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Integrity Board Case Study: Pellet Gunshots in the Night

Hastings, Don
June 4, 2015

Source: (2004) In David R. Karp and Thom Allena, eds., Restorative Justice on the College Campus: promoting student growth and responsibility, and reawakening the spirit of campus community. Springfield, Ill. : C.C. Thomas. Pp. 42-47.

An integrity board, as practiced at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, is a restorative justice approach to student judicial affairs. In this chapter Don Hastings and Vane Becidyan illustrate the use of the integrity board model through a case study based on an actual incident at a small college in upstate New York. (They have changed the names and a few facts to respect the confidentiality of the involved parties.) Two college students at the college were charged with violations of the state penal code due to their firing of a pellet gun out of their dormitory room window. While their case was tried in the city’s criminal court, the students were also brought before the college’s integrity board. Hastings and Becidyan describe the composition of the board, the parties involved in the case, the hearing process, the negotiation of a restorative contract to address the actions and harms, and reflections on the case by Hastings (the board’s administrator) and Becidyan (the board’s student chair).

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CourtsPrisonsRestorative PracticesRJ and the WorkplaceRJ in SchoolsRJ OfficeStatutes and LegislationStoryTeachers and StudentsVictim Support
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