Full Text Documents on RJ Online

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Durmortier, Els. Neglecting due process for minors: A possible dark side of the restorative justice implementation?

Expressing skepticism about what he perceives to be the optimistic nature of restorative justice perspectives, Dumortier scrutinizes the language of restorative justice discourse and the issue of due process for minors in the implementation of restorative justice procedures.

Eagle, Harley. A Journey in Aboriginal Restorative Justice

In this article he discusses restorative justice and aboriginal life, specifically connecting restorative justice with indigenous cultural traditions (for example, the significance and use of the circle, or Medicine Wheel, in community discussion and action).

Edgar, Kimmett. 2010. Racism in prison: restorative tools to respond to complaints. 12th United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. 15 April.

In this presentation, Kimmett Edgar provides an overview of how restorative principles can be used to respond to racism in the prison setting.

Editor. Exorcising the Ghosts

Relates the story of a graduate student who used restorative justice conferencing to deal with his intense anger at five youths who engaged him in a fight after drinking.

Editor. Face To Face.

This article tells a story of a burglary and the positive impact that a community-based restorative justice process had for the victim’s family. The mother of the family explained her feelings and forgave the young offender, who then apologized and began to work on repayment.

Editor. Genuine Remorse.

This short article outlines the personal story of a former offender now working with a community based restorative justice initiative.

Editor. Growing Experience for Facilitator

Sharon Barton, a conference facilitator of the Waipareira Restorative Justice Providers, strongly supports the use of conferences in providing reconciliation between victims and their offenders.

Editor. Making Connections

Ronda Tokona, a restorative justice conference facilitator and lawyer, appreciates restorative justice on another level, having been a victim herself.

Elonheimo, Henrik. Restorative Justice Theory and the Finnish Mediation Practices

In Finland, the most prominent manifestation of restorative justice is victim-offender mediation. In order to investigate to what extent the restorative ideals are actually realized within the Finnish mediation practices, 16 cases of victim-offender mediation have been observed.

Evans, Donald G. Keeping the community involvement in restorative justice

Evans, in this paper, writes about restorative justice with a concern that it could become merely another program in the penal apparatus.

Fliamer, Mikhail and Karmosova, L M. Juvenile Justice- an overview of experimental projects in Russia

This paper describes juvenile justice developments in Russia. It highlights the work the Centre for Legal and Judicial reform in incorporating restorative justice into the criminal justice system.

Frank, Cheryl and Ann Skelton. 2007.Practice Standards for Restorative Justice: A Practitioner’s Toolkit.

This Toolkit presents a set of “Practice Standards for Restorative Justice”, and consists of a set of tools to guide their usage. The intended purpose of these standards is to guide the implementation of restorative justice programmes and processes linked to the criminal justice system. The standards presented here were developed from a review of literature in the field of restorative justice, and consultations with stakeholders in this field. They are specifically derived from a range of restorative justice values and principles ... (excerpt)

Geselev, Oleksii. “Philosophical Legal Aspects of Changing the Dominant Understanding of the Law as a Requirement for Implementing Restorative Justice in Ukraine”

This article discusses the regulatory framework for introducing restorative justice process, especially mediation, into the Ukrainian justice system.

Global Peace Index: 2009 Methodology, Results and Findings

The results of the Global Peace Index for 2009 suggest that the world has become slightly less peaceful in the past year, which appears to reflect the intensification of violent conflict in some countries and the effects of both the rapidly rising food and fuel prices early in 2008 and the dramatic global economic downturn in the final quarter of the year. Rapidly rising unemployment, pay freezes and falls in the value of house prices, savings and pensions is causing popular resentment in many countries, with political repercussions that have been registered by the GPI through various indicators measuring safety and security in society.

Gohar, Ali. 2007. Restoring Peace in a Wartorn Country: Peacekeepers and Afghanistan.

Over and above local, regional, and national systems of criminal justice, the world community, today, helps to ensure peace through the deployment of United Nations peacekeepers. Unfortunately, such peacekeepers are usually tasked to a situation after the indigenous population has been through years of conflict. While the uniforms may change, the psyche of the population remains the same. A man with a rifle is a man with a rifle! The peace efforts of peacekeepers remain, at first anyway, mostly unnoticed to the common people. A situation exacerbated when peacekeepers are seen wounding, killing, and destroying infrastructure. While the peacekeeping forces may explain such actions by noting self-defence, or the war on terrorism, the indigenous population sees only the continuation of the wounding, the killing, and the destruction of their homes and communities by those in uniform. This is not forgotten when peacekeepers engage in reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts. You destroy, you build, you destroy. You hurt, you heal, you hurt. It is a vicious cycle with no end, and little hope in sight. If Western governments truly wish to bring peace to Afghanistan, they must change the way they go about peacekeeping. While it would be ludicrous to suggest that armed United Nations peacekeepers withdraw entirely, leaving those tasked with reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts defenceless in a dangerous and war-ravaged environment, it is not ludicrous to suggest that frontline contact, with common people, be more in line with aid organizations who try to understand indigenous culture and traditions while fostering dialogue, than with those brandishing arms. (reprinted here with permission of the author)

Gormally, Brian. Community Restorative Justice – a new bridge between state and people?

In Northern Ireland community restorative justice projects have been an important part of the peace process.

Gormally, Brian. Justice and the Aftermath of Conflict

The aftermath of conflict leaves a range of legal and political issues to be resolved that relate to justice.

Griffin, Diarmuid. Restorative Justice, Diversion and Social Control: Potential Problems

This paper will highlight some potential dangers of pursuing the use of restorative justice (RJ) for juvenile offenders in Ireland. It will look at penal reforms of the past; in particular it will look at the work of Stanley Cohen and his examination of the development of “community corrections.” Social control theorists, like Cohen, often view changes in penal structures differently to reformists and examine the underlying impact of expanding the social control apparatus beyond the prison system. In this presentation I intend to use the template used by Stanley Cohen in the 70’s to analyse the development of restorative justice in the juvenile justice system. The dangers highlighted by Cohen will then be applied to restorative practices in order to provide a framework for the critique of this approach. While it is acknowledged that the development of such programmes are essential in developing an appropriate response to juvenile offending it is also important to critically discuss these projects to highlight the problems and potential dangers emerging out of their adoption. The focus of the paper will remain primarily on restorative programmes although many of the criticisms discussed can also be levied at diversionary programmes.

Hagemann, Otmar. (2010) "Gemeinschaftskonferenzen" in Elmshorn -- the first German family group conferencing project in criminal matters.

This article presents the first German project to use restorative conferencing in criminal matters. First, some terms are defined. Then the legal background in Germany and some shortcomings are outlined before the implementation and the practice of the project is described. Finally initial results are presented and the chalienges which have to be overcome are discussed. (excerpt)

Halstead, Sam. Educational Discipline Using the Principles of Restorative Justice

This article shows how restorative justice techniques can be used with students in correctional and alternative education settings.