Has your child or someone you know ever been harmed?
Have you yourself harmed another at home, school, or work?
Join us to learn about a program designed through special mediation to
Keep Our Homes and Schools Safer!
Join us to learn about a program designed through special mediation to
Keep Our Homes and Schools Safer!
AN INVITATION TO OUR COMMUNITY
4th - 5th gd/MS/HS/College Students & Adults
Monday, November 4, 2013; 5:15 - 6:45pm
Jon Powell & Franklin Ard: Restorative Justice Practices/Circles
Speakers:
Attorney Jon Powell, Director of the Juvenile Justice Project, and
Franklin Ard, Social Worker III /General Instructor at NC Department of Public Safety, Division of Juvenile Justice
facilitate Restorative Justice Practice mediations with offenders and victims to “repair the harm”
This program can benefit people of all ages and all environments, especially school settings, thru deep questions:
-Who has been hurt?
-What are their needs?
-Who has the obligation to address the needs, to put right the harms, to restore relationships?
“Conflict is Opportunity…Don’t Waste It”
For further info and video, click left p1 and 5: www.saferschools.blogspot.com
New Garden Friends Meeting Worship Room, Greensboro
Walk around to back of NGFM: enter 2nd door from left
No food, no drink/water bottles in NGFM Worship Room...Thank you
No food, no drink/water bottles in NGFM Worship Room...Thank you
Restorative justice: How it works
At the center of the restorative justice process is a meeting between the offender and the victim, which research has shown reduces recidivism.
“Sitting in a circle face to face with the person you burglarized, who looks not unlike your grandmother, and having to apologize and hear the impact you had on their life, how you caused sleeplessness, or taken this prized possession, that is way harder than court,” said Sujatha Baliga, director of the Restorative Justice Project at the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. “Nothing we do in court has caused that ‘aha’ moment that comes from a deep understanding of the impact of our behaviors.”
The encounter also helps the victim. When Jennifer Hahn of West Des Moines caught the young boy who had stolen her son’s bike, “I was furious,” she said. “I probably would have put the kid in prison.”
Her anger turned to empathy, though, when she sat across from him in a restorative justice circle.
“We realized in the first circle that he couldn’t read. He didn’t have glasses so he couldn’t see. And no one even made sure he was eating lunch.” She also learned that he had stolen the bike to replace his own, which had been stolen. “I saw that he was a person, that he was a kid in crisis.”
However, restorative justice isn’t always the answer, experts agree.
Under the principles of most programs:
1) Juveniles cannot be diverted if they do not admit their wrongdoing. If they want to argue their innocence, they will have to go to court.
2) If the juvenile’s parents do not agree to diversion, the court must become formally involved.
3) If the victim objects to the diversion, or needs a no-contact order, a judge must see the case.
4) A juvenile with multiple offenses, or who has failed a previous diversion program, or who needs additional services often will wind up in the court system.
— Sharyn Jackson
