Search results for category: Offender SupportIt is welcoming news that some attention is given to the most vulnerable young people in the Cayman Islands. However, I must hasten to indicate that the allocation of $1million to construct a youth secure faculty is not in itself adequate in attending to the problem of youth crime.
In February, the D.C. Superior Court Social Services Division spearheaded the opening of the Balance and Restorative Justice Drop-In Center, located in a court satellite office in Southeast Washington. The facility, the first of its kind in the District, aims to prevent juveniles in the criminal justice system from ending up as adult offenders.
Bridges to Life is a restorative justice programme in Texas that invites crime victims to come to prison to visit with prisoners for a series of weekly meetings.
This 10 minute video features an Alabama judge who has introduced restorative justice as a means of addressing the needs and interests of victims.
More than a year ago, the Philippines became an object of beating on global television. CNN depicted footages of Filipino youth offenders languishing in over-crowded jails along with adult criminals. Shamed, our Congress responded by passing into law the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act (RA 9344) in April 2006. I was one of those who celebrated the triumph of restorative justice when the law was passed.
"We are not our behavior...." The line jumped out at me as I read a recent article on sex offenders. The quote from an offender began, "I... realize there is goodness in me, that God doesn’t make crap." It seems, however, that many would disagree.
For years we've been talking about punishment and retribution. Maybe it's time we started talking about repair. Repair of broken relations. Between and among people. Between and among neighborhoods, faiths, races, religions, countries. Maybe it's time we started asking: "How can we repair what's broken? What skills do we need? If a person is good at repair, what is he or she good at?"
With all these positive developments, though, Umbreit declared that the restorative justice movement is in danger of "losing its soul" and becoming "Restorative Justice Lite." The word victim often isn't even included in planning or documents of some so-called RJ programs, he said, whereas a true restorative justice model is always victim-centered, not focused on the offenders' needs.
The person chosen to administer a new Jacksonville Sheriff's Office program aimed at integrating released felons back into the community has every reason to despise violent criminals. As she grew up in a small Ohio town, Cathy Chadeayne-Goldman was, against statistical odds, a three-time crime victim.
The current political climate may call for tougher punishments, but the iron-fisted approach isn't the answer, points out Jennifer Llewellyn, a professor with Dalhousie University's law school and co-ordinator of the Nova Scotia Restorative Justice Community-University Research Alliance. "The evidence has shown since the 1970s that it doesn't work," she notes. Though gaining steam, restorative justice still has spotty implementation across the country, Llewellyn says. "It does at least as well as the criminal justice system, if not better."
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