Community Peacemaking Project: Responding to Hate Crimes, Hate Incidents, Intolerance, and Violence Through Restorative justice Dialogue.

Source: (2002) St. Paul, MN: Center for Restorative Justice and Peacemaking, School of Social Work, University of Minnesota.

In this report, the authors describe the first year of a two year project by the Center for Restorative Justice and Peacemaking on the use of community restorative dialogue as a response to hate. The purpose of the project is to promote community reconciliation through the identification of new responses – particularly the use of dialogue consistent with restorative justice principles – to hate crimes, hate incidents, intolerance, and violence. The initial task in the first year of the project was to identify and document community cases in which restorative dialogue formed part of a community’s response to hate incidents. Research into particular cases involved in-depth interviews with facilitators and mediators and analysis of newspaper articles and web sites. The report itself consists of the following: case study descriptions; case analysis and implications for restorative dialogue in response to hate crimes; responding to hate through restorative dialogue; and projections about the next phase of the project.