To be sure, there are times when superheroes question the justice systems they supposedly serve, and it is precisely such exceptions that provide meaningful commentary on our own justice systems.
2012
The Fight Room
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Rather than being dangerous, conflict holds within it vital messages regarding unmet needs and areas of necessary change. Given this understanding, safety is increased not by avoiding conflict, but by moving toward it with the intention of hearing the messages within.
2012
Twenty Years of Restorative Justice in New Zealand
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It is not suitable in all cases, but with some principled support and seed funding, restorative justice could easily change the landscape of the criminal justice system in most common law jurisdictions.
2012
Learning from Rwanda
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The Rwandan approach makes restorative justice an ongoing multisector process embedded in the realistic realization that post-genocide healing never ends; rather, this healing is the lifelong multigenerational endeavor of people to work through their pains of tragic loss informally through living together.
2012
The Day the Jail Walls Cracked: A Restorative Plea Deal
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When I got the call from Howard Zehr, I balked at the idea. “In a capital case? He shot her in the head? No chance, Howard.” As I listened to the Grosmaires’ story of seemingly impossible love and forgiveness, my feeling that nothing could be done started to shift. “If God forgives us, how can we not forgive Conor?” Andy asked.
2012
Poetry in the Age of Mass Incarceration
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As a result of the transformation of America into an incarceration nation, the now-bursting prisons have become hotbeds of testimony, poetry, art-making, and speechifying. The books of Reginald Dwanye Betts, which are part of this flood of prison-based testimony, recount the tale of a young man who entered prison as a confused sixteen-year-old but who now, more than a decade later, has embarked on a career as a writer.
2012
Who’s Afraid of Identity Politics?
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From the women’s movement to the Black Power movement, identity-based organizing has transformed our society. Does identity politics really deserve its bad rap?
2012
Shifting School Culture
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During the fall of 2005, I (Rita) was employed by the Oakland Unified School District as a case manager working with students and their families who were referred for expulsion. My job was to create a paradigm shift within the school context by introducing restorative justice as an alternative to the traditional discipline system. Together, we began the restorative justice journey at Cole.
2012
Decolonizing Restorative Justice
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As with any victim-offender situation, restorative justice processes begin when the perpetrators of harm acknowledge what they did and take responsibility for the harms they caused. If the restorative justice movement fails to address the colonial crimes embedded in our history, it will risk losing credibility in this country, as it seems to have already done in Canada. Restorative justice does not have to be hijacked into being an accomplice to colonization, for its roots are not there.
2012
Confronting Sexual Assault: Transformative Justice on the Ground in Philadelphia
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What would happen if our responses to sexual assault came from a vision of the world we want to live in? Applying a transformative justice approach to the issue of sexual assault means working to support individual survivors while building real options for safety, justice, and healing outside of punitive and disciplinary state systems.
2012
A New Vision for Correctional Officers
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In this article we share our experience, as longtime developers of restorative practices in a San Francisco County Jail, of the deputized staff who have assisted in bringing about a new vision. We recognize how a profession that is unavoidably brutal can, with the right institutional leadership, encouragement, and training, take steps toward becoming the noble vocation that many correctional officers long for it to be.
2012
Healing From and Unlearning Violence
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What does it mean to make accountability not a buzzword but a solid foundation for a life path? True accountability requires an offender to commit to entering those deep, dark, scary, shut-down places and attempt to heal. Healing is hard work.
2012
The Restorative Impulse
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There is a deep human yearning for connection and community. Restorative practices offer a pathway for shifting social structures to be more responsive to that need.
2012
What’s Love Got To Do With It?
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While several hhttps://www.tikkun.org/newsite/wp-admin/themes.php?page=custom-headeristorical antecedents converged to give rise to the restorative justice movement, the Civil Rights Movement was a principal contributor, having a defining impact on its thrust and spirit. I believe we have forgotten our recent historical roots. I believe we have not learned from the history of the peace, women’s, and environmental movements’ initial failures to intentionally engage issues of race.