Victim Centered Restorative Justice

Articles on the needs and interests of victims and how those can be given priority in restorative processes.

Empowered Victims & Moral Perpetrators: A Needs-Based Model of Reconciliation

from the entry by Christine Webb on Mediate.com: At a recent workshop at Leiden University on Obstacles and Catalysts for Peaceful Behavior, Nurit Shnabel presented exciting research distinguishing the needs of victims and perpetrators in interpersonal and intergroup conflicts. According to Shnabel and colleagues’ Needs-Based Model of Reconciliation, victims of conflict experience a psychological loss of status and honor, thus undermining their identities as powerful actors. Perpetrators, on the other hand, experience a psychological loss of social acceptance, thus threatening their identities as moral actors. Accordingly, victims and perpetrators are differentially motivated to restore these respective identities, and interactions that do so will increase their willingness to reconcile....

juvenile lifers & restorative justice

I agree with Jennifer Bishop Jenkins. Restorative justice is all about crime victims. Its very definition is victims-centered and we believe victims-driven. The challenge, as [...]

There should be no question of "common ground" - Restorative Justice IS about victims

Thanks to Mr. Lash for this positive article, and of course these are nice words for us to hear. What is lacking from most advocates [...]

Victims’ rights and restorative justice: Is there a common ground?

from the article by John Lash on Juvenile Justice Information Exchange: Last week my column on the resentencing of juveniles who had received life without parole drew a comment from the National Organization of Victims of Juvenile Lifers (NOVJL). The commenter had a legal argument in opposition to my own view, but more striking, at least to me, was the sentence that asked how I am going to, “support, inform, and not re-traumatize the devastated victims’ families left behind in these horrible crimes.”

Letter of Support

Thank you so much for picking up these types of articles and posting them. I really appreciate the work you do here, and I consistently [...]

Colorado Victim chooses restorative justice and meets with offender

by Lisa Rea This is an excellent article, well written with the right emphasis and explanation of restorative justice, telling the story of Sharletta Evans. She chose to meet the man who killed her young son. This was made possible after the passage of legislation carried by Representative Pete Lee.

Letter: This group and what it does made me feel whole again

the letter by Mary Petersen in River Falls Journal: Support from St Croix Restorative Justice and the Walk for Awareness following the sudden death of a loved one is something that you never imagine could be a part of your life at any age. But when a death like that happens, it’s something that makes you feel like you will never be whole again. You are alone and cannot face life without your loved one.

gun violence & restorative justice

Thank you for your comments. I cannot speak for Nick and Amanda Wilcox whose daughter, Laura, was killed by a mentally ill man but I [...]

Laura's Law

Lisa and others, as a current student of Criminal Justice it has been my belief all along that our justice system has left behind the [...]

Denver woman feels the power of restorative justice after son murdered

from the article by Kevin Simpson in the Denver Post: ....When legislation last year cleared the way for a pilot program in restorative justice with the Colorado Department of Corrections, Evans — who had testified on behalf of the measure — embraced the opportunity to go first. She and her older son Calvin Hurd, who was 6 when gunshots peppered the car where he sat sleeping with his brother, began more than six months of preparation for a direct dialogue with Johnson. Part of that involved revisiting the crime. Evans had driven with her two children to a northeast Denver duplex to pick up her grandniece because there had been a drive-by there the previous night. She left her sons in the car.

New Staffordshire crime-fighting partnership praised by Justice Secretary

from the article by Sonya Britton iin This Is Staffordshire On a visit to Staffordshire's new integrated crime-fighting hub, Justice Secretary Lord McNally met former offenders, victims of crime, and staff from police, probation and drug treatment agencies. And Lord McNally was impressed at the joint working shown by the 180° Integrated Offender Management partnership, which aims to help tackle the most challenging and prolific offenders in Staffordshire in an integrated way.

RJC briefing on Ministry of Justice consultation: Getting it right for victims and witnesses

from the Restorative Justice Council website: On 30th January 2012 the Ministry of Justice published Getting it right for victims and witnesses as a consultation document. Alongside a wide range of proposals to reform both support services for victims and witnesses, and criminal injuries compensation, the Government’s desire to develop provision of restorative justice for victims of crime is clear.

New York Times article shows why restorative justice is needed

from the entry by Lorenn Walker on Restorative Justice & Other Public Health Approaches for Healing: The February 5, 2012 New York Times article by Kovaleski et al, For Killers’ Families, Struggles With Shame, Silence and Fear http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/us/killers-families-left-to-confront-fear-and-shame.html?ref=us shows why we need restorative justice. The article describes how family members are also harmed by their loved one’s criminal behavior. It shows the need for restorative interventions that can help many families deal with the harm they suffer.

Restorative justice: The new way forward

from Lisa Rea's article in In Baylor University's Christian Refelction issue on Prison: .... Some might argue that our prison system was never meant to positively affect victims and communities. I will not analyze the original purpose of prisons in society, but we know that prisons have become something far different than what they were intended to be. Most societies have incarcerated individuals who were deemed to be a violent threat to others, but the United States prison system today has grown immensely beyond this rationale. As a result, the American state and federal prison population has expanded dramatically.

Moving beyond sides: The power and potential of a new public safety policy paradigm

from the executive summary by David Rogers and Kerry Naughton: Many factors have shaped state and federal public safety policies in the United States over the past twenty-five years. The most notable influence has been the widespread adoption of a tough on crime philosophy. While there is now a wealth of research that shows that tough on crime policies are not the most effective approach to public safety and actually create a serious opportunity-cost for reducing crime and victimization, the tough on crime philosophy has become part of the political and public consciousness across the United States.

Letting victims define justice

from the article by Steve Sullivan for Restorative Justice Week 2011: ....There is a growing myth that for victims, justice requires tougher penalties. If only it was that simple. There is no evidence that punishment is as important to the majority of victims as some would have us believe. When asked in one study why they reported the crime, sexual assault victims listed punishment of the offender very low on their list of priorities.

Restorative practices in Hungary: An ex-prisoner is reintegrated into the community

from the article by Vidia Negrea: As the representative of Community Service Foundation of Hungary, the Hungarian affiliate of the International Institute for Restorative Practices (IIRP), I participated in a group session of the Hungarian Crime Prevention and Prison Mission Foundation in summer 2009 (Sycamore Tree Project — www.pfi.org/cjr/stp/introduction — or Zacchaeus Program in Hungary). There I met the governor of Balassagyarmat prison, where inmates were working in groups on issues related to their crimes and exploring ways to repair relationships they had damaged. Some inmates began accepting responsibility for what they had done and were motivated to make things right and earn forgiveness of victims and their families. Prisoners made symbolic reparation in the form of community service within the prison, but there was still a lot to do to create opportunities for offenders to make contact with victims and shed the stigma of their offense by means of direct reparation. Also, prison management believed it important to support processes, acceptable to victimized families and communities, to help prisoners regain control of their lives and prevent reoffending.

Victim offender dialogue

from the article on JUST Alternatives: For offenders, victim-centered VOD in crimes of severe violence begins with their acknowledging complete and personal responsibility for what they have done. This means being willing to comprehend the impacts of their actions and behaviors, to face and feel a personal sense of accountability for them, and to feel remorse for the full effects of those actions upon the victims/survivors. It means having a truer understanding of the depth of the pain and grief and suffering they have caused. Victim-centered VOD for offenders is not merely about apology, especially for what can never be restored or made whole again. There are many victims/survivors who do not even want an apology if it is uninformed by the survivor’s experience. They do not want the offenders in their cases to be allowed the “easy grace” of apology. They alone can tell offenders exactly how what happened has affected them, and they alone are the ones who need and deserve to be in control of when – and whether – to receive an apology.

Bill Pelke's journey after violent crime

Bill, thank you so much for your words. For many who read them I am sure they are like balm to the soul. Over at [...]

Listening to crime victims:

Lisa, Thank you for your work on the 3rd Annual Restorative Justice Conference panel "Listening to Crime Victims: Their Journeys Toward Healing" that was sponsored [...]