Self defense and restorative justice

Then I showed a longer segment from a news program in Australia which included interviews with both children (and the alleged bully’s parents).  The news program did a nice job of making it clear that the situation is not so clear.  The younger boy claims that the older (and bigger) boy started the fight both with words and with a shove, and that he was simply fighting back.  The younger boy also said that he “snapped” because of years of suffering bullying himself. This second segment led to a nice discussion about who was the aggressor (which is important in the context of asserting self defense) and proportional response.  The link to the second segment is: News Program .

….The second segment shows the younger boy responding to the news that the older boy has also been a victim of bullying for years and the younger boy starts to see the older boy in a different light:  as someone he might have something in common with, not simply a single dimensional villain.  This little piece sparked a nice discussion about restorative justice and why this might be an ideal case for such a process. 

Read the whole article.