The following is an invited guest post by my friend, colleague and fellow Morehouse College grad, David Anderson Hooker. I have good news and bad news for the family and supporters of Trayvon Martin: The ‘justice’ you seek is not in the system from which you seek it!  If this sounds like a Jedi mind [...]

Recently I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon with a friend of some 20 years.  Tyrone Werts is a wise man, a leader, an inspiration to many, who has spent years organizing and helping to sustain others.  He has long been actively engaged in efforts to reduce violence in society. Tyrone Werts, early 1990s [...]

As a response to earlier blog entries, Jon Kidde developed an RJ continuum and set of principles or indicators.  With his permission, I am posting them as a guest entry.   Jon welcomes feedback on these. To see a larger version of the continuum, click here. RESTORATIVE JUSTICE: principles and indicators Engagement Involve those impacted/affected, [...]

As is obvious from the gap in my posts, I’ve been taking a break from my blog this sumer.  However, I will come out of hiding long enough to post a few recent resources. They aren’t the usual summer beach reading but maybe they will be of interest anyway. Our friends at Community Justice Initiatives [...]

Guest Blog by Aaron Lyons “True justice emerges through conversation” – Howard Zehr “So, what are your thoughts on the killing of Osama Bin Laden?,” a woman inquires almost casually at a spring dinner party. Admittedly, the US military operation in Pakistan occupies the minds of many at this time – but surely this is [...]

A recent conference on our campus entitled Conversations on Attachment included two prominent scholars working in neuroscience:  Dr. James Coan, a psychologist, and Dr. Daniel Siegel, a psychiatrist.  A few points from their presentations help explain why relationships are so important: Coan: “Our brains are designed to be with other people.”  The “baseline brain” is [...]

“Stories are the way we domesticate the world’s disorder.” (Bruce Jackson, The Story is True) My last entry emphasized the importance of story.  Since stories are essential to the experience of victims and offenders – and to all of us – I want to explore this topic a bit further here. Our histories, our identities, [...]

In a recent blog entry, a conservative blogger in the United Kingdom calls for more attention to restorative justice. Citing a speech by conservative MP Alan Duncan, the blogger suggests that restorative justice may be more than a way to reduce the revolving door or “carousel” of prison; indeed, it could have substantial benefits for [...]

“From the vantage point of the colonized, a position from which I write, and choose to privilege, the term “research” is inextricably linked to European imperialism and colonialism.  The word itself, ‘research,’ is probably one of the dirtiest words in the indigenous world’s vocabulary.  When mentioned in many indigenous contexts, it stirs up silence, it [...]

Social Work and Restorative Justice:  Skills for Dialogue, Peacemaking and Reconciliation, edited by Elizabeth Beck, Nancy P. Kropf and Pamela Blume-Leonard (Oxford University Press, 2011), is an important collection of essays on this subject. It will be of interest to both social work and restorative justice practitioners.  The following is the Afterword that Lorraine Stutzman [...]