Mexico

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

Punishment v. restoration: A comparative analysis of juvenile delinquency law in the United States and Mexico

from the article by Beth Caldwell in the Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law: ....Within Mexico, the State of Oaxaca has developed a code that incorporates these human rights principles and sets forth procedures for using restorative justice conferences as an alternative to the adversarial court system.... Oaxaca’s approach exemplifies the restorative model contemplated in Mexico’s national constitutional reforms.

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.

Mexico and New Orleans Learn About Restorative Practices

From the 11 June Restorative Practices E-Forum by Laura Mirsky: Both Mexico and New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, are experiencing high incidences of crime and violence. To find new ways to deal with this issue, participants from both locations recently attended special four-day immersion events at the IIRP’s Bethlehem campus. An April 26-29 event involved 30 criminal and juvenile justice officials from 10 states in Mexico; a May 11-14 immersion included 15 educators and youth-justice professionals from New Orleans. Both groups spent two days visiting the IIRP’s model program schools for at-risk youth, operated by Community Service Foundation and Buxmont Academy (CSF Buxmont), and two days training in restorative practices. The participants were very excited about what they observed and learned, and most are hoping to begin implementing restorative practices when they return home. The seeds for the Mexicans’ visit were planted when John Bailie, IIRP director of trainers and lecturer at the IIRP Graduate School, presented a paper at the First International Restorative Justice Conference: Humanizing the Approach to Criminal Justice, in Oaxaca, Mexico, in September 2008. Subsequently, Nancy Flemming, coordinator of the alternative justice area of MSI’s (Management Systems International) Programa de Apoyo para el Estado de Derecho en México [Support Program for the Rule of Law in Mexico — PRODERECHO] project, funded by USAID organized the IIRP visit to help immersion attendees find ways to improve their respective states’ criminal justice systems. This undertaking was mandated by a 2006 amendment to the Mexican constitution requiring states to reform their penal codes to make them more effective and more humane — to include oral trials, the right to legal counsel and other legal prerogatives. Many of the immersion participants are involved in this reform process, in a variety of ways.

Trauma and Restorative Justice

From Beth Caldwell's blog post at Visions of Justice: I was given a wonderful opportunity in December. Proderecho, the organization in Oaxaca that has helped to connect me to the people and agencies responsible for juvenile justice here, invited me to participate in a course entitled “Seminars on Trauma and Resilience.” My classmates were a group of inspiring women, and two men, working in NGOs in Oaxaca, and in the state prosecutor’s office. The facilitators of the workshop were from Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Mexico training public servants in restorative justice

From 12 October to 6 November, the Procuraduría General de Justicia del Estado (PGJE—State Attorney General) of the Mexican State of Oaxaca, in conjunction with the non-governmental organisation Proderecho, hosted diploma course featuring restorative justice and several alternative dispute resolution processes. The course, “Managing conflicts: negotiation, mediation, and restorative justice,” provided an overview of the dynamics of personal and group conflicts and different conflict resolution processes.

Mirsky, Laura. Restorative Justice Practices of Native American, First Nation and Other Indigenous People of North America: Part One

This is part one in a series of articles about restorative justice practices of Native American, First Nation, and other indigenous people of North America. The series is not all inclusive. Rather, it is a broad thematic overview. This first article includes interviews with three justice practitioners of the southwestern United States: Robert Yazzie, chief justice emeritus of the Navajo Nation Supreme Court; Joseph Flies Away, a judge in the Hualapai Nation; and James Zion, a Navajo lawyer and a domestic abuse commissioner at a family court in New Mexico. The interviews highlight Native American and First Nation justice philosophy and practice.

Trevino Guerra, David. La mediacion en Mexico

El presente trabajo ha sido dividido en dos grandes apartados. El primero de ellos, 'La Mediación en el �?mbito Legal' engloba una serie de supuestos legales que hacen posible a la mediación. Por su parte, el segundo aparatado -La Mediación en la Práctica-, toca algunas de las generalidades que se presentan tanto para el mediador de manera subjetiva, como para la mediación de manera objetiva. (excerpt)

Henderson, James Sa'ke'j Youngblood. Warriors of Justice and Healing.

"Since the Aboriginal legal scholar Professor Gloria Valencia-Weber of the University of New Mexico introduced the idea of Aboriginal lawyers as warriors of justice and healing, we have been expanding on her idea." (excerpt)

Borjon Nieto, Jose J. Medios alternativos de solución de conflictos en materia penal

Ante el incremento de la criminalidad, el rezago en la administracion y procuracion de justicia, el hacinamiento en las prisiones y el aumento de la impunidad, el autor sugiere aplicar medios de resolucion alternativa de conflictos (RAC) en materia penal, como lo hacen otros paises. Finalmente, comenta la propuesta de reforma penal impulsada actualmente por la PGR.

Morris, Ruth. Mi paso desde la justicia del sufrimiento hast la justicia transformadora

sin resumen

Tkachuk, Brian. Alternativas a la prision: Una perspectiva canadiense e internacional

sin resumen

Olson, Cynthia. Aplicando la mediacion y los procesos de consenso en el marco de la justicia restaurativa

sin resumen

Pakura, Shannon and Maxwell, Gabrielle. The Family Group Conference: Does it work for child protection?

This paper summaries the values, goals and philosophy underpinning the care and protection system in New Zealand and in particular emphasises the importance of: participatory practice involving families, whanau and communities; diverting families from more formal processes and keeping them within their families and communities, empowering families and children to take decisions about their own lives, and broadening the safety net for children, and improving the quality of social work practice. It identifies some of the key ingredients in a successful conference process including: developing and reaching agreements about quality plans for children, supporting and resourcing these, ensuring participant satisfaction with outcomes, and the critical importance of preparations for the conference; including the provision of appropriate information to participants. It reviews the research literature on family group conferences from New Zealand and elsewhere. This research provides information on the key finding that have emerged through evaluation research and practitioner experience in the area of care and protection. It also identifies important aspects of practice that were of concern in New Zealand in 2005. It reports on a major study of later life outcomes for young people who have been involved in youth justice family group conferences. This research identifies best practice likely to enhance wellbeing, empower children and families, and ensure culturally responsiveness. The findings reported here also focus on the features of best practice that are associated with positive life outcomes for children, young people and their families, and are also likely to be relevant to care protection processes. We conclude that there is little doubt that the care and protection family group conference has the potential to make a real contribution to empowering participants, harnessing the support of family, whanau and community and increasing the safety net for children but that success in achieving these goals is dependent on effective practice and supportive policies. (author's abstract)

Maxwell, Gabrielle. Crossing cultural boundaries: Implementing restorative justice in international and indigenous contexts.

It was about fifteen years ago that Howard Zehr (1990) wrote the first book about Restorative Justice (Changing Lenses), John Braithwaite (1989) wrote about “Crime, Shame and Reintegration” and New Zealand introduced the family group conference – restorative process for resolving matters when children and young people became involved in offending1. Since then, many other jurisdictions have experimented with various forms of restorative justice. Perhaps the most common form, especially for young people has been the use of restorative conference in youth justice. From its beginnings in New Zealand, it has spread to Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, Sweden, Singapore, South Africa Macao, and the United States of America. Many different forms of restorative family conferencing for young people who have offended have emerged in these different states, provinces and countries for many different types of offences and for people from many different cultures. In this paper, I want to briefly review what has been learnt about the transferability of the process. In particular, what are the resolved questions and what issues still remain unresolved. And what are the conditions which must be met for the process to work in different jurisdictions and among different peoples. (excerpt)

Smith, M. Mediation in Juvenile Justice Settings.

This article describes how mediation has been used in parent/juvenile conflicts, victim-offender restitution agreements, conflict resolution in juvenile corrections facilities, school-based conflicts, and conflicts between rival juvenile gangs. Parent/child mediation offers juvenile court judges and probation officers a family-centered, problem solving approach for dealing with status offenders. Victim-offender mediation is designed to produce agreements that reflect the offender's accountability and responsibility for the victim's loss and suffering by making amends. Mediation in juvenile corrections facilities is intended to resolve conflicts through a problemsolving strategy rather than through punitive disciplinary strategies. School mediation programs help develop new norms for social interaction in the school environment. Students accustomed to resolving conflict through intimidation and violence are trained to resolve conflicts through negotiation and compromise that provides benefits for all parties involved. A relatively new application of mediation in the school setting is the resolution of gang-related disputes. Conflicts between gangs and the school administration and between rival gangs played out in the school setting have been resolved through mediation. Efforts of the New Mexico Center for Dispute Resolution in the aforementioned areas are profiled. Abstract courtesy of National Criminal Justice Reference Service, www.ncjrs.org

Rubin, Ted. Peacemaking: From Conflict to Harmony in the Navajo Tradition

After describing the overall legal structure within which tribal courts operate, this article examines how juvenile crime is addressed within the Navajo Nation and how the Nation is incorporating traditional ways, such as "Peacemaking," into its juvenile justice services. Located in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, the Navajo Nation consists of 25,000 square miles and is larger than nine U.S. States. Its population of approximately 250,000 comprises more than 11 percent of the total Native American population. The Nation has nine trial court locations in seven judicial districts. The Navajo Tribal Code directs that Navajo common law and tribal statutes enacted by the Navajo Nation Counsel are the laws of preference for court actions. Otherwise, Federal law, if applicable, is used. Lastly, State law may be applied. "Peacemaking" embodies the philosophy and principles of Navajo common law and principles of restorative justice. It is used commonly in disputes between neighbors, husbands and wives, and parents and children, and with problems due to alcohol abuse, sexual misconduct, conduct that causes disunity in a family or community, and small business matters. Currently, it is used infrequently in juvenile delinquency or child dependency/abuse cases. The Navajo Nation's legislative judiciary committee is now considering amending the purpose clause of its Children's Code to urge the application of traditional methods in working with children and youth. This committee, as well as the Judicial Branch of the Nation, wants to expand Peacemaking with both delinquent and dependent/abused children and their families. Abstract courtesy of National Criminal Justice Reference Service, www.ncjrs.org.

Consedine, Jim. Restorative Justice-A Light in the Darkness

Consedine observes that any criticism of the nature of imprisonment and the current criminal justice system raises the objection, “Yes…but what alternatives are you proposing?�? Therefore, Consedine takes up the challenge and proposes restorative justice as the alternative – as a light in the darkness. He substantiates his position by critically examining the idea and practice of punishment as the heart of the problem; explains what restorative justice is and how it works; identifies restorative alternatives to punishment; and urges Christians to work for a restorative justice approach to responding to crime.

Morris, Ruth. Reconciled with Whom? Wrong Criminals, Wrong Goal

In this radical analysis of crime and response to crime, Ruth Morris maintains that the criminal justice system as it exists is a costly, unjust, immoral failure. More succinctly, she sees the system as wrong because it has the wrong goal and it puts the wrong people in the dock. It has the wrong goal-namely, revenge. And it puts the wrong people in the dock – namely, the marginalized. She then applies her analysis to the world’s prisons, the Christian responsibility to reconcile and restore relationships, and pastoral work within the penal system.

Morris, Ruth. Why Transformative Justice?

In this address, Ruth Morris describes her transition from an advocate of restorative justice to an advocate of transformative justice. In her perspective, the difference in terminology is not just semantic; the difference is substantive. She makes her case by outlining the differences she perceives between retributive justice, restorative justice, and transformative justice. In particular, she details how she believes restorative justice suffers from flawed words and analysis, and why transformative justice accurately diagnoses the problem and offers the appropriate response to the problem.

Kemelmajer, Aída. En búsqueda de la tercera vía. La llamada “justicia restaurativa,” “reparativa,” “reintegrativa” o “restitutiva.”

Sumario: I. Terminología. II. Algunas definiciones. III. Algunas claves para comprender las definiciones. IV. Orígenes. V. Razones de la aparición. VI. Normativa emanada de organismos internacionales que trabajan en el ámbito de los derechos humanos en la que se funda la justicia restaurativa. VII. Intereses que la justicia restaurativa intenta amparar. Propósitos o fines generales. VIII. Un fin esencial. La reparación. IX. Idea filosófica que se encuentra a la base de la justicia restaurativa: la democracia participativa. X. Conclusiones. XI. Una esperanza final.