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The Unified Family Court: Preventive, Therapeutic and Restorative Justice for America’s Families

Town, Michael
June 4, 2015

Source: (2000) Paper presented at the Preventive Law Symposium Fall 2000, California Western School of Law. 10 October 2002. http://www.preventivelawyer.org/main/default.asp?pid=essays/town.htm

As Michael Town remarks, only recently have the public and the justice system begun to address preventive law and its philosophical cousins, therapeutic justice and restorative justice. Town, a Circuit Court judge in Hawaii, maintains that the application of preventive law, therapeutic justice, and restorative justice to a unified family court system will help save lives, reduce injury, and provide needed services to children and families. In this paper Town points to the harm done to families by the current justice system. Then he explains how a unified family and juvenile court – grounded in preventive, therapeutic, and restorative justice – can result in better services and justice for children and families who enter the court system.

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