{"id":27262,"date":"2016-03-10T07:31:15","date_gmt":"2016-03-10T12:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=27262"},"modified":"2016-03-15T15:41:42","modified_gmt":"2016-03-15T19:41:42","slug":"global-practitioners-reflect-on-impact-of-howard-zehrs-changing-lenses-in-international-journal-of-restorative-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2016\/global-practitioners-reflect-on-impact-of-howard-zehrs-changing-lenses-in-international-journal-of-restorative-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"Global practitioners reflect on impact of Howard Zehr’s ‘Changing Lenses’ in international journal of restorative justice"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Howard Zehr<\/a>, now a distinguished professor of restorative justice at Eastern Mennonite University\u2019s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding<\/a> (CJP), was working on his best-known book, Changing Lenses<\/em>, in the late 1980s, he didn\u2019t know if it would be taken seriously. The book proposed, after all, a radical shift in the way society understands and responds to crime \u2013 exchanging the traditional, punitive approach to justice for a restorative paradigm that focuses on meeting the needs of everyone affected by a particular crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really expected to kind of be laughed at,\u201d recalls Zehr, who was director of Mennonite Central Committee\u2019s Office of Crime and Justice and working as a freelance photographer at the time (he joined the EMU faculty in 1996).<\/p>\n

Changing Lenses<\/em> received little press or attention from reviewers after its publication in 1990; instead, Zehr says, it \u201cbecame a word-of-mouth book\u201d that passed from person to person. Along the way, and in great contrast to his early expectations, the book \u2013 a fourth edition was released in 2015 \u2013 became a seminal work in the restorative justice field.<\/p>\n

To mark the 25th anniversary of Changing Lenses<\/em>\u2019 publication, the journal Restorative Justice: An International Journal<\/em> released a special issue online and in print in December 2015. It included essays from five scholars and practitioners, who wrote about the book\u2019s influence on their lives and professional environments.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Changing Lenses]<\/em> has been a major stimulus to, and has had a profound influence upon, restorative justice as a field of study and practice,\u201d wrote Gerry Johnstone, a professor of law at the University of Hull in England and the book review editor for Restorative Justice<\/em>, in his introduction. \u201cIn publishing the symposium we hope to stimulate readers \u2013 especially those new to the field \u2013 to read (or reread) this classic text and engage with its ideas and arguments.\u201d<\/p>\n

In one of the essays, Kay Pranis, a Minnesota-based restorative justice practitioner and regular instructor at CJP, reflected on Changing Lenses<\/em>\u2019 ongoing significance to her field.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the U.S. restorative justice is a movement without a center. There is no central organizing authority to promote restorative justice, to establish standards, to define practice or to marshal resources,\u201d she wrote. \u201cIt is a very decentralized movement. In spite of that I find it to be a remarkably coherent movement. In a movement without a national center, Changing Lenses<\/em> has been a primary centering force.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zehr also contributed a reflection to the special issue of Restorative Justice<\/em>, writing that he was \u201cdeeply honored, of course, by the attention to the book in this issue, and the kind things the authors have to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to Pranis, the following scholars also contributed essays to the issue:<\/p>\n