Full Text Documents on RJ Online

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McElrea, FWM. The Intent of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989 -- Restorative Justice?

A paper presented at Auckland to the Youth Justice Conference of the New Zealand Youth Court Association (Auckland) Inc on 25 February 1994

McElrea, FWM. The New Zealand experience of restorative justice legislation

Paper presented at the 11th Annual Restorative Justice Conference Fresno Pacific University, California. 23-24 September 2005 and at the 5th Annual Conference of the Association for Conflict Resolution Minneapolis, Minnesota 30 September 2005.

McElrea, FWM. The New Zealand Model of Family Group Conferences

a paper prepared for the International Symposium “Beyond Prisons” Best Practices Along the Criminal Justice Process. March 15-18, 1998 Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

McElrea, FWM. The role of restorative justice in RMA prosecutions

Salmon Lecture, 2004 to the Resource Management Law Association.

Meli, Silvio. 2008. A Reappraisal of the Criminal Justice System: Restorative Justice A Way Forward.

Crime necessarily attracts a multi-dimensional response that naturally draws on a whole range of diverse disciplines, some of which are even apparently conflicting. However, if society’s reaction to this phenomenon is to be both relevant and to the benefit of all concerned, a proper philosophical orientation to punishment is essential. It is only in this way that all these varied responses may be reconciled and be properly focused upon thereby giving them due recognition. It is therefore deemed essential that before ascertaining what collective response civil society is to adopt in the face of this phenomenon, one has to previously determine what the true focus behind the penal system should really be i.e. whether it should myopically and simplistically focus only on the offender or, include and cater for other protagonists that may be involved. (excerpt)

Menzel, Kenneth. Circle Sentencing as a Shaming Sanction

At its heart, circle sentencing is a form of shaming. In the presence of the victim of her crime, her peers, and the community at large, an offender must own up to the wrongful conduct in which she engaged. By personally publicizing her criminal act, an offender can expect to feel markedly embarrassed, decidedly shaken, and wholeheartedly regretful. Thus, instilling shame upon the offender is a major purpose of circle sentencing. At the same time, however, the shame instilled upon the offender lasts no longer than the length of that particular circle sentencing episode. By virtue of the personalized nature of the sentence, the legitimacy of the sentence giver, and the atmosphere conducive to apology, the offender is reincorporated back into the community without any lingering badge of dishonor. Simply put, the shame placed upon the offender, while great, is also finite and is ultimately lifted in favor of community reintegration.

Mercer, Vincent and Julie Henniker. 2006. Can Restorative Justice Work with Adolescent Sex Offenders?

This PowerPoint presentation provides an overview of a programme using restorative practices with juvenile sex offenders.

Mika, Harry, et. al. Taking Victims and Their Advocates Seriously: A Listening Project

This report details the activities and outcomes of the Listening Project, a collaboration of professionals active in the victim community and the field of restorative justice.

Minister of Internal Affairs. Statutory Instrument. The Community Service Regulations

Statutory instrument regulating the use of community service orders in Uganda.

Ministry of Justice (New Zealand). (2011) Reoffending analysis for restorative justice cases: 2008 and 2009.

Restorative justice is a process for resolving crime that focuses on redressing the harm done to victims, while holding offenders to account. In the New Zealand criminal justice system, restorative justice is primarily delivered through a meeting between the victim and the offender called a restorative justice conference. Currently, the Ministry of Justice provides funding for about 1,500 conferences per year. The main objective of this study is to determine whether offenders who participated in restorative justice conferences in both 2008 and 2009 had a reduced rate of reoffending compared with a similar group of offenders who did not take part in restorative justice conferences. (excerpt)

Ministry of Justice (New Zealand). Reoffending analysis for restorative justice cases: 2008 and 2009 -- A summary.

This study found that offenders who participated in restorative justice conferences had a reduced rate of reoffending – those completing conferences in 2009 had a reoffending rate 20 percent lower than that of a similar group of offenders who did not receive restorative justice. (excerpt)

Moore, Conrad. Restorative Justice When the System is the Offender

Moore remarks on the successes of the restorative justice movement in effecting changes in the criminal justice system in the last two or three decades.

Morris, Allison. Revisiting reintegrative shaming

In this article, Morris looks again at John Braithwaite’s theory of reintegrative shaming.

Moss, Andrew. (2010) Specifying aims and limits for restorative justice models: A reply to von Hirsch, Asworth, and Shearing.

The purpose of this essay is to attempt to answer the question of how we ought to respond to criminal offenders whose guilt has been established. Restorative justice theorists have offered new and interesting answers to this question, but their work has been increasingly criticised. In their well-known critique, von Hirsch, Ashworth and Shearing argue that restorative justice models common in the literature: (1) posit several vaguely formulated goals without priority among them specified, (2) have underspecified means and modalities, (3) contain few or no dispositional criteria, and (4) lack adequate fairness constraints on severity of dispositions. In this essay I present a novel compositeaims restorative justice model and specify its aims and limits. The composite-aims model builds upon the work of other prominent restorative justice theorists to produce a model that withstands von Hirsch et al.’s critique and provides a desirable framework for responding to convicted offenders. (author's abstract)

Muhly, Ernest. Appropriate Approaches to Youthful Justice

In this document, Muhly explores restorative and transformative justice in relation to juvenile justice.

Nadeau, Jason. Critical analysis of the United Nations Declaration of Basic Principles on the Use of Restorative Justice Programs in Criminal Matters

In this study, Nadeau examines the United Nations Declaration of Basic Principles on the Use of Restorative Justice in Criminal Matters.

National Community Service Committee . Workshop Report for the National Community Service Programme

A workshop to review the National Community Service Project document covering the pilot phase was held on December 17-18, 2001 at the Jokas Hotel near Kampala.

National Community Service Committee. Community Service Programme: An Update National Community Service Committee.

This document provides an overview of the efforts to establish the use of community service orders in Uganda.

Nikolic-Ristanovic, Vesna and Sanja Copic. The position of victims in Serbia: criminal procedure and possibilities of restorative justice.

In the paper, the authors deal with the victim’s position in the criminal procedure, on the one hand side, and the possibilities of implementing restorative justice and its importance for the improvement of victim’s position in Serbia, on the other one. In the first part of the paper, the authors point out victim’s position within the criminal procedure and the noticed gaps, which are particularly reflected in insufficient paying attention to the victim and neglecting of his/her rights and needs. This is opposite to the strengthening of the rights of the accused party that characterizes societies, which are, as our society, on the way of democratization and improvement of human rights. In the second part of the paper, the authors analyze some solutions that introduce elements of restorative justice into our system of criminal response to crime, but from the victim’s point of view. Finally, the authors also point out some further steps that should be undertaken in order to improve the victim’s position, particularly emphasizing the place and role of victim support service, witness service and special facilities in the courts for victims/witnesses, possibilities of using victim-offender mediation before reporting the crime, or staring the prosecution, or as a part of the treatment in the prison etc.

Norman, Denise. 2007. Restorative Justice – Does it Restore Justice?

Denise Norman describes the impact of her cousins murder, her experience with the criminal justice system, and her participation in a conference with the two offenders. While finding the process helpful, she remains skeptical of the application of restorative processes and states that "it should only be used “in addition” to the maximum possible sentence. "