Restorative Practice Resources Tagged With: Australia

Mainstreaming Restorative Justice in South Australia’s Criminal Justice System: A Response to the Over‑Representation of Indigenous Offenders

Alexandra Smith

Abstract

John Braithwaite, a leading advocate for restorative justice, stated that:

There can be no justice in a world without connectedness and empathy; at the same time, social capital cannot flourish in a world without an infrastructure of security around human relationships that can only be guaranteed by institutions of justice.

In recent years, the concept of restorative justice has attracted much attention from policy makers, legal practitioners and social justice advocates. This essay discusses the shortcomings of South Australia’s current court system and its failure to adequately respond to the needs of Indigenous offenders, and considers the potential for the increased use of principles of restorative justice to provide beneficial outcomes in addressing those needs. The following is a consideration of how mainstream criminal sentencing can be reimagined to integrate restorative justice, and suggests that South Australia adopt legislation based on the Crimes (Restorative Justice) Act 2004 (ACT) in order to mandate restorative justice considerations as a compulsory part of the criminal sentencing process.

Restorative Justice is a range of processes that advocates that the people most effective at finding a solution to a problem are the people who are most directly impacted by the problem, creating opportunities, for those involved in a conflict to work together to understand, clarify and resolve the incident and work together towards repairing the harm caused.

The Centre for Restorative Justice was formed in 1997 as a response to community concern about the over-use of incarceration in South Australia and because victims of crime at that stage were not able to engage appropriately in the functions of the criminal justice system.

Academic article:

Extract: Analysis of the surveys completed by conference participants show that the majority of victims, victim support persons, offenders and offender support persons were satisfied with the conference process and outcome of the conference. Overall, 93% of all conference participants (victims, offenders, and supporters) reported being pleased with the outcome of their conference, and between 97 and 99% of all participants and felt treated with respect, able to say what they wanted as part of the process, that the process was fair for them and the offender, and that their rights had been respected.

An instructional manual on restorative justice in schools from world-leading experts; this 'how to' guide offers guidance on the issues of carrying out restorative practices, including coping with day-to-day problems, and offers worksheets for practical daily use.

Beginning with challenges to orthodox thinking about behaviour change, it goes on to describe a multitude of approaches to respond to minor incidents in school settings, then takes a close look at using restorative approaches to bullying, before it finally focuses on the formal end of the continuum (including conference preparation and facilitation). This book is reflective of the evolution of processes and responses from the most serious of incidents through to minor everyday issues, making this an essential resource for all school staff.

WHAT ARE LISTENING CIRCLES?

Listening Circles provide time, a safe space and an authentic audience where the voices of those who have been impacted by the sexual abuse crisis within the Catholic Church.

Listening Circles are restorative in nature and they provide time, space and an authentic audience for the voice of those who have been impacted in some way by this crisis.

The created space must be both sacred and safe. The voice of the process says, ‘we all care’ and ‘you matter’. The process has agreements that guide interactions. The agreements are transparent and help establish and maintain respect and equity.

Listening Circles are NOT occasions for discussion or debate or decision making. Within this domain, there are no attempts to solve problems or to level blame.

Professional Certificate of Restorative Justice

Short course

Restorative justice is a professional development course designed to provide educators with guidance on how to build strong relationships in classrooms. You will learn how to create supportive and safe learning environments while at the same time being responsive to incidents of harm and conflict.

'Fleming is also sceptical of the benefits of legislative change to address the issue. But instead of an app she believes Australia should move towards a restorative justice model to address sexual assault matters.

Restorative justice is not a new concept but it gained fresh relevance during the MeToo movement in the US. It can encompass a variety of survivor-led actions to repair the harm caused by a sexual assault, including sometimes bringing the accuser and the accused together “to discuss what happened, what needs to happen, and find a way of healing or reparations”.'

'Emotional literacy is a term bandied about in education and mainstream media, but what is it exactly? And more importantly, how does it enhance our work in the field of restorative practice? Being literate in something means you have a sound understanding of the concept and its structural elements along with the ability to flexibly apply the concept in various contexts.

Having emotional literacy then suggests a sound understanding of emotions – for example, their origins, their purpose, neurological and physiological components, their evolution over time, cultural distinctions, etc., and be able to use that information to benefit (or not) self or other in a variety of settings. '

'The Justice Reform Initiative is an alliance of people who share long-standing professional experience, lived experience and/or expert knowledge of the justice system, who are further supported by a movement of Australians of goodwill from across the country and across the political spectrum.

We believe jailing is failing and that there is an urgent need to reduce the number of people in Australian prisons. We believe that the over-use of prisons is fundamentally harmful to those in prison, their family and friends, and the broader community.

We believe that prisons are ineffective as a deterrent, ineffective at reducing crime, and ineffective at addressing the drivers of criminal justice system involvement.

We believe that the over-use of incarceration is a waste of human potential and a misuse of taxpayer dollars.

The evidence shows that the majority of people entering prison usually arrive there because of an underpinning cycle of disadvantage and that prison both exacerbates and entrenches a broader cycle of disadvantage, which needs to be broken.

We believe the moment has come for change, with a combination of political, economic and social forces coalescing to create an opportunity to genuinely challenge and respond to our overreliance on incarceration – and offer up an alternative vision.'

'The Psychology of Emotion in Restorative Practice How Affect Script Psychology Explains How and Why Restorative Practice Works Edited by Vernon Kelly and Margaret Thorsborne How and why does restorative practice (RP) work? This book presents the biological theory, affect script psychology (ASP), behind RP, and shows how it works in practice in different settings. "This is a splendid contribution to clarifying what we know and what we do not yet understand about what makes restorative justice fail or succeed. While much research and reflective practice remains to be done to fill great voids in our understanding, this book takes big steps forward. It is at once theoretically sophisticated and practically useful." – John Braithwaite, Distinguished Professor, Australian National University

'Adam Voigt has been teaching and leading schools in some of Australia’s most challenging locations for more than twenty-five years.

He has a history of transforming student lives and teacher practice by fostering school cultures that are strong, relational and hallmarked by stakeholder trust.'

'Through the mechanism of the ACT Restorative Justice Network, we aim to build Canberra as a restorative community through growing and widening the circle of people who are interested in connecting, sharing and promoting their experiences and knowledge of restorative justice approaches. Our goal is to expand restorative justice principles and practice across the Canberra community.'

This initiative aims to transform Newcastle into a restorative city by building social cohesion and healthy communities.

Newcastle has pockets of disadvantage in relation to unemployment, income, education, housing, child welfare, and criminal justice.

Discovering Restorative’s True Potential - Free Webinar Terry O'Connell, Kerrie Sellen and Paulo Moratelli are offering a FREE webinar to talk about how Restorative Practice can be used to significantly improve your practice. We are experienced restorative practitioners who over many years have learned how to use ‘restorative’ as a relational foundation for everything we do, both in our personal and professional lives. Simply, we want to challenge you to reflect on your own practice, identify what Works, then discover the difference restorative practice can make in strengthening your practice by making it more explicit, intentional, consistent and impactful. We will provide an insight into how our explicit restorative practice framework has provided a clear practice rationale that emphasises the importance of understanding the ‘why’ of what we do. We will also share how our values, beliefs and working assumptions influence and shape our practice. We will draw on case studies to show how explicit restorative practice has the potential to build relational capacity in almost an situation, example such as: one-on-one interactions, dealing with complex and traumatic matters through to developing a more humane organisational culture in schools and workplaces. Terry O’Connell is a restorative pioneer, best known as the ‘cop from Wagga Wagga’ who in 1991 developed the restorative conference script used by the IIRP. Over the past thirty years his work has continued to evolve and has had considerable influence in a variety of setting including policing, schools, corrections, workplaces and community agencies across the world. Kerrie Sellen is an experienced youth worker whose innovative restorative work led to the establishment of arguably the world’s first fully restorative organisation Re-Engage Youth Services in 2009. This award-winning organisation was known for how it integrated restorative practice in everything with leadership and staff but importantly with young people and their families. Kerrie now runs Restorative Journeys and provides mentor, coaching and training support for a wide and diverse range of organisations and practitioners throughout Australia. Paulo Moratelli is a brazilian Psychologist, Executive Director of Coonozco / Diálogos Transformativos, lecturer and independent instructor of Restorative Justice, Transformative Dialogues and Transformative Circles (a method he developed), and Peacemaking Circles. He is Delegate for Brazil of the Sociedad Científica de Justicia Restaurativa (Spain), and Member of the Global Advisory Council of Restorative Justice International (USA).