In 2015, I made it my mission to address these needs because, at its core, restorative justice is a relational approach to justice. Since RJI’s formation, we have grown a highly engaged network of over 3,700 and a digital reach of nearly 9,000 practitioners and advocates through which we foster collaboration and collective action across sectors.
The interplay between restorative justice advocacy and implementation in schools continues to shift. Schools are spending more energy navigating the changing COVID protocols and the immediate, often pressing, needs of students, parents, and educators which has made the day-to-day practice of restorative justice harder to implement. Even with a new administration in City Hall, there hasn’t been much change in the aspects of the city budget that impact the criminalization of youth in schools.
You may have seen some news reports this week and last about the disposition of the now infamous Amy Cooper case, in which it was described as restorative justice.
In 2014 two rookie officers with the NYPD shot a Black man to death on a weekday afternoon on a busy commercial street outside my office window. A pedestrian was also injured by a stray bullet that day.
First of all, how are you doing? (Hint, there’s no right answer.) Over the past week and a half my inbox has been flooded with messages from organizational leaders attempting to be reassuring, informative and/or inspiring. This has got me reflecting on who we think of as leaders, what we expect from them and why?
In any given week, we’re talking to RJ practitioners, students, survivors, funders, advocates, researchers, journalists and others who are interested in learning more and making connections.