Codie Bell’s quest to transform universities
There is a growing problem of ‘rape culture’ on the campus of the Australian National University. There have been new dimensions of this problem in recent years such as a Facebook group titled ‘ANU Stalkerspace’ which has been the particularly public host of some unpleasant public discussion about women and minorities. The Rape Crisis Centre […]
Our Hawai’i Friends of Restorative Justice
Hawai’i Friends of Restorative Justice, (HFRJ) was incorporated in 1980 to provide juvenile diversion. Since 1995 it has promoted public health solutions to build community in response to injustice and crime by developing, testing, and training others on pilot restorative interventions in a […]
Learning to Scale Up Restorative Justice
Kerry Clamp’s final chapter of her new volume, Restorative Justice in Transitional Settings , is about a transformative vision for restorative justice as a response to mass victimisation. One way I have argued for transitional justice to become more transformative is for it to become less transitional. In her recent writing, Kerry Clamp […]
LGBT bullying and restorative empowerment
My co-author and former PhD student, Ray Nickson, who is now Criminal Justice Program Director in the Peace and Conflict Studies Centre of Fresno Pacific University sent me this inspiring news story:
Well done 17 year old Sam, well done Bullard High School and Fresno Pacific for such […]
Restorative Justice and the ‘F’ word
John presented a public lecture at Oxford University in 2015 on forgiveness in restorative justice that was just published in the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion[1]: ‘Redeeming the ‘F’ word in Restorative Justice’.
The paper argues that genuine forgiveness usually does not happen in restorative justice. […]
Ending residual paramilitary domination in Northern Ireland
John recently co-wrote a paper with Kirsty Campbell (St Andrews University) and Derick Wilson (Ulster University) called Ending residual paramilitary domination in Northern Ireland? Restorative economic and social inclusion strategies.
The paper considers options for dismantling residual pockets of paramilitary domination and draws insights from restorative justice and complexity theory. It places Northern Ireland as […]
Understanding Terrorism Through Restorative Justice
In Milan last month, Val Braithwaite and I had the opportunity to attend a dialogue between convicted Italian terrorists of the 1970s from organisations such as the Red Brigades, and the families of victims. Prosecutors and civil society actors also participated. It was moving, particularly when love was expressed by victims toward offenders who had […]
New Evidence on the Effectiveness of Restorative Justice and Responsive Regulation
Jennifer Wong, Jessica Bouchard, Jason Gravel, Martin Bouchard, and Carlo Morselli have published a new meta-analysis [1] on the effectiveness of restorative justice with at-risk youth in the latest issue of Criminal Justice and Behavior. Their meta-analysis included more recent studies than previous meta-analyses and added search for studies published in French.
Their results […]
Restorative Justice and Healing the Environment
I like the opening essay in the latest issue of Restorative Justice: An International Journal by Elmar Weitekamp and Stephan Parmentier. It argues that if we are to define just one core value of restorative justice, this is healing.
Of course, to be healing, restorative justice needs to be relational, reparative, procedurally fair, nurturant […]