Shifting the Narrative

A young man goes to prison for possession an illegal substance. He remains behind bars for several years, where his marketable skills deteriorate, he learns about drug trafficking, and he leaves with a criminal record that hinders his prospects of a stable job. On his release, he turns to selling the drugs he once bought for himself. Is his community safer because he was imprisoned? 

It is questions like this these that Vikrant Reddy, a senior fellow at the Charles Koch Institute, wants policymakers and the public alike to ask themselves when they consider the effectiveness of the criminal justice system. 

“All of a sudden, you are looking at a society that is actually less safe than it was before you put the young man behind bars. So, you go back to step one and ask yourself: ‘Drugs should be taken seriously in a society, public policy should take them seriously, but does that necessarily mean treating that problem in the criminal justice system, or could it perhaps mean treating those kinds of problems through the public health system?’”

“Ask those kinds of questions and make it clear to the public and to policymakers that your end goal is to have a safe, thriving community… and I think you are going to find that you get a lot more traction.”

But how can reformers change people’s thinking? The answer is in shifting the narrative.

“It was really the voice of the people that mattered, so we reached out to them through ground consultations.”

– Sha Elijah Dumama-Alba

“It’s really important that people understand that they have different resources,” she explains. “Unfortunately, not a lot of people are aware.”

To tackle the problem, she organized a series of workshops alongside Shariah practitioners to help locals “understand the application of Shariah” and to reassure the public that women would still have rights under the traditional Islamic code. She would also point out that “non-Muslims have the choice of whether to submit to the jurisdiction of the Shariah courts.” 

Thus, rather than one single message or narrative being presented to the public, there were many, each tailored to the concerns of different stakeholders. Counter to public perceptions and central to the reformers’ communications was the fact that the proposed Shariah law focused on restorative justice and could therefore offer more liberal sentencing. The Shariah courts could only give less or equally punitive sentences than Philippine courts as the code would be constrained by the Philippine Constitution and national and international law.

That, she says, expanded the acceptance of the law.

“We made them understand that they are not forced and that the Shariah law that we wanted to implement was not punitive or had anything to do with ‘beheadings’ or ‘cutting off hands.’

“Because of that, they realized that there was an alternative to the regular courts and, alhamdulillah, they accepted that.”

To her surprise, the Supreme Court, previously “oblivious to the fact that Shariah is important to Muslims,” also joined the conversation. “They went to us and joined our activities,” she explains, adding that “It opened their eyes and… they were more open to policy changes in promoting Shariah as another mechanism for achieving justice.”

The law was subsequently ratified in a two-part plebiscite, on January 21 and February 6, 2019, with 88.57% of the votes and a turnout of 87.8%.

 “Take the time to build trust, the networks, and the communities. Rather than thinking about this as a pushing-out of information, but more thinking about this as a two-way communication channel.”  

– Sangita Shresthova

It is not only the politicians or the public’s opinion that needs to be shifted—public servants and others working within the system also need to recognize that it is in need of reforming. 

“I have seen, in my career, some countries where actually the first resistance came from the players inside the system, for example, the heads of penitentiary or prosecution offices,” says Kuuse. “And if the system is not aligned with the need to reform itself, then probably it will fail, whatever you do with the public.

“First, the commitment has to grow inside the criminal justice system and there, of course, it’s very helpful if you start with educational programs and introduction of different systems globally which function well and are very big, good examples of best practices.”

Kuuse, like Dumama-Alba, Shresthova, and Reddy is taking part in Salzburg Global Seminar’s Global Innovations on Youth Violence, Safety and Justice initiative—which seeks to capture and share examples of different global reforms that have been effective. 

After several months of workshops and discussions, the advice of the working group on public communication was compiled into a helpful “checklist”: 

1. Know your audience
2. Do not insist on moral purity; accept and encourage compromise
3. Work via local, community, and state engagement rather than national
4. Consider unusual coalitions
5. Vet your local partners carefully to ensure they represent and meet community need
6. Communicate with emotion over logic, though everything should be logically founded
7. Recognize that language matters
8. Seek out good and beware false messengers
9. Effective communication is bottom-up rather than top-down
10. Keep an open line to local media
11. Ensure your actions align with your words 

Following her extensive experience of leading the consultations in the Philippines, the newly appointed attorney general for Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Sha Elijah Dumama-Alba has a further piece of advice: 

“The best way to communicate is really to learn how to listen. It’s not always about what you want, but what do other people want? That’s empathetic listening for me. 

“If you have empathy, I think that’s how to best connect with people in terms of communication.”

And if you communicate well, your reform is more likely to succeed.