Restorative justice focuses on repairing harm and restoring relationships.
Restorative justice offers a different paradigm from conventional approaches. While the criminal legal system focuses on punishing the wrong-doer and relies on imprisonment to prevent further harm, restorative justice focuses meeting the needs of those who have been harmed while inviting those who have caused harm into a process of active accountability. Acknowledging our interconnectedness, restorative justice invites all those who have impacted by harm into a conversation. Collectively, these individuals discuss the underlying causes of harm and determine a path to move forward.
Beyond the individuals directly impacted by conflict or harm, restorative justice asks each of us to reflect on our collective responsibility for creating conditions that enable and foster harm, and tasks us with supporting accountability and safety. By widening who is responsible and who is capable, restorative justice harnesses the power and wisdom of community.
Restorative justice can take many forms and we use it in varied settings, whether as a referral from courts (handling criminal cases and interpersonal conflicts) or in schools (to build a positive culture and reduce incidents of harm), or in communities. When we work within institutions with histories of structural inequities and systemic oppression, we work to increase the agency of those most impacted by harm, and create empowerment and equity. Regardless of the setting, restorative justice seeks to secure safety through stronger, healthier relationships and communities.
Our practices at the Center are influenced and inspired by the Navajo tradition of Peacemaking. This is a healing practice.
Initiatives
Peacemaking Program
Building on a traditional Native American approach to justice, the Center’s peacemaking programs focus on healing and community restoration rather than punishment.
Project Reset
Project Reset is a diversion program offering a new response to a low-level arrest that is proportionate, effective, and restorative.
Restorative Justice in Schools
We implemented restorative justice programs in five New York City high schools to strengthen relationships school-wide.
Restorative Justice and Intimate Partner Violence
We are reimagining the response to intimate partner violence through the lens of restorative justice.
Manhattan Justice Opportunities
Manhattan Justice Opportunities helps build a more effective and restorative justice system by providing comprehensive services as alternatives to traditional responses to crime.
The Family Healing Project uses restorative practices to offer supportive spaces for individuals and families, after incarceration. Evidence shows that strong social support is positively correlated with stable housing and that stable housing greatly reduces the risk of re-arrest amongst formerly incarcerated people. Yet support for people coming home is often narrowly focused on material needs, while heads of households, primarily women of color, shoulder the emotional, psychological, and spiritual challenges for all.
“This job has really shown me our deep ability as human beings to be connected to one another.” Kellsie Sayers is the director of restorative practices where she oversees the design and implementation of restorative justice programming. Kellsie joined the Center for Court Innovation four years ago to lead the restorative justice in schools project, a four-year pilot looking at the impact of restorative practices on school culture.
Restorative justice is about repairing harm. But for Black Americans, what is there to be restored to? This special episode of New Thinking features a roundtable with eight members of our Restorative Justice in Schools team. They spent three years embedded in five Brooklyn high schools—all five schools are overwhelmingly Black, and all five had some of the highest suspension rates in New York City.
WNYC Radio Rookies reporter Deborah Ugo-Omenukwa worked with the Center to explore restorative justice in youth courts. She spoke with our Brownsville Community Justice Center to learn more about restorative approaches to the legal system, and the difference between punishment and consequences.
Those who have lost loved ones in traffic accidents often feel the legal system fails to hold drivers accountable. Highlighting our driver accountability programs that use the principles of restorative justice, KPBS radio in San Diego quotes our Amanda Berman, "Having to confront [the impact of your actions] and reckon with that is much more powerful and much more likely to change behavior."