Shame by Any Other Name

And the eyes of both were opened, and they knew they were naked; and they sewed fig
leaves together and made themselves aprons. . . . And the Lord God called unto Adam, and
said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden and I was
afraid, because I was naked and I hid myself. Genesis, 3:7-10 (King James).

There was a guy with something like multiple sclerosis. A perpetual spasm forced him to
perch sideways on his wheelchair and peer down along his nose at his knotted fingers. This
condition had descended on him suddenly. He got no visitors. His wife was divorcing him. He
was only thirty-three, but it was hard to guess what he told about himself because he really
couldn't talk anymore, beyond clamping his lips repeatedly around his protruding tongue
while groaning. No more pretending for him! He was completely and openly a mess.
Meanwhile the rest of us go on trying to fool each other. Denis Johnson, Jesus' Son (1992).

Our marriage is a commercial for how normal we are when we're anything but.
Lester Burnham, AMERICAN BEAUTY, (DreamWorks Pictures 1999).

You can't save your face and your ass at the same time. Alcoholics Anonymous Aphorism

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I.INTRODUCTION

Shame. We all know it in one form or another: tripping over absolutely nothing at the local
mall, emerging from the restroom trailing a white flag of toilet paper, laughing last and
loudest in a room suddenly gone silent, waving happily toward a friend only to realize we are
beckoning to a complete stranger.

These are mild forms of shame - embarrassment if you will. 3 Yet the feeling of sudden
exposure makes us flush red in the face, temporarily lose coherence, and engage in an
elaborate public pantomime in a futile attempt to regain our dignity. We look to see who is
watching, pull the toilet paper quickly from our shoe and stretch our arms as if yawning
rather than mistakenly greeting a stranger. We tell an off-color joke and no one laughs. As a
result, we flush red and our hands become damp. Staring with mortification at the floor, we
sheepishly mumble, "My friends thought it was funny." Any little fig leaf will do. Like Adam
and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we find ourselves naked, hear the voice of another and are
suddenly afraid.

Because the painful experience of shame is believed to deter anti-social and criminal
conduct, it has long been a staple of our criminal justice system. Its purpose has been to
accomplish moral education about the wrongfulness of the crime and to prevent its
occurrence through social and self-disapproval. 4 The concept of "reintegrative shaming"
was first introduced by restorative justice theoretician John Braithwaite as a means of
distinguishing between shame that stigmatizes criminal offenders (and thus increases crime)
from shame that condemns wrongdoing but forgives and respects the offender, thus
hopefully reducing recidivism and decreasing crime. 5 [*301]

In criminal ADR or "restorative justice" circles, the beneficial effects of "reintegrative" shame
are meant to be accomplished by a "restorative justice conference" or "victim-offender
mediation" [hereinafter "VOMS"]. 6 These VOMs bring together victims and their loved ones;
offenders and their friends and family; and, caring members of the community for the
purpose of discussing the consequences of the crime and what can be done to set it right. 7
Guided by a restorative justice mediator, the parties are meant to engage in a process of
respectful dialogue, resulting in the expression of accountability, remorse and apology by
the offender; and, forgiveness by the victim leading to the participants' entry into a
restitution agreement. 8

Restorative justice theorists and practitioners assert that censuring the offender's criminal
behavior and its deleterious effect on the victim without stigmatizing him will engender
empathy for the victim and accountability in the offender, thus reducing recidivism. 9
Whether participation in a single VOM can accomplish such far-reaching goals has been the
subject of much debate in restorative justice circles. 10 This paper suggests that a thorough
understanding of the origins and effects of shame by restorative justice theorists and
practitioners - together with shame-reducing VOM practices and post-offender
shame-reduction "recovery" programs - are absolutely necessary if restorative justice is to
achieve its rehabilitative goals.