Justice

The following is the first few paragraphs of an article by David Greenwald for Vanguard Court Watch of Yolo County, California, titled "DA Puts Forward Innovative "Neighborhood Court" Program Incorporating Principles of Restorative Justice." 

On Monday the Yolo County District Attorney's office unveiled an innovative new pilot project, modeled after a program that San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon implemented two

Moment of silence for Boston bombing victims. Photo by Rebecca Hildreth at Flick Creative Commons

Pierre R. Berastaín, a student at Harvard Divinity School, proposes that restorative circle processes be used to address the violence last week at the Boston Marathon, and the frayed feelings of people throughout the city of Boston and elsewhere. Writing on a Huffington Post blog, in a piece titled "Restorative Justice: Re-storying What

"Restoring Hope: An Indigenous Response To Justice," a 52-minute documentary, aired last week and is now available for viewing online. It includes footage of restorative conferences as well as interviews with participants.

Watch here: Restoring Hope: An Indigenous Response To Justice | Māori Television.

This short piece from the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) does a particular good job of explaining the restorative justice conference process, and the need for both victim and offender to agree to a meeting.

The restorative justice scheme means people who have admitted their crimes are allowed to meet their victims, or make amends by doing some sort of remedial work.

"Firstly it's the victim that's approached," added Insp Davies, who leads the force's restorative justice scheme.

"If it's in the interest of the victim, and the victim wants it, we would then discuss that with the

IIRP assistant professor and director of Continuing Education John Bailie at a Basic Restorative Practices event in Singapore

Lutheran Community Care Services Ltd. (LCCS), a new IIRP affiliate in the Republic of Singapore, hosted IIRP assistant professor and director of Continuing Education Dr. John Bailie in presenting a four-day Basic Restorative Practices event in the Southeast Asian island city-state in March. Twelve participants

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