From Juvenile Justice Information Exchange:
Imagine building a house on unstable ground and then only working to address the cracks in the walls, uneven floors and leaking roof, all symptoms of a faulty foundation. Many contractors would find this unreasonable, if not dangerous.
Yet that is essentially what we have done in the United States. After having built our nation’s house on unstable ground, we have stubbornly clung to the irrational idea that all we need to do is fix the resulting, cosmetic issues. In doing so, we have begun to use restorative justice as one of those “easy fixes,” to the detriment of both the practice and the communities asked to participate in it.
The practices and approaches the Western world today refers to as “restorative justice” have roots in indigenous, including indigenous African, peacemaking and ways of being in community. While the term has been popularized in recent years, there is limited mainstream understanding about what it actually is. Restorative justice is first and foremost about “relationships,” the ways in which we create, nurture and mend them. Most often, restorative justice is referred to in the context of addressing harm, specifically, ways to create spaces that, in the wake of traumatic events, allow for accountability and healing. Continue reading >>>
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