RJ and the Criminal Justice System
RJ and the Criminal Justice System
Prison Fellowship International’s Centre for Justice and Reconciliation
The Centre has compiled a comprehensive online database of articles and research on restorative justice organized by topic and area of interest.
Beyond Prisons: A New Interfaith Paradigm for Our Failed Prison System by Lauraet Magnani & Harmon L. Wray
This strong indictment of the prison system traces the history and features of our penal system, offers ethical and moral assessments of it, laying out a new paradigm based on restorative justice and reconciliation.
Dreams From the Monster Factory by Sunny Schwartz & David Boodell
Powerful, captivating, and hopeful, Dreams from the Monster Factory goes beyond statistics and sensational portrayals of prison life and reveals the troubling realities of U.S. jails, and an astonishing alternative.
The Little Book of Restorative Justice for People in Prison: Rebuilding the Web of Relationships by Barb Toews
Barb Toews, with years of experience in prison work, shows how people in prison can live restorative-justice principles. She shows how these practices can change prison culture and society.
Can Forgiveness Play a Role in Criminal Justice? by Paul Tullis, New York Times
An article calling to think about restorative processes and their potential role in bringing about forgiveness within the criminal justice system.
Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice (3rd ed.) by Howard Zehr
The justice system often increases the injury of crime victims. Offenders are less ignored by this system, but their real needs are also left unaddressed. Zehr proposes a “restorative” model. He takes into account recent studies and biblical principles.
By Talking, Inmates and Victims Make Things ‘More Right’ by Dina Kraft, New York Times
An article following a restorative process between inmates and victims, featured in the New York Times.
Concrete, Steel & Paint
This film tells the story of a collaborative mural project in Philadelphia, PA, that fostered dialogue between men in prison and victims of crime.
Theorizing Community Integration As Desistance-Promotion by Kathryn Fox, Journal of Criminal Justice and Behavior
This article draws on qualitative data collected from a Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA) program in Vermont, which uses community volunteers to create a circle around selected medium-to-high risk offenders (often sex offenders) who present a risk for reoffense due to their isolation.
The Healing Justice Project
Healing Justice is a national nonprofit organization that serves individuals who have experienced trauma and inequity in the justice system. They provide post-trial support and recovery to crime victims, survivors, and their families, and also provide post-prison support and recovery to returning citizens and their families in cases where innocence has been proven. In addition, they offer education, training, and technical support to police, prosecutors, judges, and other justice professionals.
Justice After Injustice by Lara Bazelon, Slate Magazine
“What happens after a wrongfully convicted person is exonerated—and the witness finds out she identified the wrong man.”
Evident Change
Evident Change, formerly known as the National Council on Crime & Delinquency, is a nonprofit that uses data and research to improve social systems. Its mission is to promote just and equitable social systems for individuals, families, and communities through research, public policy, and practice.
The $746 Million A Year School-to-Prison Pipeline
This report, by the Center for Popular Democracy and Urban Youth Collaborative, reveals the yearly economic impact of the school-to-prison pipeline in NYC, calling for investment in supportive programs/opportunities.
Transforming Justice, Lawyers, and the Practice of Law by Majorie Silver
The book showcases the abundant ways in which lawyers, judges, law professors and others are employing more communitarian, peaceful and healing ways to resolve conflicts and achieve justice.
Restorative Justice in Justice Systems
Officer Greg Ruprecht shares a police officer’s perspective on restorative justice.
Restoring Hope
Restoring Hope follows Mike Hinton, as he brings together victims, offenders and their community that offer an alternative for “a criminal justice system failing too many and costing too much.”
For a child who killed their child, they chose restoration, not prison
In Tampa, Florida, a family who lost their son due in a tragic accident chose to engage in a restorative process with their son’s killer. Instead of being punitive, they wanted to ensure that the child got support and that all the families involved did too.
Interrupting Criminalization
Interrupting Criminalization is an initiative led by researchers Mariame Kaba and Andrea J. Ritchie. The project aims to interrupt and end the growing criminalization and incarceration of women and LGBTQ people of color for criminalized acts related to public order, poverty, child welfare, drug use, survival and self-defense, including criminalization and incarceration of survivors of violence.
ROCA: System Leadership in Chelsea Massachusetts
ROCA is an outreach and intervention organization in Chelsea, Massachusetts that uses restorative justice to build relationships and create a sense of belonging for high-risk young men and mothers.
Lessons in Racial Justice and Movement Building: Dismantling the School-to-Prison-Pipeline in Colorado and Nationally
This report details how a multiracial grassroots organizing effort led by youth of color mobilized against the School-to-Prison-Pipeline and brought restorative justice to Denver public schools and beyond.
Restorative Justice: Imagining a New Future for Criminal Law in NYC Panel Discussion
Features a recording of the virtual panel discussion with the same name, in addition to featured and additional organizations and resources.
Accounting for Violence: How to Increase Safety and Break Our Failed Reliance on Mass Incarceration
Danielle Sered states that reducing violence and incarceration is essential and a new justice vision must address violence in a way that honors all survivors and insists on racial equity.
The Institute for Restorative Justice and Restorative Dialogue at the University of Texas, Austin
The Institute for Restorative Justice and Restorative Dialogue’s (IRDRD) mission is to advance meaningful accountability, community safety, and healing through the use of restorative justice solutions to build strong, empathetic relationships and repair the harm the results from conflict, crime and victimization.
Common Justice
Common Justice, a Brooklyn-based program, is an innovative victim service and alternative-to-incarceration program based on restorative justice principles.
What a World Without Prisons Could Look Like
Van Buren gave this talk about designing restorative justice centers that treat crime as a breach of relationships and justice as a process where all stakeholders come together to repair that breach.
An Introduction to Restorative Circles with Dominic Barter
Dominic Barter discusses what Restorative Circles look like in Brazil.
Steps to End Prisons & Policing: A Mixtape on Transformative Justice
This collection of 9 (!) recorded video workshops or webinars are each between 45-90 minutes long and contain valuable frameworks, real life examples and tools you can use to help strengthen your personal practice and political commitment to this moment.
The Community Justice Ideal: Preventing Crime and Achieving Justice by Todd R. Clear & David Karp
In this study, the authors provide a theoretical analysis of building healthy communities to deter criminality, and an examination of attempts to put it into practice in communities throughout the country.
How has restorative justice transformed you?
We interviewed New York City-based restorative justice practitioners and advocates and asked them to talk about how they’ve been transformed by restorative justice.
What is your vision for Restorative Justice 20 years from now?
We interviewed New York City-based restorative justice practitioners and advocates and asked them to describe their vision for restorative justice 20 years from the year 2018.
Punishment is Not Accountability by Kate McCord, Virginia Sexual & Domestic Violence Action Alliance
This piece is the first in the blog series, “Dreaming Up a More Liberated Future” which will explore how we (as a country, and as a movement to end gender-based violence) have prioritized expanding and strengthening punishing systems over helping strategies, the impact of those choices on survivors of trauma and their communities, and how we can do better.
The Legalization of Restorative Justice: A Fifty-State Empirical Analysis
This article argues the current degree of legal internalization of restorative justice indicates the emergence of a new legal norm. It calls for a reexamination of perceptions of restorative justice.
The Family Group Conference
This video shows how a family in the UK worked to come up with a custody plan for their daughter through a family group conference.
Kay Pranis at Chautauqua Institution
Kay Pranis speaks about the “Driftwood Exercise” that she uses in restorative circle trainings and what it has taught her about group dynamics.
Healing from Conflict: Restorative Approaches and a Path Forward for Justice
Healing from Conflict: Restorative Approaches and a Path Forward for Justice brought together our teachers and elders in Native communities and the restorative justice space to share stories and lessons about how to balance the values of restorative approaches with a long-term vision for change.
Conflict Transformation
In terms of conflict, Luna has been writing publicly about and counseling folks about conflict since 2018, but began studying Transformative Justice (TJ) around 2013 through the Creative Interventions Toolkit and resources provided by Generation 5, INCITE!, Mariame Kaba, and Mia Mingus. TJ was developed from the everyday practices that criminalized communities, largely Black, Indigenous, and undocumented, have relied on for generations. Through that study, they began to cultivate, experiment, and engage in everyday practice of conflict transformation and abolitionism.
Women with Lived Experience in the Criminal Legal System Must Lead the Way
“In all the work I do, I encourage outside-of-the-box thinking to develop policies that hold people accountable, while healing and strengthening them at the same time. We must remember that 95 percent of the people we incarcerate eventually come home—what we do to them and what we do not do for them comes back to our communities. Left unaddressed and unchallenged, the lifelong collateral consequences, the economic disempowerment, and the ideologies that perpetuate women as “less than” will continue to undermine our families and communities.”
The CHAT Project
The CHAT Project is a non-law enforcement restorative justice project addressing domestic and sexual violence in Contra Costa County in Northern California’s East Bay. An evaluation report of the project’s pilot period (January 2018 to June 2021) documents the project’s vision, initial objectives, and findings from the perspective of its participants, circle keepers/facilitators/personnel, and organizational partners.
My Trauma Does Not Define Me
“After I got out in 2009, I implemented H.O.L.L.A, (How Our Lives Link Altogether), a youth development program that I co-created in prison with several other men I served time with. A few years later I started another youth development group, Youth Organizing to Save Our Streets (YO S.O.S), and earned another degree that allows me to put my people on to opportunities they might not get otherwise. I have become a gun-violence prevention advocate and a leader in the justice reform arena. For all of that I am blessed. Still, this work is a gift and a curse. The gift is helping people feel a little more hopeful about their possibilities. The curse is living in a perpetual narrative of pain. It can be exhausting to tell and retell the story of your trauma just to get people to listen to you about other things.”
How forgiving my 3-year-old son’s killer taught me much about healing. How it could help you
Sharletta Evans shares her story of activism and healing after losing her three-year-old son to gun violence. Years later, by participating in a volunteer restorative justice program, she was able to not only create a path of healing with her son’s killer beyond traditional criminal justice structures – but become an advocate for youth.
Power of Forgiveness: A Story of Harm, Healing, and Relationship
The Center for Justice Reform at Vermont Law School hosted an event titled “The Power of Forgiveness: A Story of Harm, Healing, and Relationship.”” This event featured a live discussion with special guests Tom Morgan, Jason Samuel, Christy Morgan, and Martina Lutz Schneider who were all previously featured in CNN’s Redemption Project in 2017 through their involvement with a Victim-Offender Dialogue (VOD) process. At the time of this film, Jason Samuel was still serving his remaining two years at San Quentin State Prison in California for the shooting of Officer Tom Morgan in 1997. The Victim-Offender Dialogue process that occurred came as a request from Tom Morgan, and required years of preparation for both Tom and his wife Christy. This process was facilitated by Martina Lutz Schneider, who worked with all parties individually before supporting the process coming together that is captured in the film.
Jason was released on parole in 2019, and since then has continued to stay in close relationship with both Tom and Christy. During the event, the three shared the story of how their relationship has continued to deepen and grow these last several years.
Header Photo by Maurice Pinzon
What people are saying about Restorative Justice Initiative
As both a practitioner and researcher, I am especially grateful for RJI's emails about events and research that are important and timely.
Additionally, RJI helps practitioners connect with others doing this very challenging work nationwide and globally. RJI serves as a professional learning community for those involved in the restorative justice movement.
Finally, practitioners can access information on how to maintain their own wellness as they carry out this very important work."
— Virginia Diaz
“The Restorative Justice Initiative (RJI) is a critical source of information and resources. Along with providing accessible and useful material for program development, RJI keeps us abreast of training opportunities and introduces us to other organizations in the restorative justice space. Connecting with RJI has been key to our progress creating an organization wide commitment to restorative principles and practice.”
—Stephen Tosh, Boys’ Club of New York Executive Director/CEO
“I didn’t think I could make friends with people who were from different places than me.”“We were quiet before you all got here. You brought the voice out of us.”“We all get to be weird here, together, and accept one another’s weird”
“What Restorative Justice Initiative is doing to bring together people working in restorative justice in different arenas is truly amazing. People are learning from each other, updating ideas, and finding ways to make restorative justice work in complex real life situations in New York.
— Tracey
“In my role as a law professor, I teach students about ways to resolve conflict and achieve justice that are healing rather than adversarial and punitive, exposing them to compassionate alternatives to traditional legal practice. Students are excited to learn about the healing potential of restorative practices and the empirical evidence demonstrating that such practices reduce recidivism among those who may have engaged in transgressions against their communities. The Restorative Justice Initiative is an indispensable resource enabling me to share with my students placement opportunities, trainings, and conferences, that may offer them pathways to using their legal talents to engage in this vital work. There is nothing else like it in New York.
— Marjorie
“Expanding non-adversarial ways to resolve wrong-doing that includes perpetrator, victim, and community—is essential if our country is to move in the direction of peace. RJI does a wonderful job of pulling together many New York City area organizations that are working toward this goal.
— Julia
“The Restorative Justice Initiative is essential in helping New York City build and grow a network of stakeholders from the government, nonprofit and private sectors interested in advancing restorative principles, practices and policies in our criminal , education and social service systems.
— Julie