Victim/offender mediation in Turkey
April 3, 2012
….The panelists believed that the Turkish law as it is currently written has some implementation problems. First it requires that all the mediators either be a prosecutor or a lawyer. Many of the panelists talked about why it is important to have “non-lawyers†involved as...
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The nature of community: Restorative justice and permaculture
April 3, 2012
But rehabilitation to what? If crime is personal and societal, which are interconnected, then simply rehabilitating offenders to this broken locus, especially after the alienating and shaming force of prison, can perpetuate the cycle of violence, evident in recidivism and incarceration rates....
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The Interrupters: A story of restorative justice
April 3, 2012
Their approach isn’t all about confrontation, however. Indeed, most of the techniques employed by the interrupters involve walking alongside people who are on the edge of violence. One of those folks is a woman who has been in and out of incarceration throughout her young life....
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The Jirga in modern day Afghanistan
April 3, 2012
The main difference between the Jirga system and the criminal justice system is that where the criminal justice system punishes, leaving the enmities as they were, the Jirga resolves the enmity at its roots and adopts certain rules for prevention. Some people argue that the Jirga is an...
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5 amazing things I’ve heard during the Sycamore Tree Project(R)
March 28, 2012
We’ve run two programs in the last twelve months and the results have been so remarkable, we have now have several prisons competing for our attention. We bring unrelated victims and offenders together for eight weekly sessions to discuss the consequences of crime. Our first set of crime...
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4 tips for restorative justice programs, skills with victims and addressing domestic violence
March 22, 2012
….Tip 1) Understand and examine yourself. What are your theories of violence? The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence site, hosts a very interesting article, that can help you understand perspectives. This article, WHY, by Susan McGee, provides some insights and it is full of...
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House of Lords debate on restorative justice
March 22, 2012
Lord Woolf argued eloquently alongside Lords Ramsbottom (former Chief Inspector of Prisons), Beecham and Dholakia, for this important change, but agreed to withdraw the amendment in the face of defeat and with the promise of a meeting with Baroness Northover for the Government. These...
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Circles for sex offenders first in the South
March 22, 2012
The COSA steering committee is led by Nick McGeorge, who lives in Durham and in England and was a principal psychologist in the English prison system. He started circles in the United Kingdom in 2002. Circles were first developed in Canada in 1994, and both projects have been successful in...
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What’s wrong with this picture: Thief stole laptop after apologising to victim
March 22, 2012
So when he called round to say “sorry†his victim was naturally guarded, but let him in after he said police suggested he should face up to his offending. But once inside, rather than apologise to the man he had wronged, he made off with Mr Mathley’s new laptop. Now Barker,...
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Are sexual abuse survivors well served by restorative justice practices?
March 21, 2012
….There is a place for the criminal trial, and it is important that sex offenders should be punished. But the criminal justice system consistently fails survivors. Even in the rare instances where there is a conviction, most survivors do not feel that justice has been done. At One...
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Book Review: The Machinery of Criminal Justice
March 19, 2012
Bibas argues that our system undervalues positive emotions and distorts negative ones. The positive emotions that are undervalued are remorse, apology, and forgiveness. The negative ones that are distorted are the retributive emotions. One of the major contributors to undervaluing positive...
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Restorative justice must humble if it is to be judged a success
March 19, 2012
Among those who took part early in the scheme were low-scale young vandals who did not have a criminal record and were spared one, despite a moment of madness. But they were shamed by having to deal with their victim. We worry a little bit about the latest restorative justice case involving a...
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High Hopes Campaign releases a new report about restorative justice
March 19, 2012
Commit to and proactively pursue a districtwide reduction in suspensions and expulsions by 40 percent in the coming school year. Overcome current barriers to the implementation of restorative justice by developing a sustainable, districtwide plan for rolling out these practices in schools....
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FaithCARE: Creating restorative congregations
March 19, 2012
During a pilot, FaithCARE worked with a dozen churches in four denominations, including Lutheran, Christian Reformed, United Church of Canada and Presbyterian, as well as nondenominational community churches. (The organization’s work to date has been with Christian denominations, but...
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Restorative justice: Sketching a new legal discourse
March 15, 2012
Whereas the traditional Western legal discourses of justice theory and utilitarianism, or efficiency, emphasize the so-called public needs triggered by crime, restorative justice emphasizes the private needs which go largely unaddressed in the criminal justice system as it exists today. The...
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