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Groh, Arlene. A Healing Approach to Elder Abuse and Mistreatment: The Restorative Approaches to Elder Abuse Project.

Elder abuse is often referred to as a hidden crime, writes Arlene Groh. This fact led to the development of the Restorative Justice Approaches to Elder Abuse Project in the Waterloo region of Ontario. The aim of the project is to seek a healing, safe approach to elder abuse. This document covers key elements in the development, operation, and evaluation of that project. Contents of the manual include the following: the project mission; the nature, causes, and prevalence of elder abuse; restorative justice and elder abuse; project development; integration of restorative justice into the project's approach to elder abuse; the case process; project evaluation; the future of the project; and appendices relevant to the operation of the elder abuse project.

Editor. Support People Can Be Crucial

It is commonly understood and accepted that, in justice processes, victims of crime will bring along people for support. After all, victims have been harmed by crime. It is less understood, remarks Cathy Brown, restorative justice coordinator for Dunedin District Court (New Zealand), why it is important for offenders to have people alongside them for support. Brown and other restorative justice coordinators in New Zealand courts, speaking from their experience, explain why this is important. They also discuss what people should know prior to and while offering support to an offender. To make the issue of support for offenders concrete, this article profiles two cases where support people played a critical and positive role for youth offenders.

Toews, Barb and Katounas, Jackie. Have Offender Needs and Perspectives Been Adequately Incorporated into Restorative Justice?

From two quite different life experiences, Barb Toews and Jackie Katounas collaborate in this chapter on the question of the adequacy of restorative justice to address offender needs and perspectives. Barb Toews has long worked as a mediator between victims and offenders in the juvenile sphere; more recently she has begun restorative justice work in prison in Pennsylvania. Jackie Katounas had long been involved in criminal activity, yet in recent years she has turned from that and begun to seek a more constructive life, including in at least one instance making amends for an act of wrongdoing. From her experience, she gained first-hand knowledge that restorative justice can work, and she is now a restorative justice project manager for Prison Fellowship New Zealand. With all of this in mind, they sketch ways in which restorative justice can better incorporate offender needs and perspectives into its aims and processes.

Dyck, David. Are We-Practitioners, Advocates- Practicing What We Preach?

For people and organizations committed to restorative justice ideas and processes, is restorative justice what they believe in and practice when dealing with clients (e.g., victims, offenders, and others in circumstances of conflict), or is it what they also believe in and practice when developing and delivering programs, and operating in general? Put another way, is restorative justice how they operate externally, or is it also how they operate internally? This is the question of practicing what is preached. David Dyck refers to this as xe2x80x9ccongruency,xe2x80x9d and it is the issue of congruency that he discusses in this chapter. He starts from the position that the question of congruency implies that the answers matter xe2x80x93 that restorative justice advocates and practitioners have an obligation to live out restorative justice values in the pursuit of program development and delivery, and in response to conflict within their organization and their personal life. As he further states, the effectiveness, credibility, and promise of the field depend, at least in part, on the ability of advocates and practitioners to be living examples of the principles they espouse.

Raye, Barbara. How Do Culture, Class and Gender Affect the Practice of Restorative Justice? (Part 2)

Barbara Raye observes that in the United States people of color -- especially African Americans and Native Americans -- are disproportionately arrested, charged, convicted, and incarcerated. At the same time, the number of people of color working in the field, leading criminal justice services agencies, or receiving services is under-represented. In this context, Raye further asserts that the values and practices designated as "restorative justice" by "religious, peace-driven, middle class and educated white men of the early 1960s" are actually rooted deeply in indigenous and feminine experiences and contexts. Her fundamental point is that biases of gender, race, and class affect indigenous and feminine sub-cultures within the larger Western worldview. Therefore, to address these biases with respect to indigenous people and women in restorative justice, three areas need attention: (1) selection and recruitment of facilitators; (2) referral of cases; and (3) practitioners' understanding of crime and effects of crime.

McNeice, Julie A. Bridging Restorative Justice and Crime Prevention through Social Development

My Master of Arts Leadership and Training degree major project report investigates the opportunity to improve linkages between restorative justice and crime prevention through social development by defining them and exploring their inter-relationships. Study results will help bridge the information gap between the two social development approaches. This may lead to the real possibility of permanent positive change to improve social cohesion within my community of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories (NT) in Canada. Sponsorship of this study is provided by the Northern Director of the National Crime Prevention Centre of Canada in hopes of enabling a seamless, integrated approach to crime prevention through social development, restorative justice initiatives, and aboriginal justice strategies that arise from native self-governance. The research component of this study involves numerous individual interviews (8) and two focus group sessions. Author's abstract.

Moxon, Jude and Smith, Samantha. A Pyramid of Restorative Practices: The Massey High School Model

For the past two years Massey High School has been incorporating restorative practices, where appropriate, in response to wrong doing at all levels across the school. These processes have been applied to a wide variety of harming events ranging from ongoing classroom disruption to incidents of serious physical, social and/or emotional harm. This innovative approach allows for the community of people involved to come together to explore the harm and restore relationships. Those affected have a more active involvement in the justice process and those responsible are more accountable to the people they have harmed, thus restoring emotional as well as material losses of victims. (excerpt)

Bender, Valerie R. Victim/Community Awarness: An Orientation for Juveniles

The curriculum is designed for a group with a maximum of 15 offenders, and the 3 sessions of the curriculum encompass 3 to 4 hours. The first session is an introductory session that involves welcoming participants and group introduction, the administering of a pretest, the presentation of a group contract for behavior within the group, and an overview of balanced and restorative justice. The second session focuses on the impact of crime. In this session, group participants engage in role-playing as a crime victim or someone in the community who must deal with the aftermath of a crime described by the group facilitator. Each group member is assigned a role to play that involves thought about the kinds of feelings the character might have. The third session builds upon the second session by having each group member describe in detail the offense he/she committed, followed by a description of how his/her offense affected the victim and community. Group members may ask questions and provide feedback regarding the impact of each member's offense. Part of this session is having group members compose an apology letter to their victims and to the community. Materials for each session are provided, along with guidance for the facilitator. A section on information and resources includes a victim/community awareness completion report, a victim impact statement, guidelines for assessing offender accountability, suggested readings, and descriptions of victim-awareness video clips. Abstract courtesy of National Criminal Justice Reference Service, www.ncjrs.org.

Ouellette, Melissa. Who Owns Restorative Justice? Exploratory Interviews with Restorative Justice Practitioners

Restorative justice challenges the notion that the effects of crime can only be resolved by professionals, and represents a shift in power away from state control to community control of justice issues. As a different way of doing justice vying for a place in relation to the mainstream justice system, tensions exist between theory and practice. Face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with people who occupy various roles in the field of restorative justice in the Lower Mainland explored how different actors see the tensions being addressed, exacerbated and/or resolved. The sources of tension included questions regarding (1) what is classified as restorative justice and if standards should be adopted; (2) who gets to provide restorative services; (3) which service providers get to take which types of cases and at what stage in the justice process, and (4) the lack of adequate, stable sources of funding for restorative justice programs. Author's abstract.

Spies, Chris.. A Safe Space: How Local Leaders Can make Room for Reconciliation

Spies explores the meanings of reconciliation for a community and the reasoning for ongoing conflicts. Using a survey, Spies and a local team gathered the peoplexe2x80x99s ideas and definitions of reconciliation. The main argument was that a safe place for open and honest discussion was needed to foster reconciliation. The ongoing conflicts in the community were linked to misunderstandings about history, place, and motives.