Real People, Real Stories

Stories of actual victims, offenders and community members who have participated in restorative processes help illustrate the benefits and limitations of restorative justice practices.

Restorative justice focuses on the victim

from the column by Linda Gryczan in the Independent Record: ....There is a growing number of restorative justice programs in Montana for adults and juveniles across reservations and other jurisdictions in Montana, including community youth justice, victim-offender dialogue and victim impact panels. In Lewis and Clark and Broadwater counties, certain first time offenders up to age 17, are offered an opportunity to instead of going before a judge, meet with the victim of their crime, his or her parents, community members and a trained facilitator. Victims are encouraged to describe the impact of the crime, offenders are held accountable, and the group decides how the offender will make amends.

Mass incarceration

from the transcript of Religion & Ethics: POTTER: More than two million Americans are now imprisoned, four times as many as 30 years ago. The major reason: mandatory sentencing for non-violent crimes and drug charges. But the war on drugs, declared in the 1980s, has not had the effect its backers predicted. Arkansas Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen has seen the results. JUDGE WENDELL GRIFFEN (Arkansas Circuit Court): Drug use has not declined. All it has done has produced an explosion on our prison population. The whole mandatory sentencing guideline mantra was sort of like the Kool-Aid that we should never have drunk.

Restorative justice approach to schoolboy assault

from the Nottinghamshire Police webpage: A new approach to resolving criminal matters has been used to deal with an assault on a Nottingham schoolboy. A 14-year-old pupil collapsed after he was assaulted in a classroom by a fellow schoolboy at the National Church of England Academy on 22 September 2011.

Women key in making peace

from the article by Yvette Moore: ...."The first thing that came to my mind was, ‘Wow, finally an acknowledgement that, first, we [women] are the ones that bare the greatest brunt of all of the world’s conflicts,’” Ms. [Lehmah] Gbowee said, sharing her initial reactions to the news she and two other women had received the [2011 Nobel Peace Prize].

Fearmonger and Through The Glass: Books that undermine Harper's omnibus crime bill

from the review by Matthew Behrens in rabble.ca: It's a rare event in the Canadian publishing world when non-fiction books line up in sync with current events, but these two titles are perfectly timed as Canadians consider the serious consequences of the Harper government's dramatic omnibus crime bill, one that will radically alter an already deteriorating judicial system. ....Those who'd like an inkling of what could come down the pipe can do no better than read Paula Mallea's appropriately named Fearmonger, an outstanding overview of recently passed and proposed crime legislation.

Case study: Theft

from the write-up on bettinajung: Theft of a teacher’s handbag at a local secondary school by a year 9 boy. Loss of £200.00 worth of belongings. Loss of trust amongst school staff. Anger of affected parties including father of wrong doer. Conference brought together: victim, victim’s husband, wrong doer, wrong doer’s father, Head of House/ Head of School, pastoral manager.

Restorative practice: How young can we go?

Streethouse Junior and Infants is a small community school situated within an exmining, rural village in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. The children who attend are from the surrounding area that is believed to have a high depravation level and a history of deep rooted problems with drug and alcohol abuse. The school caters for children from 3 years old up to 11 years old when they transfer to either of two local high schools. After practicing SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) for six years the staff and governors decided to adopt a whole school approach to restorative practice to enhance their existing school practices for behaviour management. [from the article]

Restorative practice: How young can we go?

from the article by Charlotte Clerehugh: ...Three boys (aged 5 and 6) admitted collecting rocks from the perimeter of the school field and throwing them through the fence at staff cars. The two members of staff, whose cars were damaged, were very angry. Initial discussions took place with them and myself, (as Head Teacher) as to how to deal with the problem. It was apparent that the feeling was that the boys needed to be made aware that their behaviour had consequences, and exclusion was mentioned several times. However, as a school that had been implementing restorative practices over the last 18 months, staff soon realised that to simply exclude, in this situation, would go against everything we believed in.

Givin' them kids all the power. What's next? No discipline, no obedience, no...fist fights.

from the blog entry by Savannah Iverson on Restorative Justice Colorado: What you're about to read in this blog article, is a little about how I have changed over the past year, after joining the Restorative Justice (RJ) student team. I joined the team the summer before freshman year.First though, let me give a brief description of the Longmont High School RJ Team. We are a team of roughly 20 student facilitators that practice Restorative Justice in 3 schools in the SVVSD. It’s a program run by student facilitators for students in conflict.

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.

Mum takes family crime fight into jails

From the article by Jane Hammond in the West Australia: The mother of a 15-year-old schoolgirl murdered by a teenage love rival has called for compassion for prisoners and their families. In an emotional address to an ecumenical service in St Mary's Cathedral for Anti-Poverty Week, Karen Lang described how the brutal murder of her only daughter devastated the close-knit family.

Walla Walla prison restorative dialogue

From the article by Lorenn Walker on the Restorative Practices Blog: Colleen Shapel’s husband Bob, who was also her best friend for most of her life, was senselessly murdered in a February 2004 robbery. Melissa, Colleen’s oldest daughter, and William Schorr, a co-defendant who plead guilty to the murder, also participated in the restorative dialogue (another defendant who was determined to be most responsible for the murder refused to participate). After I was first contacted, and until the dialogue was finally conducted six months later in July, I spoke on the phone with Colleen, Melissa and William frequently. I met Colleen and Melissa in person several times a few days, and William a few hours, before the dialogue. I felt my job was to mainly listen to their pain, and simply be present with them in their suffering.

The meeting: Jo's story - Surviving rape

From the Restorative Justice Council's website: In 2004 I was raped by a boy I knew. For weeks afterwards I was in a daze trying to cope with what had happened not only to me, but also to my family. He didn’t plead guilty to the rape to start with, so I had the extra worry of the trial, but that changed once he was presented with the DNA evidence. The first time I faced him was in Court when he received a life sentence. Almost a year later I had a visit from the probation Victim Liaison Officer and she mentioned the possibility of restorative justice - of a meeting with Darren. From that time on it was always at the back of my mind. I knew as soon as she said it that I wanted to meet him because this was about me taking control of the situation, re-balancing what he had taken away from me that day. The judge had said to Darren in Court ‘you have destroyed this woman’s life’ – but that wasn’t what I wanted, and that wasn’t how I saw it.

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 (www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk<http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk>) 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.

Mother cares for her son’s Amish victims

from Daniel Burke's article in the Washington Post: ....Three months after the shooting, Chuck and Terri Roberts began visiting the victims and their families. Terri invited the surviving girls and their mothers to picnics and tea parties at her home. At one tea, Terri asked the mothers to sit in a circle and share the highest and lowest points of their lives. She yearned to connect with Mary Liz King, the mother of a paralyzed girl named Rosanna. King explained how her trials were different than the rest of the victims. Their daughters had died or healed, whereas Rosanna, unable to move most of her body, requires constant care.

Restorative justice and violent crime

from the article by Melanie G. Snyder: Over a period of six months, Marie and another mediator met with Jenny regularly, to help her prepare to meet with Dave face to face. They asked her what had made her decide she wanted to meet with Dave, and what her expectations were for a face to face meeting. They helped her to think through what questions she might want to ask Dave, and what things she wanted to say to him. They discussed Dave’s possible reactions and asked Jenny how it might feel to see him, and to listen to things he might want to say.

A little girl's memories stir questions about good and evil: Terror in a small town

from Wayne Drash's fourpart article on CNN.com: ....I first met Rebecca a year ago, after writing a story about a man who survived his family's massacre. She told me she had a similar tale to share. It began with death threats over the phone, she said, then letters and drive-by shootings. The church and parsonage were bombed -- 10 times to be precise. The terror stretched on for more than six years. Neither local nor state nor federal lawmen were able to stop the assaults. It ended in the parsonage, three days before Easter in 1978, as the family sat down to dinner.

Restorative justice in the community

from Melanie G. Snyder's blog entry: Michael was 16. He was an angry kid. He spent most of his days just “hanging out” around the neighborhood. One day, Michael was “hanging out” in a small Lancaster grocery store. While he was in the store, Michael pulled a cigarette lighter out of his pocket, lit the corners of a few boxes on the shelves and watched as the flames spread. Then he ran away. The fire caused $1500 worth of damage. Michael got caught, and he was sent to juvenile court. If we think about how the traditional criminal justice system would have most likely handled this, Michael would probably have been charged with arson (a felony), possibly charged as an adult, and likely would have been sent to juvenile detention or jail for some period of time. After coming out of detention or jail, having a felony record would have affected the rest of Michael’s life in numerous ways.

Iranian woman blinded by acid attack pardons assailant as he faces same fate

from the article by Saeed Kamali Dehghan in The Guiardian: A woman blinded with acid in Iran has pardoned her attacker, a man who was scheduled to lose his sight in an eye for an eye punishment on Sunday. Majid Movahedi, 30, had been taken to Tehran's judiciary hospital to be blinded with acid after being rendered unconscious, but Ameneh Bahrami, his victim, spared him at the last minute, Iran's semi-official Isna news agency reported. Iran's judiciary had given the green light to the administration for the retributive punishment, which would have been the first blinding of a convict in the country, but human rights groups across the world called on Bahrami, who had asked for eye for an eye justice in the court, to pardon him.

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.