Albert Eglash was a psychologist in the 1960s working with incarcerated people. He saw the need for his clients to be accountable for their behavior that hurt others and saw its rehabilitation value. Eglash wanted people to understand the value in their making restitution when they hurt others. He presented a paper at a conference [...]

Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D. writes about her fascinating experience as a Harvard trained brain scientist who suffered a stoke in My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journal.
I was fortunate to read Dr. Taylor’s book during a recent 6 hour train ride from New York City to [...]

For many, if not most restorative justice programs, a basic principle is that it should only be used for people who have committed crimes, and who admit their guilt. See for example: http://www.staunton.va.us/directory/departments-a-g/court-services/restorative-justice-program.
After working with restorative justice for the last 15 years, I think this principal needs to be more carefully considered, and can be [...]

Restorative justice helps us develop self-compassion. I know a lot about not being compassionate with myself. A couple months ago I wrote about how unforgiving I was toward myself for almost getting murdered by a stranger for The Forgiveness Project based in London.
It’s always been pretty easy for me to be compassionate and forgiving of [...]

March 16 - 18, 2011, Rochester, New York, Lorenn Walker & Rebecca Greening, will provide a comprehensive training on the innovative reentry and transition planning circle process developed in Hawai’i for imprisoned people and their loved ones. Also discussed on the VERA Institute of Justice website: http://www.vera.org/node/4629
Reentry & Transition Planning Circles are based on the [...]

Since 2005 we have been piloting a facilitated group reentry and transition planning process, Huikahi Restorative Circles in Hawai’i for incarcerated people and their loved ones. The Circles use solution-focused brief therapy language and restorative justice to address the needs of individual incarcerated people for desisting from crime and drug use.
The Circle process [...]

Most people have heard that they can look at situations anyway they want, that we don’t have to suffer by adverse situations. “We cannot escape pain, but suffering is optional,” but how exactly do you do this? It’s one thing to know something, but how to actually apply what we know and live it is [...]

While a lot of “lawyer dissing” goes on, some of it easily understandable, many lawyers and judges (who are also lawyers) should be recognized for promoting restorative justice and therapeutic jurisprudence.
Judge Gordon McConnell was instrumental in the first modern restorative justice case. John Braithwaite, in Restorative Justice and Responsive Regulation, cites a paper by Peachy, [...]

I had the pleasure of meeting with Dominic Barter in Rio de Janeiro in July 2010. I had heard of his restorative circles work last year and was interested in learning more about it.
Dominic is from England and has lived in Rio for about 18 years. His background includes experience with theater and drama. He [...]

On July 5 & 6, 2010, I visited two APAC prisons (Associacao de Protecao e Assistencia aos Condenados in English translated as: Association for Protection and Assistance of Convicts) in the city of Itauna, state of Minas Gerias, Brazil. The original APAC prison, which was in San Paulo, Brazil was reportedly the [...]