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City programs honored during excellence awards' 20th anniversary
from the press release by Cherie Duvall Jones:
The Awards for Municipal Excellence will be celebrating 20 years of success as it honors eight innovative city programs during [the National League of City's] Congress of Cities and Exposition, this week in San Antonio.
“These eight Awards for Municipal Excellence cities have improved the quality of life for their citizens by developing creative solutions to pressing local problems,” said Donald J. Borut, NLC executive director. “I congratulate them for establishing model programs that can serve as positive examples for other cities.”
Nov 23, 2009 Practice, Police, Community, Government
"I'm a dominating bully"
from Alan J. Borsuk's entry on the Marquette University Law School faculty blog:
Three students from Milwaukee’s Custer High School, two girls and a boy, didn’t offer research evidence or a PowerPoint presentation. They just described incidents they have been involved in as bullies and as victims, gave their thoughts on why students act the way they do — and held the rapt attention of the audience.
All three are part of the Violence Free Zone project at Custer, run by Running Rebels, a local organization that aims to direct teens away from violent behavior.
Perspective: Compassion can change the world
from Jody Tiller Mackey's article in The News Tribune:
One night, a few boys with baseball bats and an unthinking need for excitement cruised their small-town Vermont neighborhood smashing mailboxes. An elderly woman arose the next day, the first anniversary of her husband’s death, to find the mailbox, his very last woodworking project, smashed in her front yard. Emotionally distraught, she didn’t know what to think. Had she been targeted; was something like this going to happen again? In our traditional justice system she might never get to find out the answer to those questions.
Nov 20, 2009 Story
RJ Online Library
One of the main attractions on Restorative Justice Online is the research database with over 9600 citations of restorative justice publications ranging from academic publications to practice manuals to research reports to policy documents, etc.
Below is a list of items added to the database during the past week.
Community justice: Not to you or for you, but with you
by Christa Pierpont. This is a selection of an article from a special online complement to the Summer 2008 issue of ACResolution, Vol 7, Issue 4. The Association for Conflict Resolution has given permission for it to be used on RJOnline. The complete article is attached.
....The “magic” of restorative practices comes from a principled belief that when there is a breach in relationships, people can re-story their lives (often in gifted ways), given an active and supported responsibility to do so. It is clear from the research report, Restorative Justice: The Evidence, (Lawrence W. Sherman and Heather Strang, Smith Institute, 2007) that individuals can transcend large and small wrongs in a highly satisfactory way with improved long-term consequences when restorative practices are used. Our next question was: Could this opportunity be expanded from individuals to a wider sense of cultural harms?
In particular, could restorative processes begin to address underlying racial anger and fears in our region without exacerbating negative economic realities? These questions grew out of dynamics we were discovering as we explored the history of public school education in Virginia. When the RCF studied school disciplinary statistics for public schools, we found a significantly higher rate of disciplinary action for low-income and minority youth. Efforts are now being made to reduce out-of-classroom placements and to transition to more restorative disciplinary practices, but it will take decades and funding to re-build skills for individuals who have given up on the public school system.
Nov 19, 2009 Minority, Apology, Offender, Guidelines, Community, Policy, Case:Poverty
The odds are against ex-offenders
from Bill King's article in the Houston Chronicle:
I had been told that he was a Baptist preacher and had worked as a prison chaplain in the Texas Department of Corrections for more than 30 years. When he walked into the restaurant to meet me for lunch he fit the stereotype one might expect. Wavy hair combed straight back, a western-style jacket and boots. When lunch was served he asked that we bless our food.
But as soon as he began to talk about the plight of prisoners and ex-offenders any preconceived stereotypes quickly shattered. For the next hour he spoke quietly but passionately about the desperate circumstances of individuals who had been released from prison, the inhumanity of the prison system, the apathy and cruelty of society and misguided public policies.
Whose side are you on?
by Lisa Rea
Many thoughts run through my mind when I consider the work I have done over many years in the restorative justice field. I often say when I am speaking publicly on the subject that my understanding of it and how I speak about it has changed since the early ‘90s. I think of some seminal moments that have had an effect on my thinking about justice and justice reform. I've been lucky enough to have a diverse set of experiences in this field. Perhaps, it's because I'm drawn to a deeper understanding of the work. I think that is true for many in this field. My experience has not been one-sided. That is I have worked on "both sides of the aisle," if you will, working on issues from the victim's side but also from the offender’s side as well.
Nov 18, 2009 Correspondent:Lisa Rea
How does healing happen?
from Mark, Andy and Frank's entry on Triptykos:
Colleague Frank Rogers will then give a presentation on “Restorative Justice.” In this presentation Frank will talk about the “Victim’s Journey” and the nature of forgiveness. One of the things that is so helpful in this presenation is something called ”The Misconceptions of Forgiveness.” Here’s the ten common misconceptions:
Nov 18, 2009 Policy, Forgiveness
Restorative justice: From principles to practice
from Michael Simmonds' entry on Island Pacific School's blog:
Restorative justice is not only a practice it’s a philosophy. A school is working within a restorative justice framework when the primary focus is on relationship building: student-to-student; adult-to-student; and adult-to-adult. A whole school model of restorative justice promotes a continuum of practices that are used like tools for different situations. Although restorative justice practices take different forms like, for example, mini-conferences, peer mediation, and talking circles they are similar insomuch as they use restorative communication as the norm. These include: (1) speaking calmly, (2) speaking respectfully, (3) using simple, straightforward language, (4) being sensitive to cultural differences, and (5) using the language of restoration with everyone.
Stop bullying now
from Dean Henk's entry on the Marquette Educator:
Attending the Law School’s conference on bullying yesterday took me back vividly to the one and only time I was bullied. It only lasted about 24 hours, but it made such an impact on me that I’ll remember it always.
When I was in sixth grade, our class bully threatened to kill me because I beat him out for the basketball team. I was traumatized, because he had flunked two times and was physically superior to everyone in my class.
