Program to revamp student justice

from the article by Libby Jelinek in The Vista:

University of San Diego (USD) alum Justine Darling, '08, has collaborated with Student Affairs to establish a one-year pilot restorative justice program on campus that has the potential to transform how students experience USD's student conduct system.

....The one-year pilot program will implement restorative justice conferencing and peace circles to find solutions for issues in the campus community. The restorative justice process focuses on three main goals: to empower, to educate and to build relationships. Throughout the program, students are involved and invested in the decision-making process. The most valuable aspect of restorative justice, according to Darling, is that students learn another way to handle conflict in their lives, such that bringing the offender and impacted parties together can develop what would otherwise be a negative relationship into a positive one.

Oct 31, 2011 Policy, School, Region: North America and Caribbean, Country:USA

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How victim rights became a juggernaut shaping spending, laws and the future of punishment

from the article by Alan Prendergast in Denver Westword:

Newly elected as a state representative, Pete Lee hit the Capitol last January fired up with big ideas. The biggest of them all was the restorative-justice bill he introduced shortly after the session began.

Oct 28, 2011 Support, Region: North America and Caribbean, Policy, Politics, Country:USA

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Prison Reform Trust poll finding: 88% support restorative justice after the riots

by Lizzie Nelson

In 1998 the British Crime Survey found that 41% of victims said they would agree to meet the offender, if this was offered to them, and 58% would accept reparation from the offender. In September this year, following the riots that took place across England in August 2011, an ICM poll, commissioned by the  Prison Reform Trust found that 88% of the public thought victims of crime should have the right to tell offenders the impact of their crime; 94% believe offenders should make amends by doing unpaid work in the community; and 71% believe the victim should have a say in how the offender should make amends for the harm they have caused.

Oct 17, 2011 Story, Country:England&Wales, Support, Correspondent:Lizzie Nelson, Region: Europe, Policy, Politics

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Child Justice Act undercut from within

from the article by Don Pinnock in the Mail & Guardian Online:

Even before it began the rocky climb through the parliamentary process, the Child Justice Bill was considered to be internationally path-breaking legislation. It was born in the euphoria of the early 1990s in a country where youth had been considered politically lethal, whipping was a sentence, imprisonment the standard response to wrongdoing and torture considered a legitimate interrogation method.

The new legislation sought to provide restorative justice by diverting child offenders from this punitive justice system and keeping them out of prisons, which simply hardened criminality. It devised ways to work with offenders and victims to restore harmony in the community where the crime took place. Punishment would be tailored to the crime and dealt in a way that maintained the self-respect of the offender as well as the approval of both community and victim.

Oct 07, 2011 Juvenile, Practice, Police, Guidelines, Country:South Africa, Policy, Region: Africa, Conceptual, Standards

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