Brasil

Provides a listing of articles on restorative justice developments in Brasil. Articles appear in the order in which they were added to the site with the most recent appearing first.

The fight room

from the article by Elaine Shpungin and Dominic Barter in Tikkun: Today we continue to struggle with other epidemics, such as the widespread persistence of interpersonal violence, structural violence, and violence based in inter-racial and inter-ethnic tensions. Not only is the cost great in terms of lost lives and personal trauma, but considerable resources are also spent on attempts to subdue, redirect, and control the violence. Yet, as in nineteenth-century London, we may continue to make little progress in treating this disease until we are willing to honestly re-examine our deeply held beliefs about its origins.

Six Brazilian states are using the restorative juvenile justice of Terre des hommes

from the article on AlertNet: In September 2011, representatives of the legal authorities, public prosecutors, lawyers, non-governmental organisations, adolescents and families from six states in Brazil came together, all in agreement on the fact that restorative juvenile justice should be implemented in the current law system.

Six Brazilian states are using the restorative juvenile justice of Terre des hommes

from the article on AlertNet: In September 2011, representatives of the legal authorities, public prosecutors, lawyers, non-governmental organisations, adolescents and families from six states in Brazil came together, all in agreement on the fact that restorative juvenile justice should be implemented in the current law system.

Brazil creates truth commission to probe rights abuses

from the article on BBC.co.uk: Brazil's Senate has voted to set up a truth commission to investigate rights abuses, including those committed during military rule from 1964 to 1985. The bill, already passed by the Chamber of Deputies, now goes to President Dilma Rousseff to be signed into law. Ms Rousseff, a former left-wing activist jailed by the military, had urged Congress to pass the legislation.

Restorative practices in Latin America

from part one of the two part article by Joshua Wachtel" Throughout Latin America, there are growing efforts to confront the social consequences of poverty and violence. Restorative practices provides an outlook that is appealing to many who are working to bring people together to resolve problems and transform the nature of society. Miguel Tello, originally from Mexico, now lives and works in San Jose, Costa Rica. Tello first got involved with the IIRP when he contacted IIRP founder Ted Wachtel for permission to translate Wachtel’s article “Restorative Justice in Everyday Life” into Spanish to use at a Prison Fellowship International conference. Tello then took IIRP trainings and became an IIRP trainer.

Our justice system requires us to punish wrongdoers, what if there were a better way?

from the entry by Mikhail Lyubansky on race-talk: For those of us living in the United States, “doing justice” is mostly synonymous with administering punishment. We may not literally follow the Biblical edict of “an eye for an eye”, but most of us still believe that “the punishment must fit the crime”. Indeed, many of us would be hard pressed to even come up with an alternative justice system. Yet alternatives abound in the form of restorative justice.

APAC: Brazil’s restorative justice prisons

from Lorenn Walker's entry on Restorative Justice & Other Public Health Approaches for Healing: APAC’s approach is opposite to most prisons. Instead of making the people incarcerated in them feel bad, guilty, and like failures, APAC works to make people feel worthy, respected, and able to restore their lives. APAC gives people hope that they can contribute something to help others and that they can be of service in some way, no matter what their situation. APAC’s restorative approach begins with the name it uses to refer to the people who live in these prisons. Instead of calling the people inmates or prisoners, APAC calls the recuperandos because they are “people in the process of rehabilitation.” The late Insoo Kim Berg, co-founder of solution-focused brief therapy, would have loved this name recuperandos because she recognized the importance of language and how our labels influence behavior and our experiences.

Restorative justice.

From John Malkin's article in Good Times: Downtown Santa Cruz, a high school student takes clothes from a store without paying and is caught in the act. Instead of going to jail, she agrees to meet with a store manager to discuss the act and mutually agree on what to do next. An elementary school garden is destroyed by teenagers. During a restorative dialogue, the teenagers sob with sadness, realizing the affect they’ve had on the younger kids who put so much energy into growing their garden. A math teacher’s car is broken into by a young man. They agree to discuss the event in a restorative meeting. The two come to understand each other’s perspective, forgiveness arises and the teacher ends up offering to help tutor the youth in math. During a downtown May Day celebration, windows of 18 businesses are smashed. A sharing circle offers people the chance to discuss how they were affected by the property destruction, and to discover possible ways of building community. These are examples of a growing trend in responding to harmful actions and building trust between individuals and communities called Restorative Justice. Restorative Justice (RJ) is a philosophy that incorporates a diversity of tools to restore safety and connection through voluntary dialogue and mutual agreement. Often these meetings lead to transformational changes in people’s lives.

Restorative Justice Everywhere: Final Update from the UN Crime Congress

Friday (my last day at the UN Crime Congress) was busy with ancillary sessions and sitting through one of the main workshops. The first ancillary session, organised by Prison Fellowship International, looked at Latin American Experiences with Restorative Justice. I opened the session with a brief introduction of the participants describing the goal of the session as opening a dialogue on the various experiences with restorative justice in the region.

Brazil truth commission arouses military opposition.

From the BBC News article by Gary Duffy: A package of reforms put forward by the Brazilian government to improve human rights is causing growing controversy. A proposed truth commission to investigate torture during military rule is said to have so angered forces chiefs that they threatened to resign.

Restorative justice: New approaches in Brazil

by luigimorelli on the blog A Revolution of Hope: Today, most of the deaths of Brazilian adolescents are caused by gang-related murders. To counteract gangs’ advanced organization police repression looks more and more like guerrilla. However, the government is realizing that a strictly adversarial approach is not going to advance a resolution. In the mid-1990s, Dominic Barter began working with favela residents, including drug gang members, to help them strengthen nonviolent options for working with young people. “I saw violence as a monologue,” said Barter, referring to both gang activity and its repression, “I wanted to create a dialogue.”

Angela's tears - A presentation on the São Paulo RJ projects in Rio de Janeiro

From the post at the Restorative Circles Blog Yesterday was the first formal presentation of the São Paulo RJ project, 'Justiça e educação', to the justice and education communities in Rio de Janeiro. Most of those who have made these projects possible - in São Caetano do Sul, in Guarulhos, in Heliopolis, in Campinas and elsewhere - spoke, and even though the city was under the second day of torrential rain and it was the friday before a holiday weekend, there wasn't a free seat and many stood until the end.

Wachtel, Joshua. Toward Peace and Justice in Brazil: Dominic Barter and Restorative Circles.

In 2004 the Brazilian Ministry of Justice received a small UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) grant to launch the country’s first official restorative justice (RJ) pilot projects. Recognizing the unique social context of urban violence in Brazil, the projects brought together school administrators, judges, court workers, prison authorities, social service agencies and local community leaders to create a broad restorative response to the most challenging breakdowns in community safety. While justly known for their creative celebration of life, Brazilians also live with glaring wealth imbalances and the normalization of violence: Murder is the principle cause of death for people under 25. (excerpt)

Scuro Neto, Pedro. Câmaras restaurativas: a Justiça como instrumento de transformação de conflitos

Abstract unavailable

Vazulla, Juan Carlos. The participation of the community representative in mediation involving youth perpetrators

In Brazil, the juvenile justice system includes victim-offender mediation. Now they have added a third mediator into those meetings: one that represents the community that was transgressed against.

. Justiça Restaurativa e Comunitária em São Caetano do Sul. Aprendendo com os conflitos a respeitar direitos e promover cidadania.

Essa tecnologia baseia-se na colaboração entre os sistemas Judiciário e Educacional, com articulação/ enredamento de todas as organizações da cidade e envolvimento comunitário. Seu objetivo: possibilitar a pessoas, comunidades e organizações a tornarem-se protagonistas e co-responsáveis pela construção de uma cidade justa, segura e educativa, na qual os direitos individuais e sociais dos cidadãos e cidadãs sejam atendidos – em especial, os de crianças, adolescentes e jovens das camadas mais pobres. Sua principal ferramenta: a Justiça Restaurativa, uma nova forma de se fazer justiça, onde os envolvidos em conflitos destrutivos chegam de forma autônoma a acordos, reparando os danos que diferentes formas de violência causam a indivíduos e grupos, restaurando o tecido social esgarçado ou rompido pelas situações de desrespeito, prevenindo a violência pelo tratamento de suas causas, com atendimento aos direitos sociais até então negados e promovendo uma inserção comunitária mais justa, solidária e cidadã. (extracto)

Teixiera, Gisele. Por uma justiça restauradora

Pelo vidro espelhado da sala de audiências do Juizado da Infância e da Juventude, a jovem vítima reconhece os menores acusados. “Esse da direita pegava ônibus comigo para ir à escolaâ€?, diz. Semelhante ao que afirmaria em seguida a sua mãe, também vítima do assalto à mão armada na residência da família: “Somos vizinhos a vida toda.

Editor. Brazilians study NZ model

New Zealand’s restorative justice experience is proving a resource for other countries, with Brazil the latest country to look at developing its own pilot project. A group of Brazilians, including judges, policy writers and a prosecutor, recently spent a few weeks in New Zealand studying the court-referred restorative justice pilot and the Youth Court. “We want to see what is working and what is not working internationally so we can build a better project in Brazil,â€? says Maercia De Mello, a member of the permanent commission of criminal policies in the Brazilian Federal District’s Attorney General’s office and the director of the Institute of International and Comparative Law. Maercia first saw restorative justice in practise in Canada and thought “the idea was very goodâ€?. She went on to undertake research on the project, before organising the trip to New Zealand. (excerpt)

Proposed Restorative Justice Legislation in Brazil

In late 2005, the Commission of Participatory Legislation of the Brazilian House of Representatives held a public discussion on restorative justice. Tasked with bringing civil society organizations into the democratic process, the Commission sponsored the hearing at the request of the Instituto de Direito Comparado e Internacional de Brasilía. As a part of its intervention, the Instituto provided the Commission with draft restorative justice legislation for consideration.

Experimenting with Restorative Practices in Brazil

Several Brazilian organizations are exploring restorative justice philosophy and processes as a means of changing justice practice by