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Photo by Pat Schneider for The Capital Times

Pat Schneider in The Capital Times reports on a project to implement restorative practices in a number of Madison, Wisconsin schools, with training provided by the YWCA.

Here are two excerpts from the article:

To hear the students at Sennett Middle School tell it, restorative practices hold a lot of potential for helping students do better in school and for building more positive relationships.

The Sennett students spoke of skills they developed while training as the “circle keepers” who run restorative circles at a brief ceremony on Dec. 18 marking their accomplishment. Training in the circle has helped them learn to work with each other, help others and take others’ opinions into account, students said. “It really got me thinking,” said one boy. “It makes me see who I want to be in life,” said eighth-grader Pierre Ruffin.

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Nirvi Shah reports in Education Week that researchers at Johns Hopkins University have found a relationship between suspensions and failure to graduate from high school. But they also say that other factors might be at work in reducing graduation rates.

About three-fourths of Florida 9th graders who were never suspended out of school as freshmen graduated from high school, compared with a 52 percent graduation rate for those suspended once and a 38 percent rate for those suspended twice in their first high school year, an analysis has found.

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On February 14 and 15, 2013, coinciding with Black History Month activities, Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York and the Kings County District Attorney's Office have partnered to create their first Symposium on Race, Law and Justice. The theme of the Symposium is "Closing the School-to-Prison Pipeline." IIRP Director of Continuing Education John Bailie will be part of a national panel to come together and "address the rapidity with which young students are being driven away from a learning environment toward a life involving the criminal justice system."

Details: Thursday, February 14, 2013, 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM and Friday, February 15, 2013, 8:30 AM - 1:00 PM at 1150 Carroll Street, Brooklyn, NY 11225 (between Nostrand Avenue & Rogers Avenue). RSVP to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or via telephone at (718) 250-2988.

Information and registration details can also be found here.

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Last week I posted links to a story about restorative justice used in a murder case. Subsequently on the Restorative Justice International LinkedIn group Lisa Rea, president of the Justice and Reconciliation Project, posted a link to a piece from five years about another such instance. Rea and Cheryl Ward-Kaiser, a woman whose daughter was raped and husband murdered in front of her eyes, discuss Ward-Kaiser's quest to meet the perpetrators of the crime and restorative justice in general during this half-hour segment from National Public Radio. Listen here.

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Timote Vaka, 18, a senior at Ralph J. Bunche High School in Oakland by Ramin Rahimian for Education Week

Nirvi Shah at EdWeek has reported many times on restorative justice, restorative practices and other alternatives to zero tolerance policies in schools. This week the magazine published a lengthy piece, "Discipline policies shift with views on what works," as well as a shorter piece about a young man, Timote Vaka, who undergoes restorative justice at his alternative high school in Oakland.

Vaka had already been expelled from his public school, but at his new school which utilizes restorative justice, he had dramatically improved his grades and behavior. However, he lost his temper on the basketball court and assaulted a player on the opposing team. A "restorative  justice" teacher, Eric Butler, who had a good relationship with Vaka, advocated that Vaka get another chance rather than be expelled from this "last chance" school.

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Andrew Shaw, writing in the York Dispatch, reports that "Four York County [Pennsylvania] schools received state grant funding to prevent and reduce incidents of violence."

One of the four schools, Crispus Attucks YouthBuild charter school, "is working with Bethlehem's International Institute for Restorative Practices. The institute will train YouthBuild teachers with its 'Safer, Saner Schools' [sic] program to reduce 'incidents of misbehaviors, expulsions, bullying and student absenteeism,' according to principal Melissa Bupp.

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The New York Times Magazine published a lengthy and very moving story January 4 by Paul Tillis about a restorative justice conference, which took place in the wake of a gun murder of a young woman by her boyfriend in Tallahassee, Florida. I couldn't begin to excerpt any of this story. But I recommend that it be read here and that the video below, of interviews with the parents of both victim and offender, be watched.

https://www.today.com/embedded-video/mmvo701261891721

From the Today Show January 7, 2013.

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Les Davey, director of IIRP UK & Ireland, writes:

In partnership with the City of Salford, IIRP UK & Ireland are pleased to announce their Summer 2013 Conference: "Restorative Practice: The way forward in Salford" to be held at Salford City Stadium, Manchester, on Thursday, 20th June 2013.

We are pleased to announce that Transforming Conflict is collaborating with us in planning a workshop stream. Both organizations are exploring closer collaboration where possible, as we share so many core values, principles and practices. This event will replace Transforming Conflict’s annual conference "Restorative Approaches in Educational and Care Settings" Conference for this year.

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Here's a 48-minute video produced by Heartspeak Productions with the Community Justice Initiatives Association from the Fraser region of British Columbia. The film discusses Canadian law and constitution and human rights as a fundamental basis of law. The film examines the effectiveness of punishment and deterrence, as well as alternatives including restorative justice and diversion. It argues that restorative justice can fulfill the human rights obligations embedded in Canadian law and also be more effective. While this film focuses on the Canadian system, there are many ideas that will be relevant to law and criminal justice in other countries.

The video can also be found at the following link:
Restorative Justice is the LAW | CJIBC.

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This article recounts a great story in which a restorative circle was used to address conflict with about 20 girls in an alternative school in Maryland. Joe Burris of the Baltimore Sun writes:

It began as many confrontations between students do: with a hard stare between two passing strangers, according to Toni Holmes, a senior at an Ellicott City alternative school. One of the girls told a friend, "I don't like her." Snide remarks about clothing and appearance went back and forth, and then other girls chimed in.

Soon, unexplained yet simmering enmity exploded into a series of face-to-face confrontations among about 20 girls at the Homewood Center. Teachers got hurt preventing the arguments from becoming physical, and hallways were often deemed unsafe.

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