Justice

Ian Marder, a criminologist working as Project Manager at the Restorative Justice Council, writes about restorative conferencing in the UK for the TransConflict web site:

For those of us in England and Wales, however, the Northern Irish youth justice process is probably the best known example of restorative justice being fully integrated into the criminal justice process at this time (albeit only for juvenile offenders). Prior to sentencing, the Courts, in almost all situations, must refer cases to the dedicated Youth Conferencing Service,

Terry O'Connell has a chapter, called "Conflict and Relationships: Restorative Ways of Building Community," in a new book titled Peace in Action: Practices, Policies and Perspectives That Make a Difference, edited by Raymond John R. King, Victor MacGill, Roger Wescombe. The book is a collection of papers from the Rotary Peace Communities International Conference held in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia, in 2012. Terry is director of Real Justice Australia, and he developed the Real Justice script and the Read More

Photo by Michael Stravato for the New York TimesPhiladelphia youth activists explain and critique the school-to-prison pipeline in On Blast, a seven-minute podcast. Their description of the recording states:

The School-to-Prison Pipeline is a disturbing national trend wherein children are funneled out of public schools and into the

Talking circle / photo by Christianity Today

Here's an excerpt from an excellent article that appeared this week in Christianity Today. "Detroit Students Restore Peace by Talking It Out" by Charles Honey begins with an anecdote of a restorative circle used to resolve an argument that led to threats, which took place one weekend between a group of teenaged girls over social media. The article then goes on to quote Henry McClendon, Michigan Regional

The UK Restorative Justice Council (RJC) featured the following news in a recent email:

In 2009, Clare Topcu and her nine year old son were the victims of a robbery, which had a devastating effect on their lives.

Two men broke into their house while they slept, and Clare was knocked unconscious. She came round to find herself bound with packing tape, and her son being held at knife-point. When Clare’s husband returned home, the burglars fled with £9,000, leaving Clare and her son terrified and badly beaten.

This TedX video features Jemma Jewkes, prison officer and restorative justice coordinator of HMP (Her Majesty's Prison) Gloucester, UK, on how restorative justice benefits both prisoners and their victims. Jewkes is project manager for Restorative Gloucestershire, which aims "to offer all victims/harmed and offenders/harmers, [who] come into contact with the criminal justice system, at whatever stage, the opportunity to engage in a restorative intervention."

Watch "TEDxYouth@Bath - Jemma Jewkes - Restorative Justice" Video at TEDxTalks.

IIRP President Ted Wachtel will be one of three presenters in a free webinar on Thursday, April 11th, 2013, at 11:00 am (ET), 8:00 am (PT). The webinar is part of a series of webinars funded by Health Canada on substance abuse prevention. The objective for this session is to show the linkages that are needed between "health" and "justice" programs.

The webinar is titled: "Suspension Alternatives, Diversion, Restorative Practices & Reintegration: Partnerships among Police, Health, Social Services and Education Ministries/Agencies." The other participants are Richard Deribe, Coordinator, Restorative Justice Schools Program, Nova Scotia, and Theresa Campbell, Safe Schools Coordinator, Surrey School Board, British Columbia.

Paul O'Hara, Bradford Youth Offending Team Manager

A recent article from the Bradford Telegraph and Argus, "MPs call to support successful 'restorative justice' scheme," is indicative of the kind of local support that restorative justice enjoys throughout many areas of the U.K.

The piece frames the issue in terms of a call for more money to support restorative

Terry O’Connell, director of Real Justice Australia, a division of the International Institute for Restorative Practices (IIRP), is a retired 30-year veteran with the New South Wales Police Service, and well known as the "cop from Wagga Wagga" who developed what is now the IIRP’s Real Justice restorative conference model.

Not long ago I was driving in my car and tuned to my local free radio station. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself listening to an hour-long interview about restorative justice with Danielle of New York City based Rockdove Collective. She is very articulate about restorative justice and also discusses some unique ways that restorative justice can be used to support victims of domestic violence. In place of a Sunday video, this week I'm posting the full audio interview.

[audio:http://www.madnessradio.net/audio/download/126/MadnessRadio-2007-03-14RestorativeJustice.mp3|titles=Danielle of Rockdove Collective speaking about restorative justice on Madness Radio]

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Photo by Elliott Francis for WAMU

There's a great new web site resource created by the Advancement Project called Ending the Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track. This phrase is synonymous to the more familiar one, "ending the school-to-prison pipeline." The site includes news, a map of the movement, success stories, an invitation to attend

Les Davey, director of IIRP UK & Ireland, emailed an update on the 1-day conference being planned for June 20, 2013 in Salford, Manchester, UK. He writes, "The programme is coming together nicely with both national and international plenaries plus a wide choice of workshops across Justice, Communities, Education and Care."

On Februrary 6 there was an interesting bit of news from the Restorative Justice Council, which notes a recommendation in a recent U.K. government report that restorative justice presents a "rich avenue for improving the handling of police complaints." The report also recommends, "The Commission should set out best practice protocols for their use in appropriate cases and the use of informal or local resolution systems should be independently monitored to ensure that it is not used inappropriately in relation to conduct that would justify criminal or disciplinary proceedings."

On her blog this weekend, Lorenn Walker posted a piece about what she sees as the significance of the restorative justice conference used at the pre-sentencing phase of the Ann Grosmaire murder case. Here's an excerpt from her piece, with links preserved:

[Paul] Tullis’s article [in the New York Times Magazine] made an important contribution by describing how restorative justice can be used at the plea agreement stage of a murder case, by “vividly tell[ing] the story from the perspectives of the different parties that took part in the process” as pointed out by Hadar Aviram, law professor at the University of California Hastings College of Law in San Francisco.

From the Washington Post

Denver, Colorado, is in the national news this week. At a time when some are calling to beef up police security in schools, Denver is limiting by contractual agreement the role of police in schools, and requiring training for those police who will remain so that they do not wind up criminalizing more students. The approach calls for restorative justice. The Washington Post reports:

As

Creative Commons / Roche Photo

Melinda Clynes, has written an article for Michigan Night Light (whose tag line is "Illuminating Solutions for Children") titled "Repairing Detroit Through Restorative Practices." Clynes begins by quoting Henry McClendon, Michigan Regional Coordinator for the

In the coming year IIRP will be offering three different 4Day Events in a host of locations nationwide.

• Basic Restorative Practices   Four days of professional development, exploring the full range of restorative practices. Day 1: Introduction to Restorative Practices. Day 2: Using Circles Effectively. Day 3: Facilitating Restorative Conferences. Day 4: Family Engagement.
• Restorative Responses to Grief, Trauma and Adversity   This event will teach you how to employ restorative practices

A creative application of restorative justice from Canada.

Restorative Justice for youth in Oakland.

Prevention Researcher devotes the entire contents of its February 2013 issue to the topic of "Restorative justice: Changing how we approach crime and wrongdoing." Prevention Researcher has made the entire issue viewable in digital format on line.

Relevant links can be found embedded in the following text from associate editor Colette Kimball's blog post, "Restorative justice: The evolution of an issue":

"For our issue, we found an excellent author, Avery Calhoun, to write the Read More