Globalization and Restorative Justice: in the Thai Criminal Justice System

Jutharat Ua-amnoey*

The inside-out effect comes from: I) the declination of the retribution paradigm in the Thai criminal justice system, which had been supported by empirical data that focused on the crisis situation in the overcrowded prisons and the problems in the quantity, quality, and the productivity of the court-based system: and 2) the change agent's strategic use of a network to take this adopted concept and disseminate this idea throughout the country, to Thai scholars, officers, and citizens, by using a series of academic forums, small publications, feature television programs, various research projects all centered on restorative justice in Thai society. Most of these projects have been supported by the Thailand Research Fund (TRF).

Finally, the Cabinet's resolution of 10 February 2004 accepted the First National Master Plan of Criminal Justice 2004-2007, which has provisions for the Restorative Justice Programs Plan in the Sixth Strategy. As a consequence, today, Thailand is successfully using family community group conferencing for about 10% of juvenile delinquents and has launched a pilot project for eleven probation offices around the country.

There are three main issues in my research on the paradigm shift toward restorative justice in the Thai criminal justice system. Firstly, the movement of this social phenomenon named restorative justice is reality, the movement of "power" in framing the question, "what social justice system maximizes utility for most people? " It is widely accepted that "the power" is now moving from a "state-centered approach" to a "society-centered approach." That society-centered approach is found on the idea that society should be dually controlled through "a user theory of law," in which the user is defined as the ordinary citizen in the community, and "a crime victim theory of law," which seeks to redress the truism that the crime victim was once the marginal man of the court-base system. Thus, the adoption of restorative justice signals a change in social approaches to restore the place of the crime and community in crime prevention and crime control.

Secondly, the international raise of restorative justice is a successful example of the "Global Civil Society" movement, which has activities between transitional states and individuals. This is a non-profit international organization that influences the United Nations. So, the use of the global network to map restorative justice is a successful way to de-power the mainstream sanctions, in a non-coercive, non-bureaucratic, informal and decentralized way.

Thirdly and finally, I think that this rise of restorative justice and the resulting changes in the Thai criminal justice system is a good example for any country that is on the way to independently adopt this measure. Governments should understand that the use of restorative justice is not composed of only "have law or anti law" and "accepted by the mainstream criminal justice system or not. " The socio-cultural atmosphere together with the socializing and learning process of people in those communities is important too. Moreover, intellectual academic discussions can help people to face the truth and to learn about the alternatives to their current system of justice. Only then can the government resolve the issue and make a decision. Thailand has already experienced these stages in its acceptance of restorative justice, and the country is now on its way to assess the productivity and suitability of this concept to Thai Society.