Norfolk police deal with offenders as young as four
August 22, 2010
The process involves asking offenders to apologise to victims and make amends for their wrong-doing. Police say it provides an opportunity to divert those who are under 10 years old, the age of criminal responsibility, away from crime at an early age. It also allows the authorities to help...
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Our justice system requires us to punish wrongdoers, what if there were a better way?
August 22, 2010
There are many restorative justice systems. The one I’ve been studying is Restorative Circles (RC), a system developed by Dominic Barter in the shanty towns of urban Brazil and now spreading across the world as a means of promoting and facilitating social justice, group cohesion,...
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Burglar meets widow he stole ring from in Lancashire
August 16, 2010
….The young man, who did not want to be identified, was convicted of burglary and ordered to pay compensation to his victim and carry out community service.He did help police trace the engagement ring and return it to the elderly woman. “I want to change and make the lady feel...
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Praise for tabs kept on taggers
August 16, 2010
Mark Wilding, 45, was asleep when he heard banging on his Karamu Rd house at 3.15am on July 11. He noticed tags on his property and followed two youths from a distance of about 50 metres as they made their way along another street, where they stopped to tag a power box outside a service...
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Archdiocese invites abuse victims to gathering for healing, advocacy
August 16, 2010
“My goal in wanting to do this is not only for us to come together and draw strength but to come together and tell the church what we need from them in order for us to heal and get over this,” added Mateus, who said she was abused by a priest in the archdiocese in...
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Restorative justice
August 16, 2010
Restorative justice moves away from the idea that crimes are offences against the State and humanises them. Crimes are mostly about breakdowns in human relationships, a tear in the social fabric. And once re-conceived in this way it becomes more obvious that the solution is to try to repair...
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Relations of domination and subordination: Challenges for restorative justice in responding to domestic violence
August 16, 2010
As Kim Lane Scheppele writes with respect to courts, ‘hose whose stories are believed have the power to create fact’. That statement may be just as apposite in RJ. While RJ is not a fact finding forum, the capacity to give meaning to the facts presented, and the new story that is...
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What does tranformative/restorative justice actually look like?
August 16, 2010
I understand that people want to have some sense of accountability for harm that was done. I often answer questions about the “bad people†by asking individuals whether they feel that every “bad†person is currently incarcerated. If they say, no, I ask them if it...
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Restorative justice, mediation and ADR
August 15, 2010
ADR and mediation usually assume that there is a kind of moral balance between parties. RJ assumes that all participants are moral agents and acknowledges that moral responsibility may be shared; however, there is usually a moral imbalance that must be explicitly acknowledged. ...
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Marathon County Restorative Justice Program
August 12, 2010
The Marathon County Restorative Justice Program receives referrals of juvenile offenders, mainly between the ages of 12 and 16, for various types of crime. Staff members prepare the young offenders to meet with their victims to allow the two parties to decide the best way for the case to be...
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Restorative justice an expansive concept
August 7, 2010
“We’re looking at the issue of second-chances for those incarcerated and re-evaluating Virginia’s no-parole system,†said Nick Szuberla, founder of the activist organization Thousand Kites. The group uses new-school media such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter alongside...
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New online resource: Creating and maintaining a peaceful environment in elementary schools
August 1, 2010
The emphasis for 1st and 2nd graders is to learn about and express their own and others’ feelings, particularly focused on the development of empathy. 3rd and 4th graders continue to learn about empathy and also team building, and conflict resolution, and 5th and 6th graders focus on...
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Blackburn father wants to meet his son’s killer
August 1, 2010
He said: “For most people, restorative justice is a pretty new concept or they know about it vaguely. “Ever since I heard of the idea a year or two ago, it seemed to me to be going down the right lines of making people who had committed an offence face up to what they had...
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Prisoners wait in wings
August 1, 2010
The play, called Restored, was put on by inmates at the Marshgate jail for an audience of criminal justice professionals, inmates, and students from the Central School of Speech and Drama, who had given them some acting tips. They spent four weeks polishing their performance – rehearsing...
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