White Collar Crime

Restorative justice and white collar crime victims and perpetrators.

Rena captain to residents: 'Sorry'

from the article by Kiri Gillespie in the Bay of Plenty Times: Rena's captain and navigational officer have visited Motiti Island to apologise to residents for grounding the cargo ship on Astrolabe Reef. When Rena grounded on October 5 last year, Motiti Island was transformed from a pristine green paradise to an oil-soaked mess. Residents were shocked, saddened and angry.

The three different levels of Restorative Justice

From the article by the Sentinel: Level One is for minor offences or non-criminal incidents like anti-social behaviour, which can be dealt with immediately by the officer at the scene. All Staffordshire officers are being trained in this area.

Who are you? Karen Lang

from Alicia Hanson's article on abc.net.au: "Imagine you are shopping at Garden City - you are trying to find an appropriate jumper for your daughter. It has to have a high neck. Something that will compliment her blonde hair and fair skin. You know she would want to look her best. Finally you find a soft mauve high neck jumper, you know it will look beautiful on her. You clutch your purchase and contain yourself till you reach your car - where you break into sobs. The jumper is for your daughter to wear in the casket - there will be a viewing and the high neck is to cover her wounds. You will never shop at Garden City again without thinking of her. Imagine." - Karen Lang

Chickens and chats form basis of new prison life

from the entry on This is Corwall: ...."It may sound gimmicky, because this is supposed to be a prison and a place of punishment, but the people I'm charged with looking after are some of the most troubled and troublesome members of society," he said. "Their individual backgrounds are horrendous in terms of not having a father figure, and a lack of education and the opportunities that you and I experienced." Through treating prisoners with "decency" and giving back a sense of respect, staff are already seeing a drop in incidents of bullying and drug abuse. A large number of prisoners have volunteered to sign up to a scheme to donate a small weekly sum to the Victim Support Service.

Meeting the murderer: Profile of victim-offender dialogue facilitator

from the entry on Grits for Breakfast: See an interesting article from the Christian Science Monitor about a boat builder from Maine who runs a non-profit facilitating victim-offender dialogue (VOD) between violent criminals and their victims or their families, which is an idea derived from "restorative justice" models.

Select committee urged to avoid courtroom 'Oprahfication'

from the article on Voxy.co.nz: Rethinking Crime and Punishment agrees that victims should be able to provide information to the court about the effects of offending; and the harm they have suffered. However, it does not believe that the presentation of a victim impact statement in the Court, was the best way to achieve it.

5 amazing things I've heard during the Sycamore Tree Project(R)

by Martin Howard: At first, it sounds like a bizarre social experiment - natural enemies placed together inside a prison to see if they can get along. Men convicted of violent crimes alongside victims of violent crime. Even though the concept has been proven in over 25 countries, people still find it hard to comprehend the Sycamore Tree Project (STP). And it took a long time to convince the prison authorities in Queensland to allow it.

Restorative justice provides new path for prisoners

from the article by Jesse Bishop in the Misourian: ....This is no television prison. There is no guard or glass wall. There are no handcuffs or restraints, just a couple of cameras and a conversation. A conversation about where they came from, why they’re here, but most importantly a conversation about where they’re going. It’s a path with few options. “On the other side of that door, it’s either hell or redemption,” Baumgardner says. “You choose.” “That door” leads to the bowels of Jefferson City Correctional Center, a maximum security prison. Starr, Baumgardner and King have all chosen the latter path. Hell is what got them here. Restorative Justice offers them a chance to change that.

My experience with the Sycamore Tree Project(sm)

from the article by a British prison chaplain: I’ve been facilitating the Sycamore Tree courses in my prison now for about eighteen months. Sycamore Tree is the Restorative Justice programme run by Prison Fellowship (http://www.pfi.org/). It is a six week course which runs one afternoon a week. Over such time you would not expect very much to happen. How can you change a person’s outlook on their life in six short afternoons?

My Experience with the Sycamore Tree Project

from the article by a British prison chaplain: I’ve been facilitating the Sycamore Tree courses in my prison now for about eighteen months. Sycamore Tree is the Restorative Justice programme run by Prison Fellowship (http://www.pfi.org/). It is a six week course which runs one afternoon a week. Over such time you would not expect very much to happen. How can you change a person’s outlook on their life in six short afternoons?

Online Certificate in Restorative Justice course offered at Simon Fraser University

from SFU's Management and Professional Programs: Restorative justice takes a community-minded approach to conflict resolution. Simon Fraser University’s part-time, one-year Certificate in Restorative Justice, offered entirely online, will give you the knowledge and skills you need to resolve conflict in a way that promotes healing and restoration rather than punishment. To find out more about this three-course certificate and download an application form, please visit us at www.sfu.ca/justice or contact us at 778-782-8000 or csreg@sfu.ca.

Letting victims define justice

from the article by Steve Sullivan for Restorative Justice Week 2011: ....There is a growing myth that for victims, justice requires tougher penalties. If only it was that simple. There is no evidence that punishment is as important to the majority of victims as some would have us believe. When asked in one study why they reported the crime, sexual assault victims listed punishment of the offender very low on their list of priorities.

Apology letters

by Lynette Parker As I was browsing through Twitter feeds I saw a comment about an offensive apology letter. Of course I clicked the link to read the letter. I had to agree with Victim Support UK; the letter was offensive and disrespectful. I also agreed with the Twitter comment from Why Me?, “The problem with That Letter is there was no preparation first.”

Restorative practices in Hungary: An ex-prisoner is reintegrated into the community

from the article by Vidia Negrea: As the representative of Community Service Foundation of Hungary, the Hungarian affiliate of the International Institute for Restorative Practices (IIRP), I participated in a group session of the Hungarian Crime Prevention and Prison Mission Foundation in summer 2009 (Sycamore Tree Project — www.pfi.org/cjr/stp/introduction — or Zacchaeus Program in Hungary). There I met the governor of Balassagyarmat prison, where inmates were working in groups on issues related to their crimes and exploring ways to repair relationships they had damaged. Some inmates began accepting responsibility for what they had done and were motivated to make things right and earn forgiveness of victims and their families. Prisoners made symbolic reparation in the form of community service within the prison, but there was still a lot to do to create opportunities for offenders to make contact with victims and shed the stigma of their offense by means of direct reparation. Also, prison management believed it important to support processes, acceptable to victimized families and communities, to help prisoners regain control of their lives and prevent reoffending.

Restoring justice

from the vodeo by Marilyn Armour: Jason Shippy (student): I think the biggest surprise that I learned is that victims of crimes actually want to talk about the offense and actually kind of get a little upset that even people who are fairly close to them just pretend like the crime never happened or that the person who was murdered never existed.

The offer of restorative justice to victims of violent crime: Should it be protective or proactive?

from the study by Jo_Anne Wemmers and Tinneke Van Camp: The victims in our sample suggest generalizing the offer of restorative justice to all victims. Themselves victims of very serious crimes, they experienced the beneficial impact of participation in a restorative intervention. However, while they believe that all victims should be informed about restorative opportunities, they emphasize that victims have to feel ready to participate in such programs.

Coming face to face with emotion behind office conflict

from the article by Kelly Burke in The Sydney Morning Herald: ''Then I was amazed by what I saw. Unlike mediation, restorative justice depends on the release of emotion, and most workplaces are terrified of emotion. There is an assumption that if emotion is displayed, nothing is going to be solved … But here anger and frustration were being openly expressed. There were high levels of emotion and conflict, and that of course is the bread and butter of the dramatist.'' Today, McDonald is the managing director of the multi-national company ProActive ReSolutions, using the techniques he first developed while working as an adviser on youth crime to the police commissioner John Avery in the 1980s.

The limits of empathy

from David Brooks' column in the New York Times: ....Empathy orients you toward moral action, but it doesn’t seem to help much when that action comes at a personal cost. You may feel a pang for the homeless guy on the other side of the street, but the odds are that you are not going to cross the street to give him a dollar. There have been piles of studies investigating the link between empathy and moral action. Different scholars come to different conclusions, but, in a recent paper, Jesse Prinz, a philosopher at City University of New York, summarized the research this way: “These studies suggest that empathy is not a major player when it comes to moral motivation. Its contribution is negligible in children, modest in adults, and nonexistent when costs are significant.” Other scholars have called empathy a “fragile flower,” easily crushed by self-concern.

NPR: Victims confront offenders, face to face

from Laura Sullivan's interview with Sujatha Baliga on Talk of the Nation: BALIGA: Yes. And I said there's no chance. You know, this is not a case for restorative justice. The system is not amenable, particularly in your state. And I can't tell too many details, because we're still finishing things up with that case right now. It's not quite a done deal yet. But we're close. And the mother of this young man was so persistent and told me that she had actually been meeting with the girl's parents. She and her husband were meeting with the girl's parents, and that the girl's parents actually were the one interested in restorative justice. And she said, Can I give them your information? I said I'd be happy to talk to them and tell you the same thing I'm telling you, which is that this is not happening. (SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

Listening to crime victims: North Carolina restorative justice conference

by Lisa Rea When crime victims speak about the effect violent crime has had on their lives you have to listen. On June 9th I moderated a crime victims roundtable during the 3rd Annual Restorative Justice Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina coordinated this year by Campbell University Law School. The roundtable called "Listening to Crime Victims: Their Journeys Toward Healing" was sponsored by the Journey of Hope: From Violence to Healing. The four victims of violence who told their stories were Bill Pelke, chair, Journey of Hope: From Violence to Healing (Alaska), Stephen Watt, Stephen Watt Ministries (Wyoming) , Bess Klassen-Landis, musician and teacher (Vermont), and Kim Book, executive director, Victims Voices Heard (Delaware). No matter how many crime victims panels I have moderated the stories are always riveting and often what I hear the victims say is new even when I am familiar with the stories. I learn something new as the victims move along in their lives---their own personal journeys.