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The promise of restorative justice: New approaches for criminal justice and beyond
Reviewed by Martin Wright
It is becoming increasingly clear that the principles of restorative justice can be used, as the editors say, outside the formal criminal justice system, and this book bears witness to that. Half is about criminal justice, and half about other applications in schools and elsewhere. The contributors reflect the book’s origins among a group at Fresno Pacific University in California, but other chapters come from Bulgaria, Canada, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.
Jan 28, 2011 School, Victim, Book Review, Reform, Practice, Story, System, Correspondent:Martin Wright, National Reconciliation, Prison, Policy, Workplaces, Other
Restorative justice aims to reduce relapsing
from Elaine Attard's article in Malta Independent Online:
....The new Bill will see the creation of a new section within the Probation Services. Its functions would be to draw up a victims’ charter, approved by the ministry, to establish the criteria for mediators’ appointment and to promote mediation between the victims and offenders.
The minister described this move as an ambitious one towards empowering victims and to give them the attention they deserve in the restorative process. Mediation helps victims understand why offences were perpetrated while the offender can take the responsibility of his or her offence.
Jan 27, 2011 Practice, Government, Mediation, Legislation, Country:Malta
Youth justice report claims restorative justice would be more effective than courts
from Joe Lepper's post on Children & Young People Daily Bulletin:
The government is being urged to deal with the majority of young offenders in England and Wales through restorative justice conferences rather than the courts, in a report on youth justice hearings.
The report, called Time For A New Hearing, is based on an international comparison of how young offenders are dealt with and found that restorative justice conferences are more effective than courts in reducing reoffending.
Jan 20, 2011 Juvenile, Country:England&Wales, Practice, Region: Europe, Policy, Politics
The Virginia Center for Restorative Justice
from Sylvia Clute's post in Genuine Justice:
How does a community establish a restorative justice program? It happens at the local level when committed individuals decide to make it happen. Take the Virginia Center for Restorative Justice (VCRJ), for example, a nonprofit established late last year in Richmond, Virginia.
VCRJ was founded by its Executive Director, Judy Clarke, a woman whose commitment to restorative justice is grounded in her abiding faith in God and in the fundamental goodness of humanity. But this journey began for Judy many years ago when she visited the Richmond City Jail for a day with a group of business leaders who were charged with finding a solution to the jail’s problems.
Jan 19, 2011 Story, Support, Practice, Region: North America and Caribbean, Country:USA
We can write the stories of peace with our lives
from the Fambul Tok website:
Fambul Tok (Krio for “Family Talk”) emerged in Sierra Leone as a face-to-face community-owned program bringing together perpetrators and victims of the violence in Sierra Leone’s eleven-year civil war through ceremonies rooted in the local traditions of war-torn villages. It provides Sierra Leonean citizens with an opportunity to come to terms with what happened during the war, to talk, to heal, and to chart a new path forward, together.
Fambul Tok is built upon Sierra Leone’s “family talk” tradition of discussing and resolving issues within the security of a family circle. The program works at the village level to help communities organize ceremonies that include truth-telling bonfires and traditional cleansing ceremonies—practices that many communities have not employed since before the war. Through drawing on age-old traditions of confession, apology and forgiveness, Fambul Tok has revived Sierra Leoneans’ rightful pride in their culture.
Jan 14, 2011 Conference, Region: Africa, Practice, Country:Sierra Leone, National Reconciliation
Crossing the divide
from Howard Zehr's Restorative Justice Blog:
It has often been my experience that restorative justice can span the conservative-liberal divide. Concerns for victims and for reducing the costs of imprisonment are often common to both. The concept of offenders facing up to what they have done makes intuitive sense to many. Values such as responsibility, respect and relationship are often shared along the spectrum. What we mean by these values and ideas, however, and what motivates us to embrace them, are crucial issues.
The lessons to be gleaned from the movement against indeterminate sentencing in the U.S. are instructive. Eventually both progressives and conservatives came together to replace indeterminate sentences with determinate sentences motivated by a just deserts philosophy. The resulting lengthened mandatory sentences dramatically increased the prison population. While there was some confluence of policy positions, the underlying values and motivations of the various parties were quite different. The results have been in many ways catastrophic.
Jan 06, 2011 Limitations, Support, Practice, Design, Policy, Values
