Dan Van Ness

Dan Van Ness has been immersed in criminal justice issues for 30 years, as a lawyer, restorative justice advocate, and teacher. After six years’ poverty law practice on the West Side of Chicago, he worked with a national justice reform organization lobbying for changes in sentencing and victim rights issues. His interest in restorative justice began in 1982 when he met Howard Zehr and Mark Umbreit while promoting expansion of community corrections in Indiana. Dan has worked with Prison Fellowship International's Centre for Justice and Reconciliation since 1996. Dan was a primary architect of the United Nations of Basic Principles on the Use of Restorative Justice Programmes in Criminal Matters. He is the author of articles, papers, and several books on restorative justice, the most recent of which are Restoring Justice, 3rd edition (co-authored with Karen Heetderks Strong) and Handbook of Restorative Justice (co-edited with Gerry Johnstone).

Dan Van Ness: New Hampshire legislature adopts important new victim rights bills: The New Hampshire legislature has created a victim’s right to access to restorative justice programs, provided for compensation to victims of costs related to that participation, and ensured that these are not restricted to victims whose position on sentencing is the same as the prosecutors’.
Dan Van Ness: Do it now, the paradigm shift: In 1988 I worked for Justice Fellowship, the justice reform arm of Prison Fellowship in the US. At the time there were annual staff conferences and one of the events was a talent night. So those of us at JF decided that we would present a rap called The Paradigm Shift to help the entire PF staff understand this thing called restorative justice.
Dan Van Ness: Indigenous dispute resolution and restorative justice: It is common to link restorative justice and customary principles and traditional practices of justice. The argument is that the underlying beliefs of customary justice are that justice should repair harm and that the parties themselves should participate in deciding how that is done. These are principles shared by restorative justice. However, there is a dark side to this relationship.
Dan Van Ness: Restorative justice and the problem of minority over-representation: Over-representation of minorities in the criminal justice system is a problem around the world. It raises questions about the fairness of the justice system itself and of how larger social justice problems influence the justice system.

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