Category: Articles
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The Te Whare Tapa Whā Framework for Understanding Wellbeing
In restorative practices, we talk a lot about needs. When harm is caused through a crime, wrongdoing, or conflict in a community, that harm generates needs. One of the central questions of restorative justice is “What is needed to repair the harms and make things right?” We also see behavior as communicating unmet needs. So…
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Building a Restorative University
Increasingly, restorative justice is being used as a response to discipline issues on college campuses with encouraging results. Research by sociologists David Karp and Casey Sacks has shown that compared to the traditional conduct model, restorative practices result in fewer appeals, less serious reoffending, higher participant satisfaction, and improvement in student learning.[1] It is estimated…
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Mock Restorative Justice Conference
My colleague Haley and I recently created a video of a mock restorative justice conference as a tool for our university trainings. If you are interested in getting a taste of what a restorative justice conference looks like, please check it out. A few things to know before watching: This is an abbreviated version of…
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Restorative Justice and Grit
A common theme in current educational discourse is “grit.” Over the last few years, I have noticed a constant stream of news articles, podcasts, TED Talks, and studies looking at the importance of grit and how we can help students develop it. The idea behind grit is that we need to start encouraging students to…
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Three Minute Thesis
I recently entered the Three Minute Thesis competition at Victoria University. The Three Minute Thesis competition challenges postgraduate students to explain their thesis research to a non-specialist audience in just 3 minutes. The goal is to clearly outline your research, engage the audience, and make them want to learn more. I thought it sounded like…
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Crime Survivors Speak
“A survey of US crime victims’ attitudes towards crime and punishment just came out: among the interesting findings is that, by a margin of three to one, victims of crime believe that prison makes people more likely to commit crimes than to rehabilitate them, and that people should be held accountable through mechanisms other than…
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Ritual and Community Building in the NZ Pop-Up Sauna
During the month of July, I spent a great deal of time at the NZ Pop-Up Sauna on the Wellington waterfront. The first day we arrived in Wellington, my partner, Sam, fell in love with the waterfront area. As he began looking for jobs during our first weeks here, he decided he wanted to create…
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Understanding Transformational Space: An Analysis of Restorative Justice Conferences through Religious Studies Theoretical Lenses
An article I wrote titled “Understanding transformational space: an analysis of restorative justice conferences through religious studies theoretical lenses” has been published in the latest issue of Restorative Justice: An International Journal. You can access a copy of the article here. This link will provide free access for the first 50 people. If the link…
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Invisibilia: “Flip the Script”
This episode of the podcast Invisibilia, “Flip the Script,” is well worth a listen. The first two stories are about the power of responding to violence and hostility with love. The first story is about an attempted robbery at a dinner party and the second story is about how a Danish town helped young, frustrated…
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The “One Stop Shop” Model for Youth Support
Earlier this week, I visited Kapiti Youth Support (KYS) in Paraparaumu, about an hour north of Wellington. Kapiti Youth Support is what New Zealand calls a “One Stop Shop” for youth ages 10-24 in the community. Their services include a medical clinic with doctors and nurses, counselors and psychologists, addiction support, mentoring, family support services,…
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Restorative Justice Facilitates Effective Apologies
Research from Ohio State University has recently identified six elements of an effective apology. The elements are: Expression of regret Explanation of what went wrong Acknowledgment of responsibility Declaration of repentance Offer of repair Request for forgiveness Of those six elements, two are particularly important to having your apology accepted. The most important is acknowledgement…
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Restorative Management
Increasingly, restorative practices are being applied in a wide range of sectors, reaching far beyond the criminal justice system and school discipline. The Chair of Restorative Justice at Victoria University is involved in implementing restorative practices in the University residential halls, in workplaces, in elder abuse cases, in the police complaints process, with surgeons as…
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The Restorative Community: Between Individualist and Collectivist Cultural Orientations
While living in China, the difference between Individualist and Collectivist cultures was something I frequently contemplated. I remember a Chinese friend teaching me to play what he described as Chinese poker, a game in which players team up to defeat the randomly selected “rich one.” At the end of the game, either the “rich one”…
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Video: Restorative Justice, Restorative Practices, Restorative Community
You may have heard the terms Restorative Justice, Restorative Practices, and Restorative Community, but what does each term mean and how do they relate to each other? This video endeavors to offer a clear explanation of how Restorative Practices, including Restorative Justice, function together to create a Restorative Community. A Restorative Community can be intentionally…
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Restorative Practices in the Workplace
Recently, the New York Times published an article about a study Google did called “Project Aristotle.” Examining 180 different teams across Google and charting every factor imaginable from team demographics to motivations, the study endeavored figure out what makes a team successful. The outcome of the study showed that the two most important behaviors for…
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Restorative Justice Video: Inclusion
A local philanthropic organization recently put out a call for video grant submissions that demonstrate in two minutes or less how your nonprofit emphasizes inclusion. Inspired by the style of one of my favorite TED Talks, I wrote a script and designed the accompanying sketches for this short video. Kathleen and I had a hoot filming…
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Restorative Justice and Ungoogleable Learning
Last week, I had the privilege of leading a three-day training for our Restorative Justice Student Team. I had been working on developing the training for the last few months, so it was extremely gratifying to see it come together and to witness the students’ enthusiasm for learning about restorative practices. On the first day,…
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Costs of Confinement
Recently, the Coalition of Juvenile Justice (CJJ) hosted a webinar on the Real Costs of Confinement. There is a lot of conversation about the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the justice system in relation to reducing rates of recidivism and contributing to community safety. What is more rarely discussed (with precise numbers and impacts) is…
Lindsey Pointer, PhD 