Restorative Justice

In 1969, some members of American Indian Movement took over the abandoned prison Alcatraz, offering to buy it from the government for $24 worth of trinkets.  Though the island was considered worthless by the government, it was made into a working facility, with the thought that it wasn't much worse off than the area of land that the reservations were put on.  There were so many wonderful ideas that could have come from accepting their offer, but it did awaken many to the plight of the natives and started a movement that continues to this day.  And the government is still thwarting them at every turn.

This essay intends to highlight the problematic relationship between debt and credit, guiltiness and punishment, sin and atonement, which are central issues both in Nietzsche’s and in Dostoevsky’s thought. Particular attention has been devoted to some meaningful Nietzschean passages of Thus spoke Zarathustra, On the Genealogy of Morality and Twilight of the Idols, as well as to Dostoevsky’s novels Notes from the Underground, Notes from a dead house and mostly Crime and Punishment. This study puts into question the correspondence between the transgression and the sanction through the analysis of the figures of the judge and the criminal in the light of criminal psychology. The traditional categories of law, based on this correspondence, become problematic as they reveal that their objectivity is only presupposed.

A discussion of why states can't effectively apologize for historical injustices, through a consideration of how metanoia operates within the modern apoology and whether that dynamic is adaptable to statements made by a collective or group of people (i.e., a state). This is drawn from _The Rhetoric of Official Apologies_, (Eds. Villadsen and Edwards), Lexington, 2020

בלב הפרק  סיפור יוסף ואחיו. הפנייה לדמותו  של יוסף יכולה להחיות באדם איכויות מיטיבות שקיימות אך רדומות בו. בעקבות הדוגמא של יוסף , אני מציע לאמץ תפישת מחילה שמרכיביה הם  הכרה בפגיעה, חרטה ותיקון ואשר מחקר מראה כי היא מאפיינים מי  שהתגברו על פגיעות ילדות קשות ופיתחו חוסן. ההתעלות על הדחף לנקמה אינה כרוכה בהכרח במחילה ובהושטת הלחי השנייה לפוגע. בהשראת תובנות אלה,  נפגע המשתתף בשיח מאחה עשוי להיות מוגן מפני פגיעה מיותרת מדי מי שכבר פגע בו ולהתעלות ממקום פנימי הפתח חוסן. 
ניכור רגשי- העלול לצמוח מאבהות שאינה מכילה וגבריות זועמת המסתירה עלבון ופגיעה- יכול להסביר אלימות בני נוער וצעירים, שמדגימים אחי יוסף. התעלות  מציעה סובלימציה לאלימות ולאלימות שכנגד . היא עשויה להציע סיפוק חלופי לנפגע,  שונה מזה שמציעה מערכת המשפט המערבית, ולהוות תיקון לניכור רגשי שכזה.
ההנחה שאדם מבקש תמיד או מועד למקסם את תועלתו האישית עומדת ביסוד פרקטיקה מקצועית רווחת של אנשי מקצועות מסייעים ומשפטנים. היא מסבירה  ספקנות בסיסית כלפי תפישת הצדק המאחה.  הנחה זו, שאינה מבוססת עובדתית, שואבת תימוכין מהשיח הפסיכולוגי השליט. דמויות שפעלו במאה העשרים  כמהטמה גנדי , מרטין לותר קינג והרבי מלובביץ' קוראות תגר על הנחה זו בפועלן ובהגותן. הן  מציעות חלופה לפסיכולוגיה אגוצנטרית של נקמה. הארכיטיפ של יוסף מסביר את הנעתן. כשאנו דוחים את הנחת ההנעה התועלתנית , אנחנו מבינים כי אכזבת הנפגע מהפוגע אינה חייבת להיות סוף פסוק.  יוסף ובעקבותיו דמויות מופת לאורך כל הדורות משמשים  השראה לתהליך שינוי שבו אדם- דרך התעלותו- מחולל שינוי  גם באחר.
מודל הגבריות החומלת והמתעלה של יוסף מהווה חלופה למודל הגבריות המצ'ואיסטי השליט בתרבות המערבית. המודל השליט  מתרגם למערכת משפט יריבותית ונצחנית. ריפוי הנכות הרגשית תלוית התרבות של גברים ונשים כאחד – המנתקת אותם מהחמלה 'הנשית' כביכול והבזויה – עשוי לתרום לפתיחות לתפישת הצדק המאחה. העצמת ביטוייה של תפישת הצדק המאחה עשויה לתרום לריפוי הנכות הרגשית הזו. זהו מעגל קסמים דו כיווני.
הפרק מזמין אנשי שדה ומחקר להתגבר על התניה תרבותית המובילה אותם להיזהר מדיבור וכתיבה על התעלות. התגברותם עשויה לתרום למתן מענה לצורך במשמעות. צורך אנושי זה עשוי לקבל מענה באמצעות שיח מאחה העשוי לפנות לאדם במלוא גדלותו האנושית

The global COVID-19 pandemic is a health crisis, an economic crisis, and a justice crisis. It also brings to light multiple ongoing, underlying social crises. The COVID-19 crisis is actively revealing crises of energy sovereignty in at least four ways. First, there are many whose access to basic health services is compromised because of the lack of energy services necessary to provide these services. Second, some people are more vulnerable to COVID-19 because of exposure to environmental pollution associated with energy production. Third, energy services are vital to human wellbeing, yet access to energy services is largely organized as a consumer good. The loss of stable income precipitated by COVID-19 may therefore mean that many lose reliable access to essential energy services. Fourth, the COVID-19 crisis has created a window of opportunity for corporate interests to engage in aggressive pursuit of energy agendas that perpetuate carbon intensive and corporate controlled energy s...

Recensione del volume "Volti e maschere della pena. Opg e carcere duro, muri della pena e giustizia riparativa", Aa. Vv., a cura di F. Corleone e A. Pugiotto, Roma, Ediesse, 2013, apparsa in Rassegna bibliografica, Riv. it. dir. proc. pen., n. 3/2014.

Despite ongoing research there is no consensus amongst scholars regarding the definition and meaning of restorative justice. While various ideas have been advanced on what restorative justice is supposed to be, the literature is unclear as to whether it should be a mainstream role-player in criminal justice. In this contribution it is envisaged that all the different arguments regarding restorative justice will be addressed to position it in relation to mainstream criminal justice and rehabilitation. It appears that the key objective of restorative justice is restoration and addressing harms after the victim has granted forgiveness. However, some victims will take a long time to forgive while others will never forgive. Some scholars believe that a restorative justice conference is much more effective in preventing further crime i.e. promotes (rehabilitation) than the formal threats of the Criminal Justice System. This contribution takes a critical look at restorative justice and whe...

This research analyzes changes made by a juvenile court over five years toward the progressive inclusion of victims as “stakeholders” within the implementation and development of restorative justice practices. Beginning in 1999, the Clark County Juvenile Court (CCJC) in Washington State introduced a Victim Offender Mediation (VOM) program. Subsequently, the court altered diversion and probation practices in ways that provided several significant services to victims, and afforded victims increased decision-making capacity. In doing so, the court also amended how offenders fulfilled their diversion or probation requirements at the court, particularly in relation to its use of VOMs. This research follows the initial inclusion of victims as “stakeholders” within the use of VOMs beginning in 1999, and explicates how and where these stakeholder roles were amended over time until 2005, when the court had largely finalized the structure of victim involvement and participation. The ensuing d...

Resume The author searches for the limits of the competence of restorative justice, and thinks of it in much broader terms, as it makes the recent literature. She is dealing with the notion of restorative justice as a society-building principle that 'stretches' far into the different areas of special (social) policies. If restorative justice gains more ground, it strengths the conditions for participatory democracy with more intensive involvement of the public in problem-solving. The study argues that traditional criminal justice has to deal with criminal actions in such a wide spectrum for which it is neither prepared nor has adequate financial resources or available tools to find proper solutions. The competence limits of traditional justice's boundaries must be permeable when traditional justice's punishment would be 'too little' or 'too much, e.g. when the pain caused by the crime is very strong or when the offence is not serious enough. The author thinks that there are two areas where proportionality as a measurement given by criminal law makes no sense because the consequences of acts that are almost impossible to conceive for a human mind cannot be communicated in the language of formal criminal law. It should be the competence of restorative justice to handle any actions that do not reach the lower limit of criminal justice or those which exceed the upper limit thereof, either exclusively or complementarily. This means that at those points where the competence borders of national defence and criminal law merge, restorative, and especially "reconciliation" justice have relevance. Similarly, at points where the activities performed by the police forces and social services merge, it is not traditional but restorative justice that may play a more significant role. Thus, restorative justice may have its place in the area outside the traditional competence borders of criminal justice.

Abstract: This essay examines the contribution that ‘artistic insights’ can offer to the theory and
practice of peacebuilding, thereby taking into account the reflections of two pioneers in the field,
Howard Zehr and John William Cooley. The first Author – widely considered as the ‘grandfather’ of
restorative justice – has often taken profit by his expertise as a photographer, which affected his
perspective(s) on justice both at a theoretical and a practical level. Conversely, Cooley – whose vital
contribution to the theory of civil mediation is mostly connected to binding it to (a classical approach
to legal) argumentation – has reflected on the role of music in the theory and practice of mediation.
He suggested, in fact, a parallelism between being a mediator and a musician (both considered as a
performer and as a composer). Through different disciplines and metaphoric images, both Zehr and
Cooley show how arts can help reflecting on the perspective and angle through which a justice
process is understood, envisioned and put into practice.
Abstract: Il saggio dedica l’attenzione al contributo di pensiero di due maestri del peacebuilding,
Howard Zehr e John William Cooley, esaminando le riflessioni che entrambi hanno dedicato
all’influenza che una determinata disciplina artistica ha avuto sul versante sia teorico che pratico del
loro impegno nella pacificazione dei conflitti. Nel caso di Zehr, si considera il contributo che la
fotografia ha avuto nel contesto della riflessione dell’Autore in tema di restorative justice; per quanto
concerne Cooley – cui va riconosciuto il merito di aver riconnesso la metodologia della mediazione
civile all’argomentazione, in particolare di matrice classica – si ripercorrono le riflessioni dell’Autore
in tema di musica (e sul contributo che l’essere compositore ed esecutore può esercitare sulla
sensibilità e sul metodo del mediatore stesso). Ne risultano alcuni spunti di pensiero utili a riflettere
su come uno ‘sguardo artistico’ possa contribuire al mondo della p

One of the most deeply ingrained and most often bemoaned patterns in modern fantasy is its propensity to project violence as a solution. The tacit or explicit glorifi­cation of " rightful " violence has usually been accompanied by a host of attitudes that promulgate war as the basic metaphor of group activity. Yet, human interac­tion can also be described by metaphors of peace and through stories in which characters employ means other than violence to deal with aggression and situ­ations of hurt. Focusing on Nancy Farmer's The Saxon Saga—The Sea of Trolls (2004), The Land of the Silver Apples (2007) and The Island of the Blessed (2009)— this essay examines the metaphors of peace Farmer employs to suggest that the work of peace requires a whole new way of looking at the world. Although the novels are set in a world torn by violent conflicts, they offer compelling alternatives to violence. Through the adventures of the protagonist Jack, the servant of the life­ force and a mediator between three different cultures, readers are invited to appreciate the idea that non­violent means can be highly effective as regards stan­ding up against evil and achieving the greater good.

Restorative justice is here to stay, so argue the contributors to a Special Issue on Restorative Justice in the recent journal issue of Victims & Offenders. But what future will it have? In this paper, I will survey the various responses to this question as well as the challenges identified by these contributors. While some of these challenges are not new – whether RJ will remain in the shallow-end of the criminal justice pool, problems with definition, increasing institutionalisation, and cultural appropriation – the range of responses to these challenges reflect some worrying trends.

In particular, this paper will focus on Kathleen Daly’s assertion that ‘the research and development phase of restorative justice has now past’, researchers must cease defining RJ as a type of justice with its own unique set of values, otherwise we will continually be ‘bobbling on a raft in a sea of hopes and dreams.’ Daly’s empiricist definition of RJ as a ‘justice-mechanism’, along with the other contributions to this journal edition, provide a helpful point of departure to reflect on where RJ is going and whether or not this is indeed reflective of a better future.

The Syrian civil war has seen the weaponization of its land and property rights system by the primary combatant groups in the country. The government is the most robust in its use of the tenure system to locate, target, destroy, confiscate, cleanse, and gain revenue by way of the institutions and attributes comprising the system. Based on fieldwork with Syrian refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey, this article describes seven ways the Syrian government is currently using the land and property rights system in its military-on-civilian engagements. While the objective of such use is presumably to permanently prevail over opposition civilian constituencies, the article describes how this actually creates evidence usable for effective restitution of lands and properties subsequent to the war. Introduction The ongoing civil war in Syria has emerged as a laboratory of new weapons used by the various sides in the conflict. While a number of these are purely kinetic-involving both crude and innovative forms of firepower, executions, troop movements and strategies-others take advantage of society based structures and institutions which facilitate targeting specific constituencies within the civilian population and then become attached to kinetic objectives. Statutory land and property rights systems are particularly vulnerable to being used in this way, with significant effect and lasting repercussions. While the Syrian government is not the first to use aspects of land and property rights systems in the pursuit of military objectives, it is the most current, egregious and sophisticated. This paper describes how the statutory land and property rights system has become an important weapon in the Syrian conflict with a number of uses, but with the ultimate counterinsur-gency strategic objective of spatially and permanently prevailing over the insurgency and its civilian constituencies. Permanently ridding certain landscapes of opposition supporters and replacing these with pro-regime inhabitants is just as important to the overall objective of 'prevailing' as is military victory over insurgent combatants for the Syrian government.

In the vast restorative justice literature, we rarely find interdisciplinary resources that may raise fresh questions to our thinking. Over the last few years, psychology and other applied sciences have made attempts to understand and indeed explain the values that underlie restorative justice as well as the practices that manifest them.

The Mangaung One-Stop Child Justice Centre (from hereon ‘the centre’) is
one of the pioneering one-stop centres for child justice in South Africa and
has received international recognition for its work. The centre implemented
the provisions of the new Child Justice Act 75 of 2008 within the parameters
of existing law before the Act came into operation. The centre also piloted
the new preliminary inquiry process before it came into operation. In this
article, the process followed from arrest to diversion or trial as provided for
in the new legislation is described. In addition, the best practices used at
the centre in this process are identified. Although the centre is setting an
excellent example for dealing with children in conflict with the law, a few
challenges exist and a few recommendations are therefore made.

This article proposes a more multifaceted way of thinking about victim-survivors' perceptions of justice; what we have termed 'kaleidoscopic justice'. Developed from an empirical investigation with 20 victim-survivors of sexual violence, kaleidoscopic justice understands justice as a constantly shifting pattern; justice constantly refracted through new experiences or understandings; justice as an ever-evolving, nuanced and lived experience. Within this framework, a number of justice themes emerged, namely justice as consequences, recognition, dignity, voice, prevention and connectedness. This approach develops current understandings, in particular by emphasizing the fluidity of justice, as well as the centrality of prevention and connectedness in sexual violence survivors' understandings of justice. We suggest that it is only by better understanding victim-survivor perspectives on justice, and embedding the concept of kaleidoscopic justice, that we can begin to addre...

Informed by decolonial feminism, this article explores a transformative justice approach to relationship violence and campus sexual assault in the aftermath of the Larry Nassar case at Michigan State University. The article considers how the emphasis on liability and Title IX compliance as the only response available for dealing with gender-based violence within university settings can function to silence survivors, particularly survivors of color and queer, gender nonbinary, and trans survivors, while also denying them precious access to resources for healing. In so doing, the author raises key questions that help illustrate the difference between current approaches that mimic a criminal justice system response, that fails to support a broad range of survivors, and a transformative justice approach that is attentive to the intergenerational impact of settler-colonial histories, ongoing state-sanctioned violence, and the coloniality and racialization of gender.

Colombia's Special Jurisdiction for Peace (SJP) aims to achieve criminal accountability through a mixed system of restorative and retributive justice. Generally speaking, the SJP envisions large-scale restorative justice measures involving public acknowledgments of responsibility, as well as concrete, symbolic, and collective reparations aimed at satisfying victims while simultaneously reintegrating perpetrators. This report describes the court’s mixed model, delves into its innerworkings, and critically assesses its restorative justice components and their impact.

The Northern Ireland youth justice system is unique within unique within Europe due to its adoption of a mainstreamed restorative justice approach, which has been integrated through a process called ‘youth conferencing’. The following provides a brief overview of this approach to youth justice and considers some recent findings from the perspective of victims who were involved in this process

"Making accountable the guilty ones" - Restorative justice in Brazil and the brazilian legal culture

ABSTRACT: Restorative justice, as a new form of conflict management, is a developing reality in Brazil, presenting itself through different views and restorative practices. Considering the various ways in which responsibility can be conceived due to the cultural context and the relationships between these different conceptions of responsibility and practices of conflict management in the public space, this paper discusses possible implications of the Brazilian legal culture for restorative justice in Brazil . We conducted a literature review of the ideas of David Garland on the relationship between culture and punishment, Roberto Kant de Lima of the Brazilian legal culture and characterized restorative justice from some of the main authors of the subject of restorative values and principles. Using Garland's ideas about the relationship between culture and punishment, restorative justice is understood as part of a broader cultural framework, incorporating concepts, values and perspectives specific to this context. Given the characterization of the legal culture of common law countries made by Kant de Lima, we found that restorative justice is related to that, conveying certain ideas about society, individuals and how to hold them accountable that contrasts with the Brazilian legal culture as characterized by that author. Considering the emphasis placed by the restorative justice in an active conception of responsibility and the successive "blaming" produced in the Brazilian legal culture, it is concluded that restorative justice in a context marked by hierarchical characteristics such as Brazil, may represent a “blaming” mechanism of those identified as the offender/criminal, while allowing other individuals to be outside of this "responsibility". This paper summarizes discussions of the research produced during the specialization in Criminal Science at PUCRS, which resulted in the monograph "Will it end in samba? Reflections on possible implications of the Brazilian legal culture for restorative justice in Brazil. "

Keywords: restorative justice – Brazilian legal culture – conflict management – responsibility – blaming

RESUMO: A justiça restaurativa, como nova forma de administração dos conflitos, é uma realidade em desenvolvimento no Brasil, apresentando-se através de diferentes concepções e práticas restaurativas. Considerando os diversos modos como a responsabilidade pode ser concebida conforme o contexto cultural e as relações entre essas diferentes concepções de responsabilidade e as práticas relacionadas à administração de conflitos no espaço público, este trabalho discute possíveis implicações da cultura jurídica brasileira para a justiça restaurativa no Brasil. Realizou-se uma revisão bibliográfica das ideias de David Garland sobre as relações entre cultura e punição, de Roberto Kant de Lima sobre a cultura jurídica brasileira e caracteriza-se a justiça restaurativa a partir de alguns dos principais autores do tema sobre valores e princípios restaurativos. A partir das ideias de Garland acerca da relação entre punição e cultura, a justiça restaurativa se insere em um arranjo cultural mais amplo, incorporando conceitos, valores e visões de mundo específicos deste contexto. Diante da caracterização da cultura jurídica de países do common law efetuada por Kant de Lima, identificamos que a justiça restaurativa relaciona-se com ela, veiculando determinadas concepções sobre a sociedade, os indivíduos e a forma de responsabilizá-los, contrastando-se com a cultura jurídica brasileira caracterizada por aquele autor. Considerando a ênfase colocada pela justiça restaurativa em uma concepção ativa de responsabilidade e as “culpabilizações sucessivas” produzidas na cultura jurídica brasileira, conclui-se que a justiça restaurativa, em um contexto marcado por características hierárquicas como o Brasil, pode representar um mecanismo de culpabilização desse sujeito identificado como infrator/criminoso, enquanto permite-se a outros sujeitos seguirem à margem dessa “responsabilização” pretendida. Este trabalho sintetiza discussões da pesquisa produzida durante a especialização em Ciências Penais da PUCRS, que resultou na monografia “Será que acaba em samba? Reflexões sobre possíveis implicações da cultura jurídica brasileira para a justiça restaurativa no Brasil”.

Palavras-chave: justiça restaurativa – cultura jurídica brasileira – administração de conflitos - responsabilidade – culpabilização"

This paper will take an historical and narrative approach to address the restorative justice movement and its resonance with overarching biblical themes of justice and community. It will do so bycomparing the histories and assumptions of both the restorative justice movement and the criminal justice system. Finally, early Anabaptist experience will be examined as a way to see how thebeginnings of the restorative justice movement may have been conceivable centuries later.

This  study  examines  the  life  of  Crips  cofounder  Stanley “Tookie”  Williams  and  the  controversy  surrounding  his multiple  nominations  for  the  Nobel  Peace  Prize.  After being sentenced to death for a quadruple murder, Williams underwent a period of radical transformation and became an internationally recognized ambassador for peace. From San  Quentin’s  death  row,  Williams  supported  several  in-ternationally  recognized  gang  peace  initiatives  including the  1992  Watts  truce,  the  1993  Summit  on  Urban  Peace and Justice, Hands Across America, and the  2004 Tookie Protocol  for  Peace.  This  article  explores  the  challenges Williams faced in his evolution from a gang member to a peace activist, his role in these projects, and how neoliberal criminal  justice  reforms  undermined  his  global  efforts  to promote grassroots peace coalitions.

The editors of this symposium have asked each of us contributors to reflect on an issue that John Braithwaite has considered in the course of his writings, with particular reference to his writing on restorative justice. The question that this article considers is the question of citizenship and, in particular, ‘citizenship that is responsible and innovative’. Citizenship has not, for the most part, been an explicit focus of attention across John’s corpus. Yet, as my colleague Cameron Holley has reminded me, citizenship, and the issues surrounding it, have constituted a central and integrative weft across John’s thinking – a golden thread. This is hardly surprising given John’s long-established commitment to republican thinking about freedom as non-domination and given that this thinking has brought ‘to the fore a new focus on citizenship’ (Honohan, 2017: 83). In what follows I explore how John weaves this somewhat subterranean thread, together with other threads that characterise his work to create a rich tapestry of thought.

(SEE ATTACHED FILE FOR LINK TO THE ONLINE ARTICLE) In 2020 the global 3HO Kundalini Yoga community began awakening to stories of sexually abusive behaviors, manipulative tactics, and exploitative business dealings by Yogi Bhajan and community members, with those in the inner circle enabling abuses and silencing dissenting voices. Students have been grappling with the contradictions of the spiritual teacher who both abused his power and empowered women, proclaiming that “the day the woman will not be exploited on this planet, there shall be peace on this Earth” (Yogi Bhajan, May 9, 1971). People are now awakening to the sexism, misogyny, heteropatriarchy, and white supremacy that have bled through his teachings that purport respect and equality for all. Those in the first generation are now reckoning with the trauma that some of their children experienced being sent away at young ages to live with other families or to boarding school in India where many reported being beaten, neglected, always hungry, told that hardship would make them strong “leaders of tomorrow.” New revelations of abuse by teachers, guides, and leaders of the community continue to be brought to light, demonstrating a history of silencing. How does a community of practitioners, who have spent the past 50 years dedicated to spreading the light, move toward healing when there is so much darkness in the shadow?

https://sacredmattersmagazine.com/the-painful-process-of-awakening-harm-and-healing-in-the-healthy-happy-holy-kundalini-yoga-community/

This article proposes a more multifaceted way of thinking about victim-survivors’ perceptions of justice; what we have termed ‘kaleidoscopic justice’. Developed from an empirical investigation with 20 victim-survivors of sexual violence, kaleidoscopic justice understands justice as a constantly shifting pattern; justice constantly refracted through new experiences or understandings; justice as an ever-evolving, nuanced and lived experience. Within this framework, a number of justice themes emerged, namely justice as consequences, recognition, dignity, voice, prevention and connectedness. This approach develops current understandings, in particular by emphasizing the fluidity of justice, as well as the centrality of prevention and connectedness in sexual violence survivors’ understandings of justice. We suggest that it is only by better understanding victim-survivor perspectives on justice, and embedding the concept of kaleidoscopic justice, that we can begin to address the sexual vi...