Restorative justice & restorative mediation

from Julie Speer's blog entry:

This past year I’ve had the good fortune of telling several stories related to restorative justice and restorative mediation. Colorado is leading the way with RJ (Restorative Justice), and has gotten a large grant from the Department of Justice to look at how using RJ can decrease the costs to the system. When offenders go through an RJ process, their rate of recidivism is astonishingly low!

Feb 23, 2011 Story, Case:DWI, Case:Violence, Case:Sexual, Case:Homicide

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The national empathy divide

from Robert Koehler's entry on Huffington Post:

The movement known as restorative, or transformative, justice, which is slowly taking root and making a difference across the country and around the world, challenges the notion that our basic response to crime should be punishment rather than healing. And healing means restoring a broken system to wholeness, which addresses and honors the complexity of who we are and how we are connected. It includes all of us. The aggrieved and victimized only become empowered when they are able to connect with the ones who have caused them harm.

Furthermore, any criminal act, especially an act of violence, produces consequences, and damages relationships, that radiate in all directions. Only if all who are affected sit down in relationship to one another, a process that is by no means easy or simple, and may well take an enormously long time, can healing occur. Such healing, which means the strengthening of social ties, is the true meaning of peace.

Feb 02, 2011 Case:Homicide, Case:Violence

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