This paper provides a summary of two recent reports on the use of restorative justice and other community-based practices to respond to intimate partner violence. It includes highlights and guiding principles that emerged from a national study of practitioners. It also includes recommendations on how to grow this work that were made in a blueprint for New York City. This is part of our ongoing effort to continue this conversation and push for more options outside of the criminal legal system for people impacted by intimate partner violence.
Healing from Conflict: Restorative Approaches and a Path Forward for Justice brought togetherour teachers and elders in Native communities and the restorative justice space to share stories and lessons about how to balance the values of restorative approaches to justice with a long-term vision for change. The recording of the event and supplemental resources are now available. With so many great questions from our audience that we didn’t have time to answer during the event, there is a digest of questions and answers for reference.
Restorative justice seeks to move away from addressing safety problems with punishment to focus on creating stronger and healthier relationships. Restorative approaches center the needs of those who have been harmed, and ask those who have caused harm to account for the impact of their actions. Restorative approaches also give those who have caused harm an opportunity to right the wrong.
The Center for Court Innovation learned about restorative approaches to crime and conflict from Native American practitioners in whose communities peacemaking has been practiced for generations. We are deeply grateful to our many Native mentors, especially from the Navajo Nation, who taught us about kinship in this work. We are also grateful to our trainers from across the country who taught us the foundations of circle practice and who walked us through the real-life challenges of implementation.
The movement to reform prisons is almost as old as prisons themselves. But what is the ultimate goal of reform of a system like the criminal justice system? On our New Thinking podcast, Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law explain why they think many of today's most popular reforms are extending, rather than countering, the justice system's harmful effects. Their new book is Prison By Any Other Name.
Published by the New York City Mayor's Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence, this report outlines pathways for developing restorative and community-based approaches to intimate partner violence. It aims to expand the knowledge of restorative practices as applied to intimate partner violence and to promote the idea of increasing the options for survivors and their families.
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.
Spurred by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other Black Americans at the hands of police, demands are increasing for money to be redirected from police budgets. No single strategy can achieve meaningful change; through experience and research, we have identified a number of sustainable community-driven solutions that can limit the role of police, while building safe and strong neighborhoods.
Seven students in our Restorative Justice in Schools Program won NPR's 2020 student podcast competition, out of thousands of entries from across the country. On the winning episode, the students—part of the Men in Color after-school program at their Brooklyn high school—discuss climate change and environmental racism. They created the episode after participating in the New York City youth climate march, where they interviewed people about how black communities intersect with climate justice.
Based on a national survey and five in-depth case studies, this study seeks to document how restorative approaches are being applied to intimate partner violence across the country. It concludes with a series of guiding principles and recommendations for the field.