Restorative Justice

Doctors Need to do More Than Apologize for Mistakes

An op-ed video Physician, Say You’re Sorry by Drs. Tom Delbanco & Sigall K. Bell from Harvard Medical School, published by the New York Times November 25, 2008, illustrates the need for the medical profession in the United States to use restorative practices. Mistakes and errors are a part of life including medical practice.  How these errors are dealt with is critical for healing and preventing any further emotional pain and damage. This insightful video…

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Restorative Justice

Restorative justice not only for shared meetings with victims & offenders

People tend to think that restorative justice can only be accomplished when people who have committed crimes and the people they’ve hurt (offenders and victims) meet together in a shared process.  This is incorrect.  Restorative processes are voluntary and can be applied without ever bringing victims and offenders together.  Many people who have suffered from crime, like a kind woman I am working with right now who was robbed while she was in the hospital,…

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Restorative Justice

Recidivism being evaluated in a Hawai‘i state court restorative justice pilot project

We have begun analysis of recidivism data of a six year old pilot program: Pono Kaulike: A Hawaii Court Provides Restorative Practices for Healing, Walker & Hayashi, Federal Probation Journal, Vol. 71, No. 3, 18-24, 2007. Three different types of restorative justice processes, which were provided with a solution-focused approach, which Insoo Kim Berg, a co-founder of solution-focused brief therapy helped us develop.  The restorative processes were available to people convicted of crimes and to…

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Inspiration

Mahalo to a high school debater who inspired me…

In 1978 I was in my junior year at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa (UH). While college is a normal transition for many Americans, I got there by a frightening twist of fate, which left me seriously injured and almost dead. I was always a terrible student in school. I dropped out when I was 15, had been on my own since I was 14, and was the single parent to a beautiful baby…

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