COLEGIO DE STA. ANA DE VICTORIAS, INC.

Osmeña Avenue, Victorias City, Negros Occidental, 6119

LEARNING MODULE 1
Descriptive Title: Dispute Resolution and Crisis Management
Subject Code: Crim 326

Dispute resolution and crisis management is a study involving the

understanding, analysis and applying best strategies in resolving disputes at the
elementary stage. The restoration of interpersonal relations among the member of the
parties involved are its primordial end. It also covers those devoted to trace back the
origin of conflicted situations and how it can be measured and prevented in such a way
that promotion of a peaceful resolution is emphasized. Moreover, the understanding
and application of knowledge on the Incident Command System as an approach in
dealing with Crisis Management were significantly featured.
The course is intended to enhance the student’s awareness and
competitiveness along with the pursuit of understanding the nature of conflict
resolution and applying strategic measures and best practices in the field of crisis
management.
LEARNING OUTCOMES

After this unit, the students will be able to:

1. Trace the origin of restorative justice system;
2. Elucidate the concepts, nature and procedures governing dispute resolution;
3. Apply the implementing rules and regulations governing the Alternative Dispute
Resolution System and Amicable Settlement;
4. Identify the best principles and strategies in dispute resolutions;
5. Explain the concept of crisis management and its governing principles;
6. Apply the procedures in handling hostage situation thru a simulated crisis scenario.
7. Identify the role of the crisis management units and understand the mandate of the
country’s approach on Incident Command System.
LEARNING RESOURCES/References

Domingo, C. (2020). Dispute Resolution and Crisis Management. Wiseman’s Books
Trading, Inc.
https://www.iirp.edu/defining-restorative/history
https://www.lawphil.net/statutes/repacts/ra2004/ra_9285_2004.html
https://www.lawphil.net/statutes/presdecs/pd1978/pd_1508_1978.html
https://www.ifrc.org/docs/IDRL/-%20To%20add/MEMO%20re%20Implementing
%20Guidelines%20on%20the%20use%20of%20ICS%20-%20edited.pdf

LEARNING INPUTS (LESSONS)

Restorative justice is based on an understanding that crime is a violation of people and

relationships. The principles of restorative justice are based on respect, compassion and
inclusivity. Restorative justice encourages meaningful engagement and accountability
and provides an opportunity for healing, reparation and reintegration. Restorative
justice processes take various forms and may take place at all stages of the criminal
justice system.

History and Development of the Restorative Justice Movement

Restorative justice is a young field that emerged during the 1970s as alternative approaches
to the court process, such as alternative dispute resolution, were becoming a national trend.
It emerged alongside the victims’ rights movement, which argued for greater involvement of
crime victims in the criminal justice process, as well as for the use of restitution as
compensation for losses. Although many of the values, principles, and practices of
restorative justice hearken
back to indigenous cultures, a 1974 case in Kitchener, Ontario, is considered the beginning
point of today’s restorative justice movement. This “Kitchener experiment” required
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two teenagers to meet with and pay restitution to every one of the twenty-two people whose
property they had vandalized.
From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, a number of experimental programs, modeled after
the Kitchener program, were initiated in several jurisdictions in North America and Europe.
These initiatives, however, remained small in size and number, having little impact on the
larger system. In 1994, restorative justice took a giant step toward becoming mainstream
when the American Bar Association endorsed victim-offender mediation, a program usually
associated
with first-time offenders and minor crimes. Additional support came from the
National Organization for Victim Assistance, which published a monograph entitled
Restorative Community Justice: A Call to Action, and from the United Nations, the Council
of Europe, and the European Union, all of which have committed to promote restorative
practices. Today, thirty states either have restorative justice principles in their mission
statements and policy plans or legislation promoting a more balanced and restorative
juvenile justice system. This institutionalization is further buttressed by the American Bar
Association, which began offering grants in 2008 to develop restorative justice initiatives in
criminal law settings.
Core Restorative Justice Practices
The most widely used approaches in restorative justice are victim-offender mediation, family
group conferencing, circles, and victim-offender dialogue. All put victims and offenders in
direct dialogue, nearly always faceto-face, about a specific offense or infraction. They also
have in common the presence of at least one more person who serves as the facilitator, and
they usually involve advance preparation of the parties so they will know what to expect. The
focus of the encounter most frequently involves naming what happened, identifying its
impact, and coming to some common understanding, often including reaching agreement as
to how any resultant harm will be repaired. These practices are also used in non–criminal
justice settings such as schools or neighborhoods.
Victim-offender mediation is the oldest practice and is typically used with victims and
offenders of property crimes and minor assaults. Participants include the victim,
offender, and facilitator. The face-to-face meeting is centrally focused on the victim and the
offender, accompanied by a small number of support persons (such as parents or friends).
Family group conferencing originated in New Zealand as a means of diverting young
offenders from formal adjudication. It routinely involves support persons for both victims and
offenders, as well as additional participants from the community. This approach emphasizes
supporting offenders in taking responsibility for their actions and in changing their behaviors.
Thus, the involvement of the offender’s family and other support persons is critical to this
approach; the offender’s community of care helps build understanding and provides the
opportunity for the offender to shift back from the role of offender to that of community
member.
Circles are variously called “peacemaking circles,” “repair of harm circles,” and “sentencing
circles.” The numbers and types of participants are similar to those gathered for
conferencing but include wider community member participation, either as interested
persons, representatives of the criminal justice system, or as additional circle keepers or
facilitators. Circles are more focused on the harm done to the community than the other
approaches. Circles also serve to build community. Circles feature shared leadership and
consensus-based decision making as core to the functioning of the group and the
development of the group’s process.
Victim-offender dialogue is an outgrowth of victim-offender mediation. It is used in crimes of
severe violence, such as murder, vehicular homicide, or serious felony assault. It is strictly
victim-initiated, not stipulated by the court, and occurs post-conviction and usually during
incarceration. It involves a lengthy period of preparation for both victims and offenders
and requires experienced facilitators.

https://charterforcompassion.org/restorative-justice/restorative-justice-some-facts-
and-history

Restorative justice views crime as more than breaking the law – it also causes harm to
people, relationships, and the community. So a just response must address those harms
as well as the wrongdoing. If the parties are willing, the best way to do this is to help
them meet to discuss those harms and how to about bring resolution. Other approaches
are available if they are unable or unwilling to meet. Sometimes those meetings lead to
transformational changes in their lives.
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Notice three big ideas: (1) repair: crime causes harm and justice requires repairing that
harm; (2) encounter: the best way to determine how to do that is to have the parties
decide together; and (3) transformation: this can cause fundamental changes in people,
relationships and communities.
A more formal definition is this: Restorative Justice is a theory of justice that emphasizes
repairing the harm caused by criminal behavior. It is best accomplished through
cooperative processes that allow all willing stakeholders to meet, although other
approaches are available when that is impossible. This can lead to transformation of
people, relationships and communities.
The foundational principles of restorative justice have been summarized as follows:
1. Crime causes harm and justice should focus on repairing that harm.
2. The people most affected by the crime should be able to participate in its
resolution.
3. The responsibility of the government is to maintain order and of the community
to build peace.
If restorative justice were a building, it would have four corner posts:
1. Inclusion of all parties
2. Encountering the other side
3. Making amends for the harm
4. Reintegration of the parties into their communities
To review: restorative justice...
 is a different way of thinking about crime and our response to crime
 focuses on repairing the harm caused by crime and reducing future harm
through crime prevention
 requires offenders to take responsibility for their actions and for the harm they
have caused
 seeks redress for victims, recompense by offenders and reintegration of both
within the community
 requires a cooperative effort by communities and the government
http://restorativejustice.org/restorative-justice/about-restorative-justice/tutorial-intro-
to-restorative-justice/lesson-1-what-is-restorative-justice/

On the other hand, Transformative justice is a general philosophical strategy for

responding to conflicts. It takes the principles and practices of restorative justice beyond
the criminal justice system.

Transformative Justice (TJ) is a political framework and approach for responding to

violence, harm and abuse. At its most basic, it seeks to respond to violence without
creating more violence and/or engaging in harm reduction to lessen the violence. TJ can
be thought of as a way of “making things right,” getting in “right relation,” or creating
justice together. Transformative justice responses and interventions 1) do not rely on
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the state (e.g. police, prisons, the criminal legal system, I.C.E., foster care system
(though some TJ responses do rely on or incorporate social services like counseling);  2)
do not reinforce or perpetuate violence such as oppressive norms or vigilantism; and
most importantly, 3) actively cultivate the things we know prevent violence such as
healing, accountability, resilience, and safety for all involved.
 
State responses to violence reproduce violence and often traumatize those who are
exposed to them, especially oppressed communities who are already targeted by the
state. It is important to remember that while many people choose not to call the police,
many communities can’t call the police because of reasons such as fear of deportation,
harassment, state sanctioned violence, sexual violence, previous convictions or
inaccessibility.
 
TJ was created by and for many of these communities (e.g. indigenous communities,
black communities, immigrant communities of color, poor and low-income
communities, communities of color, people with disabilities, sex workers, queer and
trans communities). It is important to remember that many of these people and
communities have been practicing TJ in big and small ways for generations–trying to
create safety and reduce harm within the dangerous conditions they were and are
forced to live in. For example, undocumented immigrant women in domestic violence
relationships, disabled people who are being abused by their caretakers and attendants,
sex workers who experience sexual assault or abuse, or poor children and youth of color
who are surviving child sexual abuse have long been devising ways to reduce harm, stay
alive and create safety and healing outside of state systems, whether or not these
practices have been explicitly named as “transformative justice.”
 
TJ is an abolitionist framework that understands systems such as prisons, police and
I.C.E. as sites where enormous amounts of violence take place and as systems that were
created to be inherently violent in order to maintain social control. TJ works to build
alternatives to our current systems which often position themselves as protectors, while
simultaneously enacting the very forms of violence they claim to condemn.
 https://transformharm.org/transformative-justice-a-brief-description/
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The Concept of Conflict

Conflict – is a struggle between people. The struggle may be physical, or between

conflicting ideas. The word comes from Latin “conflingere” means to come together for
a battle. Conflicts can either be within one person, or they can involve several people or
groups.

Types of conflict theories:

Critical theory
Feminist theory
Postmodern theory
Post-structural theory
Postcolonial theory
Queer Theory
World Systems theory
Race-Conflict approach

Modern Approach on Conflict:

C. Wright Mills has been called the founder of modern conflict theory.[12] In Mills's
view, social structures are created through conflict between people with differing
interests and resources. Individuals and resources, in turn, are influenced by these
structures and by the "unequal distribution of power and resources in the society."[12]
The power elite of American society, (i.e., the military–industrial complex) had
"emerged from the fusion of the corporate elite, the Pentagon, and the executive
branch of government." Mills argued that the interests of this elite were opposed to
those of the people. He theorized that the policies of the power elite would result in
"increased escalation of conflict, production of weapons of mass destruction, and
possibly the annihilation of the human race."

Gene Sharp (1928-2018) was a professor emeritus of political science at the University
of Massachusetts Dartmouth.[13] He is known for his extensive writings on nonviolent
struggle, which have influenced numerous anti-government resistance movements
around the world. In 1983 he founded the Albert Einstein Institution, a non-profit
organization devoted to studies and promotion of the use of nonviolent action in
conflicts worldwide.[14] Sharp's key theme is that power is not monolithic; that is, it
does not derive from some intrinsic quality of those who are in power. For Sharp,
political power, the power of any state—regardless of its particular structural
organization—ultimately derives from the subjects of the state. His fundamental belief
is that any power structure relies upon the subjects' obedience to the orders of the ruler
or rulers. If subjects do not obey, leaders have no power. Sharp has been called both the
"Machiavelli of nonviolence" and the "Clausewitz of nonviolent warfare."[15] Sharp's
scholarship has influenced resistance organizations around the world. More recently,
the protest movement that toppled President Mubarak of Egypt drew extensively on his
ideas, as well as the youth movement in Tunisia, and the earlier ones in the Eastern
European colour revolutions that had previously been inspired by Sharp's work.

LEARNING ACTIVITY: Read on the different types of conflict theories. Take note of each
one’s concepts and meaning. Keep notes.

Concept of conflict resolution:

Conflict resolution is conceptualized as the methods and processes involved in
facilitation the peaceful ending of conflict and retribution.

The Thomas-Kilmann Model

What Are the Five Conflict Resolution Strategies?
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The Thomas-Kilmann Model identifies five different approaches to resolving conflict.

These approaches include:

1. Avoiding
Someone who uses a strategy of "avoiding" mostly tries to ignore or sidestep the
conflict, hoping it will resolve itself or dissipate.

2. Accommodating
Using the strategy of "accommodating" to resolve conflict essentially involves taking
steps to satisfy the other party's concerns or demands at the expense of your own
needs or desires.

3. Compromising
The strategy of "compromising" involves finding an acceptable resolution that will
partly, but not entirely, satisfy the concerns of all parties involved.

4. Competing
Someone who uses the conflict resolution strategy of "competing" tries to satisfy their
own desires at the expense of the other parties involved.

5. Collaborating
Using "collaborating" involves finding a solution that entirely satisfies the concerns of all
involved parties.

The Thomas-Kilmann model identifies two dimensions people fall into when choosing a
conflict resolution strategy: assertiveness and cooperativeness. Assertiveness involves
taking action to satisfy your own needs, while cooperativeness involves taking action to
satisfy the other's needs.

Each of the conflict resolution strategies above involves different degrees of

assertiveness and cooperativeness. For example, while accommodating includes a high
degree of cooperativeness and a low degree of assertiveness, competing consists of a
low degree of cooperativeness and a high degree of assertiveness.

ASSESSMENT TASK:
Read R.A. No 9285
1. Write a reaction paper on R.A. 9285.

Email to : Sharon.medez@csav.edu.ph

Deadline: March 12, 2021