Years ago I sold some photographs as stock photographs. I pretty much quit after my young daughter saw one of my photos in a book and pointed out that the focus of the book was contrary to my values.  The problem was not just the lack of control I had over the way stock photographs [...]

Like many communities, my own is facing a crisis in jail capacity resulting in pressures to build a larger institution. I was recently asked to serve on a local symposium panel about this issue but the report in the local paper did not accurately represent my emphasis. So I will lay it out [...]

In January a small group gathered in Seattle for several days of restorative justice dialogue and we’ve continued the discussion since then by email. (The participants are listed below.) One of the questions raised was what we considered to be the core capacities of effective restorative justice practitioners. Aaron Lyons, a practitioner in [...]

Does a photograph represent “truth?” What makes it truthful? When is it untruthful? If it does convey truth, whose truth is it?  These questions have been with photography since its origins.  They have become more pressing with the advent of digital photography and the ease with which a digital image can be manipulated.  They are [...]

In my previous entry I noted that Philip Zimbardo, in his book The Lucifer Effect, suggests “A Ten-step Program to Resist Unwanted Influences.” Because this has generated interest I will list his 10 steps below.  These are in the form of personal commitments. For his explanation of each see pp. 451-456.
1.  “I made a mistake.”
2.  [...]

Philip Zimbardo’s 2007 book, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, provides an in-depth description and evaluation of his 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. To study the dynamics of prison, this famous experiment randomly assigned college student to be guards or inmates in a mock prison. Within a very short time the project had [...]

1.    Take relationships seriously, envisioning yourself in an interconnected web of people, institutions and the environment.
2.    Try to be aware of the impact – potential as well as actual – of your actions on others and the environment.
3.    When your actions negatively impact others, take responsibility by acknowledging and seeking to repair [...]

My wife and I just returned from another lovely visit to New Zealand – my 8th since 1994. When we arrived at the AUT (Auckland University of Technology) apartment where we have stayed the last few years, Patrice, the manager, handed us the keys to our apartment and said, “Welcome home.” In fact, next to [...]

“Much of qualitative research,” writes researcher Michelle Fine, “has reproduced…a colonizing discourse of the ‘Other.’”  So also, she might have added, has photography.  So also has justice. (See “Working the Hyphens:  Reinventing Self and Other in Qualitative Research” in Denzin & Lincoln eds., Handbook of Qualitative Research, 1st Ed.)
Nils Christie has spoken of this otherness as social [...]

Stanford Law Professor Herbert Packer has argued that two opposing justice orientations dominate U.S. policy debates: crime control vs. due process. Could a restorative justice orientation provide a “third way?” that transcends these poles? The following identifies some assumptions of each.
Crime control orientation: emphasis on order and security

Order is essential in society [...]