A mixed-methods design (quantitative and qualitative) was employed to empirically examine the public's attitude toward the #MeToo movement and restorative-justice in sexual offence cases. The findings (n = 252) revealed that the majority of the public supports the #MeToo movement, but not publications that name alleged offenders. Higher levels of support were found among women and people who define themselves as sexual offence victims. A positive correlation was found between support for the #MeToo movement and support for restorative-justice in sexual offence cases. To better understand the quantitative findings, indepth interviews were conducted with 30 participants. Analysis of the interviews showed that the public acknowledges the importance of the movement, especially due to the widespread discussion on sexual offences and their implications, giving voice to victims, and the possibility that this will help their coping and healing process. Similarly, proponents of restorative justice view the process as an opportunity to conduct a meaningful dialogue, allowing victims to sound their voice and act in a way that suits them.

The Identity Thief: How Politics, Religion, and Values Stole Support for Sexual Assault Reporting and the #MeToo Movement

“…Supporting H4, as values oriented toward Benevolence (-.15 and -.17), Universalism (-.33 and -.31), as well as Selfdirection (-.09 and -09) increase, support of these statements decreases. Reinforcing prior research using our controls, we find that as Education (-.09 and -.14) increases, support of these statements decreases (Peleg-Koriat & Klar-Chalamish, 2020). Women (-.23 and -.25) were also less likely to report support for these statements (Kunst et al, 2019) Race (including White), and South were not statistically significantly correlated with our attitude measures related to sexual assault reporting or #MeToo.…”

Challenging Anti-Carceral Feminism: Criminalisation, Justice and Continuum Thinking

“…Nonetheless, differences are discernable, including the US focus on the 'campus rape crisis' (Gruber, 2020, 170) which hinges on very different processes to those in other countries including the UK (Cowan & Munro, 2021). Similarly, analysis of #MeToo as intensifying carceralism is arguably US-dominated, with the worldwide #MeToo movements sparking broader debates including regarding restorative and transformative justice (Chandra & Erlingsdottir, 2021;Peleg-Koriat & Klar-Chalamish, 2020). Nonetheless, while specifics and the level of intensity of debate vary, there is a similar essence to feminist debate across common law, anglophone countries.…”

Sexual offense victims' responses to the question #WhyIDidntReport? Examining restorative justice as an alternative dispute resolution mechanism

“…Both addressed the scope of the phenomenon, as well as the “conflict” between victims and the justice system, and specifically why so many victims failed to report. As such, they are milestones on the way to transforming society's attitudes and launching the next stage of the revolution which put the spotlight on the failures of the justice system and the need to explore alternatives (Hemel & Lund, 2018; Peleg‐Koriat & Klar‐Chalamish, 2020).…”

“…The current study joins the literature on this topic by applying a novel approach: examining victims' obstacles to reporting sex offense and doing justice through their spontaneous disclosures via social media and #WhyIDidntReport. Our basic assumption is that the recent web protests represent, among other things, a call for alternative ways of doing justice (Kohn, 2019; Peleg‐Koriat & Klar‐Chalamish, 2020), and that the automatic linking of reporting to law enforcement authorities and the credibility attributed to victims is fundamentally erroneous. Hence, the present study seeks not only to understand barriers to reporting but, based on that understanding, also to examine options for coping with those barriers, and to discuss the option of alternative solutions for victims, particularly restorative justice (RJ).…”

“…Extensive reforms in sexual offense laws and procedures internationally, and growing emphasis on responding to the victims' needs (Keenan, 2014; Koss & Achilles, 2008), have resulted in revised legal definitions (e.g., of consent), and courtroom processes (e.g., allowing remote testimonies), together with efforts to encourage victims to report and to improve police response (Heydon & Powell, 2018). Despite this progress, outcomes are yet to be seen in terms of changing the victims' experience, reducing the number of cases, or increasing conviction rates (Keenan, 2014; Peleg‐Koriat & Klar‐Chalamish, 2020). The automatic link made between “justice” and the CJS, as well as the low rate of reports and convictions, mean that in practice justice is denied to most victims.…”