Justice

Two videos from Michigan State University recently came to my attention. The videos demonstrate the use of restorative practices for responding to student conflict at the university, which has 16,000 students living on campus with a total of 40,000 students enrolled.

According to Rick Shafer, associate director of student life at MSU, for the past two years the university has increasingly used a variety of responsive restorative justice practices in a range of areas.

Said Shafer, "Primarily we are using it in residence halls to deal more reactively with reported conflict." The video below, "Student Voices," shows some great examples of this. A resident assistant discusses how she used a talking circle to work through an issue with residents who responded threateningly to her when she confronted them in a room about noise levels. In another case students offended about a large confederate flag displayed prominently in a residence hall talked through the issue with

photo from the highlands of Papua New Guinea by eGuide Travel at Flickr Creative Commons

A piece in the magazine Science titled “Turning from War to Peace in Papua New Guinea” (Vol. 337, September 28, 2012) by Elizabeth Culotta describes a recent anthropological paper co-authored by Polly Wiessner of the University of Salt Lake City, who has worked with and studied the Enga people of Papua New Guinea for 25 years, and Nitze Pupu, a blind Enga law school graduate. Wiessner

This week's video features Vidia Negrea, director of Community Service Foundation of Hungary, an IIRP international affiliate, delivery her full plenary at IIRP's 15th World Conference on August 2, 2012. The title of her talk was "Family Group Conferencing/Family Group Decision Making as a Transition from Prison in Hungary." Negrea begins by discussing her journey to introduce restorative practices in schools, social work and other areas, and then focuses on her work in prisons and how she has used restorative

Opinion: The mounting cost of violence - Rep. Mike Honda - POLITICO.com.

From the Wisconsin shooting to the war in Afghanistan, we all know that violence costs our society, whether it’s domestic violence, a homicide, a war, or something as simple as a security system. We also know that there are direct and indirect costs associated with violence, whether it’s the immediate medical, court and police costs that stem from violent crime, or the long-term loss of economic productivity that stems from the loss of an American worker’s life.

A chapter about restorative practices in higher education by IIRP President Ted Wachtel and University of Vermont director of residential life Stacey Miller has been published in a new book called Restorative Justice Today: Practical Applications, edited by Katherine S. van Wormer (University of Northern Iowa) and Lorenn Walker (University of Hawaii Honolulu Community College).

The book also includes a section on traditional North American native restorative justice philosophy and practice by Laura Mirsky, IIRP assistant director of communications and technology.

Today's excerpt is from Julia Steiny writing at EdWeek and also on her blog. She says there is no evidence that punitive measures work to change students' behavior. But restorative justice does work. The piece is presented as an open letter to President Obama. The full link appears below.

No research shows that suspensions teach kids the social skills they need to keep them

Photo by Duane Brown at Flickr Creative Commons

The following story was posted at CBC News Nova Scotia, about a restorative justice program set up at Dalhousie University. IIRP hosted its 14th World Conference in 2011 in Nova Scotia in cooperation with Nova Scotia Restorative Justice Community University Research Alliance (NSRJ-CURA). NSRJ-CURA director Jennifer Llewellyn, and a number of other participants at the conference, are

Ted Wachtel's plenary – "Defining Restorative and Building a Worldwide Restorative Practices Learning Network" – from this year's IIRP's 15th World Conference. View the video here.

Estelle Macdonald of Hull Centre for Restorative Practice

Here's a lovely piece by John Maslin from the Wanganui Chronicle about a two-day conference on the subject of Wanganui, New Zealand "re-inventing" itself as a restorative city. Estelle Macdonald, head teacher at Collingwood primary school in Hull and director of Hull Centre for Restorative

Here's another great short video from Restorative Justice Colorado. This one looks at a youth crime from a victim's point of view.

Restorative Justice In Victims Services - YouTube.

At the beginning of the summer Ted Wachtel described Nils Christie's plenary at the European Forum for Restorative Justice in Helsinki, Finland. Christie "talked about the shootings of children that occurred last summer on an island in Norway at a labor party camp and the bombing in Oslo. And he talked about how Norway seems to have become increasingly restorative. The response of the public, instead of for vengeance was one of acknowledgement of harm, of caring for the people whose children were victims and for those who managed to survive."

I found this very impressive video on YouTube the other day through the Restorative Justice Colorado web site. Officer Greg Ruprecht of the Longmont Police speaks very movingly about the power and potential of restorative justice. He tells the story of the first conference he ran and then discusses how RJ works to prevent repeat offending by teaching people the impact of their actions and giving them an opportunity to take responsibility for their deeds.

Enjoy when you've got 8 minutes to spend!

Restorative Justice in Justice Systems - YouTube.

Photo by Phillip Capper - Flickr Creative CommonsHere's bit of good news by Anne-Marie Emerson from the Wanganui Chronicle. Inspired by the city of Hull, UK, this small city in New Zealand moves toward becoming "restorative" itself. Wanganui is hosting a conference on the

Lady Justice from Flick Creative CommonsIn this recent post from the West Berkshire (UK) Council, officials report a nearly 50% reduction in the number of youth entering the youth justice system year over year. The article reads:

A fall of 48.7% is shown between January and December 2011 (compared with same period for 2010). The

An August 7, 2012 piece, "Researchers Sound Alarm Over Black Student Suspensions," at EdWeek by Nirvi Shah and Lesli A. Maxwell begins:

Nearly one in six African-American students was suspended from school during the 2009-10 academic year, more than three times the rate of their white peers, a new analysis of federal education data has found.

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The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada invites the public – in person or via webcast – for an event on August 14, 2012, 7:30 to 9:30pm (ET), Harbourfront Centre’s WesJet Stage, 235 Queens Quay West, Toronto, Ontario, CANADA.

The evening will feature a keynote address by TRC Chair Justice Murray Sinclair, drummers and dancers from the Aboriginal and Black communities and an Authors’ Dialogue moderated by veteran broadcast journalist, Shelagh Rogers.

Earlier this summer I noted that Martin Wright received an honor at the European Forum for Restorative Justice. Here is a brand new piece by Wright, both timely and perceptive, in which he discusses the banking crisis and how white collar crime might be addressed through the use of restorative justice. In the middle of the piece Wright references John Braithwaite's influential work, Restorative Justice and Responsive Regulation, which lays out the theory and mechanism for an essentially restorative system of government oversight.

Student activists with Dignity in Schools Campaign Get Creative in How They Express Their Desire for Changes in New York City Schools Discipline PolicyLast week I posted the news that the Michigan State Board of Education was recommending an end to zero tolerance policies in public schools in the state. The trend toward reevaluating

Benjamin Andreozzi, attorney for victim #4 in Sandusky trial from WGAL Interview

Benjamin Andreozzi, the lawyer for Victim No. 4 who was the first victim to testify in the Jerry Sandusky trial that dealt with molestation of boys at Penn State, has in a tv news interview criticized Penn State and the NCAA for going ahead with sanctions against the college

This article, with a rather sensational title, "Shoplifters in Hull could be forced to apologise to victims instead of being prosecuted," discusses what sound like a great new scheme coming out of Hull, UK – the first municipality we know of to aspire to become a "restorative city." The part I quibble with is the phrase "forced to apologise." That sounds to me like something the newspaper put into the story rather than a true representation of the process being promoted.