Source: (1999) In Community forgiveness and restorative justice: Essays from the criminal justice system and the peace movement, ed. Robert D. Enright, 21-26. Issue 8 of The World of Forgiveness 2 (May). Madison, Wisconsin: International Forgiveness Institute.
Goodman begins this essay with recognition of significant impediments to the integration of forgiveness into the criminal justice system. Yet, from his experience as an academic criminologist and a practitioner in reconciliation and conflict resolution programs in prison, he senses new possibilities for forgiveness to emerge as an option. Two ways to move in this direction are these: (1) development of efforts to assist people in general to acquire the necessary skills for the process of forgiveness; and (2) inclusion by practitioners in the criminal justice system of elements of the forgiveness process to humanize the machinery of formal justice.
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