Category: Articles
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Cases that Should Not Be Referred to Restorative Justice
As restorative justice advocates, we need to shift the conversation about what types of cases are not appropriate for restorative justice. The true risk to the effectiveness, impact, and perceived legitimacy of our work is not in making the process available to survivors of sexual harm or other more severe crimes, but rather in offering…
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As School Contracts with Police are Called into Question, Consider Restorative Justice
We are in a time of immense change in our country and one thing that is being reconsidered is the role of police and punitive sanctions more broadly in schools. Research has shown that the presence of police and punitive sanctions in schools often drives students —particularly minority and poor students—out of school, resulting in…
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Restorative Practices and the Elevation of Women’s Voices
If there is one thing that I think would make a significant positive difference in the trajectory of life on this planet, it is the elevation of marginalized voices including racial minorities, the economically disenfranchised, and women. It is important that these voices are heard not only for the principle of equal voice and the…
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Q&A Facilitating Circles Online
Question: I want to continue to hold circles with my students/staff during this time of social distancing. I feel we need the connection now more than ever! How can I facilitate a circle through video chat without the ability to actually sit in a circle together or pass a talking piece? Answer: I agree! Cultivating…
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Strengths-Based Restorative Justice Agreements: Using Art to Make Things Right
Restorative justice practitioners place a great deal of emphasis on being strengths-based. This means identifying and supporting an individual’s assets: the positive passions, skills, interests, and connections that make them unique. Taking the time to identify these strengths with participants has many benefits. It helps to combat feelings of stigmatizing shame by showing that you…
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Tips and Tricks for Maintaining Facilitator Neutrality in Pre-Conferences
The pre-conference is, in many ways, the most important part of the restorative justice process. A bad conference, more often than not, is the fault of poor pre-conferencing. Pre-conferencing refers to the individual meetings that the facilitators hold with the responsible party and harmed party and their respective support people prior to bringing the parties…
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Restorative Justice and #MeToo
The New York Times recently published an opinion piece titled #MeToo Doesn’t Always Have to Mean Prison. It is an excellent article that highlights the benefits of making a restorative justice response available to those who have experienced sexual harm. As the article notes, “#MeToo rightly emphasizes victims’ healing and accountability for the people who harmed them.…
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The Power of Restorative Justice Education
Learning about restorative justice changed my life. I remember vividly the first time I read The Little Book Restorative Justice when it was assigned in a Nonviolence class at Colorado College. I sat up in my dorm room bed underlining almost every line and drawing big stars in the margins. I was so excited to…
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Article on Sustained Restorative Dialogue Published in Contemporary Justice Review
I am very excited to have an article Amy Giles-Mitson and I wrote on the Sustained Restorative Dialogue process published in the Contemporary Justice Review. The Sustained Restorative Dialogue was an effort to apply restorative processes to addressing the broader culture that gives rise to sexual harm. Organizing and facilitating the dialogue was one of…
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What is Restorative Justice?
The exact definition of restorative justice has been a source of great debate and remains contentious within the restorative justice field. Broadly speaking, two general conceptions of restorative justice have been put forth: a process conception and a values conception.[1] The process conception sees restorative justice as, “a process that brings together all stakeholders affected…
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Teaching restorative practices through games: an experiential and relational restorative pedagogy
An article I wrote with Kathleen McGoey on using games to teach restorative practices has been published in the latest issue of the International Journal of Restorative Justice. Finding creative ways to teach restorative practices in a way that is in alignment with restorative values is a passion of mine, so it is a pleasure…
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Restorative practices in residence halls at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
An article I wrote about the use of Restorative Practices in the Residence Halls at Victoria University was just published in Conflict Resolution Quarterly. You can find the full article here.
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If a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words, How Can We Illustrate Restorative Justice?
The challenge of describing restorative justice and how the philosophy and approach differs from the conventional justice system is one that practitioners and scholars have grappled with since the beginning of the movement. The retributive approach to justice is so culturally ingrained that it can be difficult to fully communicate the restorative paradigm and the…
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Beyond the Carrot and the Stick
What is the best way to promote good, pro-social behavior? Is it rewarding good behavior or punishing bad behavior? The carrot or the stick? This question has been asked across a wide range of contexts from the criminal justice system to schools to workplaces to international relations. Those in authority in each context have tried…
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Sustained Restorative Dialogue – Understanding and Preventing Sexual Harm on Campus
Over the past two years, Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) has taken significant steps towards becoming a Restorative University. This has involved the use of restorative processes both in a reactive way, as a response to misconduct or incidents of harm, and a proactive way, in order to build community, enhance belonging and mutual responsibility,…
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Restorative Practices Can Teach Students How to Handle Difficult Conversations
I recently had a conversation with a few friends about the advice we had received growing up from adults (mostly parents and teachers) when another kid picked on us. The wisdom and guidance we had received varied widely and included among others, “hit him back,” “ignore him” “she is just jealous,” “laugh it off,” “tell…
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How Can We Heal Collective Trauma?
This month, I had the incredible privilege of attending and presenting at the European Forum for Restorative Justice Conference in Tirana, Albania. The conference aims to bridge the gap between researchers, practitioners and policy-makers in the field, and in my view, it was successful in its mission. The vast majority of the plenaries and breakout…
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The Restorative Justice Paradigm Shift
What is “justice”? Take a few moments to think about that question. It is a word we use a lot. “Demand justice.” “Seek justice.” “Justice has been done.” But what do we really mean when we use the word “justice”? Often times, justice is understood as retributive harming: an eye for an eye. In the justice…
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Be Real, Love, Empathize: Insights for Facilitators from Carl Rogers
While restorative justice is not therapy, it often has therapeutic outcomes for participants. Particularly at the pre-conference stage, the facilitator’s role can feel akin to that of a therapist, helping to guide and support clients on their own journey towards healing, learning and growth. This week, I have been reading some of Carl Rogers’ work…
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Video: Mock Restorative Justice Process
Please note that both the pre-conference and the conference processes are significantly shorter than they would be in real life. In real life, each meeting is generally at least twice as long as shown, giving the opportunity to ask additional questions to dive deeper into the incident, impacts and needs. In real life, participants would also…
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“Living Restoratively” by Victoria University of Wellington
Victoria University of Wellington recently featured an article about the work Haley and I are doing at the university and beyond. Check it out at the link below! Living restoratively Two Victoria University researchers are using their unique skill sets to support the restorative justice efforts at the University. Read more here. “If we can get…
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Restorative Justice Education in Prison Reflection: Understanding the Web
In March, my partner, Sam Seiniger, and I had the opportunity to deliver two introductions to restorative justice workshops at Manawatu Prison to small groups of inmates. Both sessions produced really fascinating conversations and left us all with something to think about. One of the participants even asked if he could take an extra worksheet…
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Peace in the Soil
I recently heard Siddhartha Mukherjee speak on an episode of Ted Radio Hour titled Rethinking Medicine. In his talk, Mukherjee notes that the prevailing medical approach (in the western medicine tradition) to this point has been to “have disease, take pill, kill something.” Mukherjee traces the prevalence of this approach to the antibiotic revolution, which…
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The Power of the Talking Piece
During the recent government shut down, a bipartisan group of roughly two-dozen senators helped craft the funding deal to re-open the government. The group used a “talking stick” as a tool to facilitate their meeting, only allowing the senator with the stick to speak in an effort to cut down on interruptions. The use of…
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A Restorative Worldview
This week, I am busy coding my interviews with restorative justice facilitators and participants (victims an offenders), getting ready for months of major writing deadlines ahead. One questions that I asked all interview participants is “How has being involved in restorative justice affirmed or changed your worldview?” As I review the responses, I’m noticing a…
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What could a restorative approach to politics look like?
It has been a strange and despairing experience to watch the political journey of the United States from afar since moving to New Zealand to study restorative justice in early 2016. People often comment on how glad I must be to have escaped it all and how surely I’m in no rush to go back.…
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What makes a great Restorative Justice Facilitator?
“Good RJ facilitation is shaped by three main factors: (i) a set of core beliefs that form a particular worldview, (ii) specific knowledge and skills that develop with experience, and (iii) ‘synthesis’ which merges art with science so that facilitators can intuitively, consistently and knowingly shape the alchemy of RJ in real-time to successfully meet…
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Restorative Pedagogy
This year, Victoria University has begun offering a Graduate Certificate course in Restorative Justice. Last week, Dr. Tom Noakes-Duncan delivered a fascinating class on Restorative Pedagogy, raising the question, “How should restorative practices be taught?” He introduced the old paradigm of teaching, often referred to as the Transmission Model. The teacher transfers knowledge to the…
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Building a Restorative University Article
An article I wrote about building a Restorative University was recently published in the Australasian Student Residences Management Journal. Check out my article on page 31-32.
Lindsey Pointer, PhD 