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CCCJB - Restorative Justice
WHAT IS RESTORATIVE JUSTICE?
Restorative Justice is a victim, community and offender centered response to crime. It emphasizes on the relationship between a person and community rather than just the state. Restorative Justice focuses on the restorative practices where the offender becomes directly accountable to those he/she has harmed. This is a practice that is very different from the traditional criminal justice practice/reaction, which was very retributive in nature. Restorative Justice has moved us away from focusing on stigmatization, who did it, what laws were broken and what punishment should be given to the offender to who has been harmed, having the offender understand the wrong doing and harm with making it right. It also teaches about victimization, empathy, respect and reintegrates the offender back into the community with more appropriate resolution. Generally, this practice is accomplished by the Accountability Conferencing Model. Some other strategies/models are the Victim-Offender Mediation Programs, Sentencing Circles, Reparation Boards, and Community Service with victim input.
This practice brings all parties to the conference table to include the offender, offender’s family, victim, victim’s family, school teachers/administrators, business owners, support persons, community members and any other persons who were affected directly or indirectly. This conference allows the opportunity for everyone to discuss the incident, understand who has been affected and how they have been affected with deciding together how to best repair the harm. This conference allows the victim to tell the offender how they feel, have a say in how the harm will be repaired, receive support from the community and gain healing with closure. On the other hand, this conference allows the offender to accept accountability of their action, understand who all was harmed and in what ways, receive the support from the community, have a say in their consequence, accept the agreed consequence and begin to restore community trust.
The Restorative Justice Practice is used all over the nation in juvenile courts, adult courts, schools, police departments and communities. There are several areas in Virginia that have been and are using Restorative Justice. Such areas are Prince William, Manassas Park, Manassas City, Charlottesville, Fairfax, Loudoun, Page, Harrisonburg, Fauquier County and etc. As a result of these programs, the outcomes found were increased accountability, increased feeling of fairness, increased feeling of satisfaction for all parties and a low recidivism rate as reported by the Piedmont Dispute Resolution Center in Warrenton, Virginia.. This practice is supported by several associations such as the Restorative Justice Association of Virginia and the International Institute for Restorative Practices.
There are many opportunities to gain the training and education to implement Restorative Justice. An example is the 5 day IIRP Summer Institute in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and the 1 day RJAV 2008 Annual Fall Conference in Charlottesville, Virginia. The registration information is attached for your convenience.
Restorative Justice Power Point used at Warhill HS 1.25.10 (Powerpoint)