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Little Injustices - Laura Nader Looks At The Law : Laura Nader : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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How does justice really work in the United States: who has knowledge of the law, access to the legal system, and the will and power to use it? Anthropologist...

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Filmmaker Ava DuVernay explores the history of racial inequality in the United States, focusing on the fact that the nation's prisons are disproportionately filled with African-Americans.

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Restorative Justice is an alternative to using punishment to manage misbehavior. Punishment-based approaches are the tradition most of us are familiar with, because they are the basis of our criminal justice system, guided by the idea that punishment, if fair and proportionate, is the best response to crime. In practice this means identifying, prosecuting, and punishing the offender. Often this is done at great cost to society, with little healing for victims and communities and outright harmful effect on offenders and their families.

School discipline has for the most part taken its cue from the criminal justice system. The focus is on punishing wrongdoers with the aim of enforcing behaviors that are safe and non-disruptive. When punishment does not work, misbehaving students may be excluded through suspension or expulsion, with possibly serious long-term harmful consequences to them and society. There is little or no opportunity for social and emotional learning.

Restorative practices in schools are based on restorative justice principles instead of punishment. They aim first to build classroom communities that are supported by clear agreements, authentic communication, and specific tools to bring issues and conflicts forward in a helpful way. They provide specific pathways to repair harms by bringing together those who are affected by misbehavior in a dialogue to address concerns, achieve understanding, and come to agreement about setting things right. In addition to serving the cause of fairness and justice, restorative approaches make safer schools and contribute to social and emotional learning.

As schools adopt and gain experience with restorative practices several shifts in perspective take place. These shifts don't typically happen all at once. Nor do they typically happen perfectly. Three of the most important shifts are shown in the chart below.

Three Shifts Toward Restorative Schools and Classrooms

1. From.... Efforts to suppress misbehavior based on the view that misbehavior is evidence of failing students or classrooms.

To....Recognizing and using the inherent value of misbehavior as an opportunity for social and emotional learning.

2. From....Authority-driven disciplinary actions that focus only on the identified misbehaving students.

To....Restorative circles that bring together everyone who is most immediately affected by the incident.

3. From....Punishment and exclusion is used to control misbehavior and motivate positive behavior changes.

To....Dialogue leading to understanding and action to set things right and repair and restore relationships.

The first shift acknowledges that troublesome behavior is normal, and when students behave in troublesome ways they create opportunities to learn important social and emotional skills. What is important is not so much that they got into trouble in the first place, but what they learn along the way. Making things right is a powerful learning experience.

The second shift is a departure from the retributive model in which an authority, after taking testimony from the aggrieved party, decides guilt and assigns punishment. In restorative practices the authority figure acts more as a convener and facilitator. The initial investigation is concerned with identifying who was significantly affected by the incident. The facilitator invites them into a circle dialogue and, if they accept the invitation, helps prepare them. During the circle dialogue the problem and its impacts are explored and the group comes up with ideas on how to make things right. Usually this means the students who were the source of the trouble take specific actions that address the consequences of their choices. Consider the difference in outcomes between the authoritarian/punitive approach and the restorative approach: the first breeds resentment, alienation and shame and/or possibly an equally troublesome habit of fearing and submitting to authority; the second builds empathy, responsibility and helps restore relationships.

The third shift moves the locus of responsibility for well-being of the community from the shoulders of the experts to the community itself. While counseling and similar strategies have their place and are often helpful by themselves, they are immeasurably strengthened when complemented by restorative practices that challenge those who are in the circle dialogue to share information with each other and to come to agreements as a group.

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Restorative Justice and Restorative Practices

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Restorative Justice is an alternative to using punishment to manage misbehavior. Punishment-based approaches are the tradition most of us are familiar with, because they are the basis of our criminal justice system, guided by the idea that punishment, if fair and proportionate, is the best response to crime.

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AllSides Headline Roundups™ bring you top news stories from the left, center and right of the political spectrum - side-by-side so you can see the full picture.

We rotate the order of headlines to avoid biasing our coverage in favor of the left, which otherwise would always be listed first.

Learn how AllSides provides balanced news

MSNBC (Left bias) announced it's canceling opinion commentator Mehdi Hasan's Sunday night show on Thursday, drawing opinions from journalists and media outlets. For Context: Hasan is known...

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AllSides | Balanced news via media bias ratings for an unbiased news perspective

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We use media bias ratings to provide balanced news, perspectives and issues across the political spectrum. Unbiased news coverage doesn't exist - there is no such thing as unbiased news or t

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It's time to improve literacy skills during social studies instruction and ensure that readers of all abilities have what they need to access grade-level social studies concepts.

Join us on Thursday, December 7 for a look at scaffolded materials that provide extra literacy support while building key social studies concepts and skills.

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Newsela | Content and assessment platform

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Content Aligned To National & State Standard, Flexible To Support Relevant Curriculum. Find the Perfect Piece Of Content For Lessons. Go beyond the book.

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Basic Package includes set-up and assistance administering one online survey, analysis of the quantitative data (i.e., questions that require the student to circle or choose an answer), a written report summarizing the quantitative data, and a post survey call report summarizing recommended next steps. (Students' responses to the three qualitative (or written response) questions on the survey will be emailed to the school in an excel spreadsheet if requested but will not be analyzed or summarized in the report.) This package also includes a one-hour consultation about the results in the quantitative report with Research Director, Dr. Sarah Miles, and School Program Director, Margaret Dunlap. Cost: $2750.*

Premium Package includes set-up and assistance administering one online survey, analysis of the quantitative data (i.e., questions that require the student to circle or choose an answer) and the qualitative data (i.e., the three written response questions), written reports summarizing both the quantitative and qualitative data, a post survey call report summarizing recommended next steps, and a one-hour consultation about the results in the quantitative and qualitative reports with Research Director, Dr. Sarah Miles, and School Program Director, Margaret Dunlap. Cost: $4000.*This survey is included in the comprehensive school package. (There is an additional charge of $500 for schools over 1000 students.)

Deluxe Package includes set-up and assistance administering one online survey, analysis of the quantitative data (i.e., questions that require the student to circle or choose an answer) and the qualitative data (i.e., the three written response questions), a written report summarizing both the quantitative and qualitative data, a post survey call report summarizing recommended next steps, and a one-hour consultation with expert in the field and Challenge Success Co-founder, Dr. Denise Pope, along with Research Director, Dr. Sarah Miles, and School Program Director, Margaret Dunlap. Cost: $5000.* (There is an additional charge of $500 for schools over 1000 students.)

Please note that current pricing and packages are effective through June 30, 2018 . For more information about Challenge Success school surveys, please contact Margaret Dunlap .
Challenge Success offers limited financial assistance based on need. Click here to apply.

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Basic Package includes set-up and assistance administering one online survey, analysis of the quantitative data (i.e., questions that require the student to circle or choose an answer), a written report summarizing the quantitative data, and a post survey call report summarizing recommended next steps.

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TEDxHampshireCollege - Jay Smooth - How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Discussing Race

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Panorama Student Survey | Panorama Education

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The Panorama Student Survey is a research-based student perception survey that collects feedback data for teachers and school administrators.

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https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/10/17/08restorative_ep.h32.html

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https://www.edutopia.org/blog/creating-an-identity-safe-classroom-becki-cohn-vargas-dorothy-steele

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https://jprc.wested.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/RJ_Literature-Review_20160217.pdf

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JbPzyelgnTUAuzGclEXymGhi8We84VXlfKKyUdsC21M/edit?usp=sharing

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AuPhrlALutf5c7mZvIt01qVkAWFnYDAax_Q-lTqtDsU/edit?usp=sharing

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Xv7haJ0xnM2CNM0hS1ZB5b8US-ZOUeFj74ZLRvd1fvM/edit?usp=sharing

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Nf8AE8jvrGhWUvH6b6Cv7C10iI-RktLDEvChFRDBTSQ/edit

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Restorative Practices :: SFUSD Student, Family, and Community Support Department

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Student, Family, & Community Support San Francisco Unified School District

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Restorative Justice: Resources for Schools

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Explore resources and case studies that demonstrate how to bring restorative justice to your school or classroom.

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Restorative Circles: Creating a Safe Environment for Students to Reflect

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Restorative Justice: Victim Offender Mediation Overview by  Mark Umbreit

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YMCA Youth Court Finding Justice: Ending the School to Prison Pipeline

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to learn how their actions have affected other people, so that they gain relationship-based motivations for making better choices in the future. A peer jury helps to determine a set of restorative guideline sanctions that are geared to give something back to the community and to foster positive responsibility.

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About Gacaca Community Courts | Gacaca Community Justice

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Gacaca is arguable the most extensive post-conflict justice system in human history. The courts produced an enormous archive of documents and audio visual files related to their work and the genocide against the Tutsi. There are an estimated 60 million pages and over 8,000 audio visual records from the 1,958,634 cases processed by the courts.

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Suspects await their turn in front of a gacaca court Reuters photographer

Twenty-one years ago - on April 7, 1994 - the genocide that would kill up to one million people in Rwanda began. Another million individuals would be implicated as perpetrators, leaving Rwandans and many others to ask: how does a country begin to bring so many suspects to justice?

In 2002, the Rwandan government created the gacaca - or "grass" in the country's official language of Kinyarwanda - court system to tackle this enormous problem. Based on a traditional form of community dispute resolution, the gacaca courts functioned for ten years - until 2012.

Despite receiving much international attention at their outset, little is known about what the courts actually accomplished. This is surprising. For the past three years, I have been analyzing court data and conducting research in Rwanda to better understand this unique legal system whose punishments for the "genocidaires" (or those involved in the genocide) would likely be seen as light in many other countries.

Creating the courts

In the aftermath of the genocide, Rwanda's basic infrastructure and legal institutions were in shambles.

Trust in public institutions was low. This was hardly surprising, as government institutions had been involved in the planning and execution of the genocide.

The United Nations was quick to create the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in 1994 to "prosecute persons responsible for genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of Rwanda and neighbouring States, between 1 January 1994 and 31 December 1994."

But, the ICTR could only handle a fraction of the perpetrators (to date 93 people have been indicted by the ICTR), leaving Rwanda's legal system overwhelmed by the vast number of citizens suspected of committing genocidal crimes.

Time was of the essence. Rwanda's prisons were well over their capacity. It was clear that it would take decades to try all of the cases.

It was in these circumstances that Rwanda's new political elite launched the gacaca courts as an ambitious transitional justice project to address crimes of genocide.

In 2002, the pilot phase of the project began. Following tradition, community members elected panels of judges to preside over trials within their communities. All adult Rwandans were expected to participate. Unlike the traditional gacaca courts, however, there was strong involvement from the state.

A 30,000 foot view

After the pilot phase, the gacaca courts began operating in communities throughout Rwanda. Weekly trials were held in public meeting spaces -- typically open fields, local stadiums, or empty market places. Ordinary Rwandans participated as judges, witnesses or spectators.

In total, an estimated one million people were tried within the gacaca courts. Each defendant could face multiple trials for 1) planning, inciting, or supervising the genocide; 2) killing or committing other acts of physical violence; or 3) committing crimes against property, such as looting or theft.

Arthur Asiimwe/Reuters

When the courts closed in June 2012, nearly two million trials had taken place. The majority of trials (86%) ended in a guilty verdict, though appeals were also possible.

People convicted of crimes against property were typically ordered to pay the victim (or their family) restitution for the damage. Others reached a court-approved settlement with the victims of their crimes. This often involved work for victims and communities, such as building houses and schools.

Those convicted of more serious crimes faced prison terms ranging from a few months to life -- the harshest penalty since the death penalty was abolished in 1998.

The average prison sentence was 19 years, though there were also various mechanisms to reduce sentences, due in large part to prison overcrowding.

For example, almost one-third of those given prison sentences were allowed to spend half of their sentence performing community service, such as constructing roads, building schools and homes, and planting gardens - sentences that likely sound very light for convicted genocidaires. A few even received amnesty if they confessed their crimes, a move which some suggest was linked to issues of prison overcrowding.

Gacaca today

As Rwandans reflected on the gacaca courts in interviews with me, many expressed positive views of how the courts operated. Others pointed to shortcomings, suggesting that the courts are an example of victors' justice and lamenting that many judges who were initially elected were later accused of participating in the violence themselves.

By Western legal standards, the gacaca courts had serious limitations. The defendants did not have legal representation and standards of evidence were questionable. People were also given lighter sentences if they confessed, which placed a premium on confessions and may have even encouraged false ones.

Overall, the courts endeavored to strike a balance between formal and informal, community-based and state-driven, traditional and contemporary, and punitive and restorative.

As such, the system occupied a unique place not often encountered by traditional legal systems. Indeed, responses to mass atrocity have often been top-down, and hybrid community-based models are relatively new territory.

Gacaca's complexity and uniqueness inevitably had shortcomings. That said, the system's ability to prosecute a massive number of suspected perpetrators in a devastated post-genocide environment is an accomplishment in itself. In fact, other countries could perhaps learn from the goal of integrating punitive responses (like prison sentences) with more restorative ones (like community service).

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Rwanda: how to deal with a million genocide suspects

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Twenty-one years ago - on April 7, 1994 - the genocide that would kill up to one million people in Rwanda began. Another million individuals would be implicated as perpetrators, leaving Rwandans and many others to ask: how does a country begin to bring so many suspects to justice?

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The life of the law anthropological perspectives laura nader

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Laura Nader, an instrumental figure in the development of the field of legal anthropology, investigates an issue of vital importance for our time: the role of the law in the struggle for social and economic justice.

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Little Injustices - Laura Nader Looks At The Law : Laura Nader : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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How does justice really work in the United States: who has knowledge of the law, access to the legal system, and the will and power to use it? Anthropologist...

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8,083,741 views | Bryan Stevenson • TED2012

In an engaging and personal talk -- with cameo appearances from his grandmother and Rosa Parks -- human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson shares some hard truths about America's justice system, starting with a massive imbalance along racial lines: a third of the country's black male population has been incarcerated at some point in their lives. These issues, which are wrapped up in America's unexamined history, are rarely talked about with this level of candor, insight and persuasiveness.

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Want to hear more great ideas like this one? Sign up for TED Membership to get exclusive access to captivating conversations, engaging events, and more!

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Bryan Stevenson: We need to talk about an injustice

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In an engaging and personal talk -- with cameo appearances from his grandmother and Rosa Parks -- human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson shares some hard truths about America's justice system, starting with a massive imbalance along racial lines: a third of the country's black male population has been incarcerated at some point in their lives.

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Get a daily email featuring the latest talk, plus a quick mix of trending content.

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Alice Goffman: How we're priming some kids for college - and others for prison

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In the United States, two institutions guide teenagers on the journey to adulthood: college and prison. Sociologist Alice Goffman spent six years in a troubled Philadelphia neighborhood and saw first-hand how teenagers of African-American and Latino backgrounds are funneled down the path to prison - sometimes starting with relatively minor infractions.

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https://www.edutopia.org/blog/restorative-justice-tips-for-schools-fania-davis

http://diverseeducation.com/article/116450/

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Restorative justice is a dynamic and innovative way of dealing with conflict in schools, promoting understanding and healing over assigning blame or dispensing punishment. It can create an ethic of care and justice that makes schools safer and happier, not only through reducing conflict, but also in terms of developing active citizenship skills, good self-esteem, open communication and team work in students.

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Daniel Reisel: The neuroscience of restorative justice

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Daniel Reisel studies the brains of criminal psychopaths (and mice). And he asks a big question: Instead of warehousing these criminals, shouldn't we be using what we know about the brain to help them rehabilitate? Put another way: If the brain can grow new neural pathways after an injury ...