International Institute of Restorative Practice Graduate School Holds Second Commencement
July 17, 2009
IIRP president Ted Wachtel began the ceremony by answering the question he thought might be in the minds of audience members: What is restorative practices? Every day in schools around the world, a young person misbehaves and is asked to leave class. He or she is punished,...
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Three-year research project on mediation and restorative justice in prison settings
July 14, 2009
The project partners will be involved in a number of activities, including: carrying out original research to gain a deeper insight into the attitudes of victims, juveniles, adult inmates, correctional staff, policy makers, legislators and other key stakeholders towards RJ; exchanging...
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Dominican Republic: Losing freedom but not dignity
July 13, 2009
Officials travelled to various model prisons around the world – in England, the United States, Holland, France, China and Colombia – to choose elements they wanted to incorporate. Ian Worthington, the ambassador from Britain, which provided technical assistance to the project, is...
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Why penal reform should be a conservative issue
July 13, 2009
The Commission – on which I was proud to serve – argues for a change of direction. It is time, its report says, for English society to stop bingeing on prisons, to radically scale back its dependence on incarceration as the path to social order. To this end, the report suggests...
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Safety with Dignity: Alternatives to the Over-Policing of Schools
July 13, 2009
The report’s “Summary of Findings and Recommendations” identifies five core principles of schools that are safe and that provide nurturing learning environments: dignity and respect for all members of the school community; authority and responsibility for discipline residing...
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More cautionary news from the US
July 13, 2009
Keith Richburg writes about this in the Washington Post today. Other countries seeking to “crack down” on crime by mandating prison sentences would do well to consider the US...
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Building restorative cultures
July 12, 2009
e do need to address the fact that some schools and local authorities are latching onto RJ as an off-the-shelf strategy, simply because the school down the road is doing it, or because there is money available from another sector (police, probation, etc.). This can result in poorly...
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Offering Hope, Encouraging Change
July 11, 2009
My colleague responded, “That is such a core truth and often forgotten especially in the criminal justice system with its judgments.” In the exchange, I began thinking of how we can lose sight of this hope and possibility of change even in restorative programmes: A focus on...
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On delivering nuanced messages in a soundbite culture
July 10, 2009
This was a surprise to me, since many studies have shown that restorative justice can be very effective in dealing with bullying. I began to suspect that the was an instance of a reporter or headline-writer eager to generate sales by generating controversy. Confirmation came in the fourth...
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An interesting reason to use restorative justice
July 10, 2009
From Dan McLennan’s article on Canada.com: Three boys could end up paying very publicly for their very public lack of respect for property in Willow Point on Canada Day, after ripping apart City maple trees and strewing garbage about the highway at the entrance to Campbell River…....
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Global Peace Index ranks New Zealand as the world’s most peaceful country, Iraq as least peaceful
July 10, 2009
Here is how the countries ranked: 1 New Zealand 1.202 2 Denmark 1.217 2 Norway 1.217 4 Iceland 1.225 5 Austria 1.252 6 Sweden 1.269 7 Japan 1.272 8 Canada 1.311 9 Finland 1.322 9 Slovenia 1.322 11 Czech Republic 1.328 12 Ireland 1.333 13 Luxembourg 1.341 14 Portugal 1.348 15 Belgium 1.359 16...
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How should we treat apologies in criminal law?
July 10, 2009
These are the sort of questions that Nick Smith says in “The Penitent and the Penitentiary” he is considering as he writes his second book on the topic of apology. His first, I Was Wrong, identified the elements that give apologies their “core moral meaning”. Those...
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We live in a relational and moral universe
July 10, 2009
I think she is right. Of course particular relationships may be disordered and twisted. The point is not that they always accomplish their purposes in the development of strong individuals, families, and communities. It is this: even when they fail, our response is not to campaign for the...
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A comment on Do Better Do Less: The report of the Commission on English Prisons Today
July 10, 2009
The Commission, whose president was Cherie Booth QC, wife of the former prime minister Tony Blair, therefore proposes ‘a significant reduction in the prison population and the closure of establishments; the replacement of short prison sentences with community-based responses; and a...
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