RECOVER

Restitution Equals Compensation of Victims’ Economic Rights In 1985, Michigan passed the first in a series of laws that provided greater rights for the victims of crime. These laws require defendants, who injure another person, or their property, pay restitution to the victim. In other words, a person convicted of a crime must pay to replace what was stolen or broken.

Judges who were given the responsibility for ordering restitution soon found a very serious problem. They could order defendants to pay, but many victims still received nothing. In some cases, the offenders wished to make restitution, but were unable, as they were unemployed or were employed at a meager wage. Judges could not punish a defendant for being poor. There were also defendants who did not want to pay restitution and claim poverty to avoid doing so. Courts already overburden with too many cases were not always able to sort the poor from the unwilling. Judges simply did not have the necessary tools to enforce their restitution orders.

It is those who are poor that need restitution the most. Victims with insurance or investments are better equipped to deal with the personal economic impact of crime. It is the victim who can not fully insure their only automobile if it is damaged or destroyed and as a result will have no car to get to work. It may be their home or the things within the home which were damaged with no way to replace or repair the losses. Thus, for poor victims, this lack of recompense can be a particularly serious problem.

In response, a partnership of the 52/1 District Court, the 52/3 District Court, the 51st District Court, the 50th District Court, the 46th District Court, Oakland County Community Corrections, and Joel Boyd Construction Company came together to create a pilot program to address this complex problem. Using the ground breaking PAY UP program created by Judge Robert M. Evans, of Florida’s Ninth Circuit Court, as a model, the program called RECOVER was created.

It works like this. Each defendant who is convicted of a crime that is covered by crime victim’s compensation act will be given sixty days to reimburse the victim. This payment will be made either directly to the victim or to a specially designated RECOVER account to insure that a permanent record of these monies is maintained. A new non profit corporation is being created to oversee the account and to ensure that these monies are given to the injured party. This corporation’s board has representatives from such victim’s groups as Parent’s of Murder Children, MADD, and Ashleigh’s Dream.org, along with other interested citizens. Each of the board members has agreed to serve without compensation. They will also work with the business community to find businesses interested in participating.

The judge presiding over the case will also ensure that payment is then sent to the victim. At the time of the order a defendant may request a payment plan. If the judge decides the defendant qualifies, based upon a lack of income, a payment schedule will be given to the defendant. Those payments will be made to the same RECOVER account and the monies will be sent on to the victim. The defendant who fails to pay within the sixty-day period, or who fails to keep up with their payments, will be ordered into a RECOVER work crew.

Work crews will be assigned to sites managed by the participating business. There, under the supervision of staff from one of the participating courts or Oakland County Community Corrections defendants will perform manual labor. Court or community corrections staff will ensure the defendant arrive in a timely manner and stay until the work assigned to them by the companies’ management personal is completed. This does not mean that they will not supervise the actual work that will be done by a representative of the business. As individual crews perform the work, an accounting of their hours will be sent to the participating business. The company will then donate the monies to the RECOVER account for each hour worked by each defendant. The money donated to this account will then be used to repay crime victims for their losses. Part of the money collected then will be used to defray program costs and to enhance court services to the community.

Restitution is an important aspect of restorative justice, and is a critical response of the justice system to the community. Offenders who participate in RECOVER will be able to work off their payment obligations while providing service to the community.