Faith Communities
“Restoring Relationships: What churches can learn from restorative justice” – Christianity Today's Paul Pastor presents a lengthy interview with Bruce Schenk, director of IIRP Canada.
IIRP news
Dóra Szegő, IIRP Europe's new Assistant Director for Central and Eastern Europe• IIRP Europe welcomes Dóra Szegő as Assistant Director for Central and Eastern Europe.
• Call for Presenters: Offer a session at IIRP's 17th World Conference.
• Martin Wright reviews Margaret Murray's Forging Justice: A Restorative Justice Mystery.
Schools
Changing times:
• The National Opportunity to Learn Campaign offers a free toolkit, "Restorative Practices: Fostering Healthy Relationships & Promoting Positive Discipline in Schools.”
• The Syracuse, New York, school boards explains why they're turning to restorative practices.
• The New York Times defends its editorial saying that race directly affects how students are disciplined in schools.
• The Gay-Straight Alliance calls on clubs to demand that their school districts adopt restorative practices.
• The state of Minnesota passes a Safe & Supportive Minnesota Schools Act that directs school districts to develop policies that prevent bullying, and to train school staff in restorative practices.
Minnesota Governor signs the Safe & Supportive Schools Act“The Numbers”:
• Restorative discipline at a San Antonio middle school led to an 84% reduction in out-of-school suspensions according to a University of Texas-San Antonio lecturer.
• A University of Minnesota research report demonstrates the positive impact of restorative conferencing for students who were facing expulsion at Minneapolis Public Schools.
• The Advancement Project and Padres and Jovenes Unidos analyzed data from all 179 school districts in Colorado to track the impact of a state law passed in 2012 that limited the use of zero-tolerance discipline policies in schools and emphasized restorative practices.
Justice
Professor Chris Marshall• Professor Chris Marshall, who recently took up the Chair in Restorative Justice in the School of Government in New Zealand at Victoria University of Wellington, argued during his inaugural address that beyond punitive justice and rehabilitation, restorative justice offers a third way.
• Research from the New Zealand Minstry of Justice demonstrates a 12% percent reduction in recidivism with restorative justice.
• A rape victim talks about meeting her rapist: “I walked into that room a victim, and I walked out a survivor.” Criminologist Heather Strang also appears in the video segment. Read more.
Tony McKelvey during sentencing for careless driving resulting in a death• An elderly driver's whose brief lapse killed a biker participated in a restorative conference as part of the criminal justice process.
• A restorative conference in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, helped resolve an incident of a man overreacting when he received a parking ticket.
Conferences
• The 8th International Conference of the European Forum for Restorative Justice will take place in Belfast this June.
• The National School Climate Center Summer Institute includes a presentation by IIRP President Ted Wachtel.
