{"id":2928,"date":"2011-03-18T14:37:33","date_gmt":"2011-03-18T18:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder-new\/?p=2928"},"modified":"2011-03-30T13:19:05","modified_gmt":"2011-03-30T17:19:05","slug":"the-journey-of-bringing-restorative-justice-to-james-madison-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/2011\/03\/the-journey-of-bringing-restorative-justice-to-james-madison-university\/","title":{"rendered":"The journey of bringing restorative justice to James Madison University"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Josh Bacon, PhD; Director of Judicial Affairs, James Madison University<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The journey of bringing restorative justice to James Madison University\u2019s Office of Judicial Affairs<\/a> has been one of the most fulfilling endeavors I have ever undertaken. Restorative justice fits my view of the potential of people in the world and I also believe the principles and practices of restorative justice are a perfect fit for the mission of James Madison University:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are a community committed to preparing students
\nto be educated and enlightened citizens
\nwho lead productive and meaningful lives.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I as well as many others who have practiced student discipline in the university setting thought we knew what restorative justice was. Well, after studying with the \u201cgrandfather\u201d of the field, Howard Zehr<\/a>, I can say, \u201cI was extremely wrong\u201d in my understanding of restorative justice. Learning about the principles and practices of restorative justice has transformed my view of the potential of student discipline and reenergized my professional focus.<\/p>\n

The truth is, it is as much the people that I have met who are involved with restorative justice as the practice itself that has made all the difference.\u00a0 For me, restorative justice started as yet\u00a0 another \u201ctool\u201d to be used in educating students, but as I learned more and dug deeper it became a new way of seeing the world.\u00a0 It started in our judicial process but has moved to many areas around the JMU campus, including into the Masters-level College Student Personnel Administration classes which I teach.\u00a0 The values and principles of restorative justice transfer to many areas in higher education institutions. So much of what we are trying to support students in relates to building community, respecting self and others, and engaging life in a meaningful way.<\/p>\n

I have seen restorative justice challenge our students in a new way and transform their view of conflict and relationships. \u00a0The restorative justice circle processes conducted at JMU have shown extraordinary engagement by students and in some cases changed the community in meaningful ways. \u00a0I have seen many negative, harmful incidents go through restorative processes and come out the other side with transformed students and community members.\u00a0 This is not something people involved in student discipline are used to seeing, and I believe higher education is just beginning to discover the potential of restorative justice practices in creating educated and enlightened citizens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The journey of bringing restorative justice to James Madison University\u2019s Office of Judicial Affairs has been one of the most fulfilling endeavors I have ever… Read more about The journey of bringing restorative justice to James Madison University<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[789],"tags":[309,886,557],"issues":[],"class_list":["post-2928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-james-madison-university","tag-josh-bacon","tag-restorative-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2928"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3267,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928\/revisions\/3267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2928"},{"taxonomy":"issues","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issues?post=2928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}