My husband raped two women — and I had to answer for his crimes
Howard Zehr, the leading US expert on restorative justice, put it the best. He explains that the conventional criminal justice system responds to crime by asking three main questions:
What law has been broken?
Who did it?
What punishment do they deserve?
...
Restorative justice sees crime and violence not as an assault on the state but on human relationships of trust.
Therefore, "justice" is an attempt to restore — to bring back, recreate, repair, or in some cases build for the first time — trust and safety within relationships through accountability, dialogue, empathy and an effort to "make things right." Restorative justice poses three different questions:
Who has been harmed?
What are their needs?
Whose obligation is it to fulfill those needs?
Asking these questions includes and values the voices and experiences of the people closest to the harm, and tries to support everyone. It does not necessarily exclude a component of punishment (incarceration) but does recognize its limits.
================
I liked this author's summary of Restorative Justice in simple terms, as she paraphrased from Howard Zehr.
Her article and experience finding out her newlywed husband had raped two women was well written, from a perspective of overcoming problems (not remaining oppressed as a helpless victim), by studying and taking responsibility for understanding and correcting them.
Both are great, how she shares her story and how she explains Restorative Justice.
Howard Zehr, the leading US expert on restorative justice, put it the best. He explains that the conventional criminal justice system responds to crime by asking three main questions:
What law has been broken?
Who did it?
What punishment do they deserve?
...
Restorative justice sees crime and violence not as an assault on the state but on human relationships of trust.
Therefore, "justice" is an attempt to restore — to bring back, recreate, repair, or in some cases build for the first time — trust and safety within relationships through accountability, dialogue, empathy and an effort to "make things right." Restorative justice poses three different questions:
Who has been harmed?
What are their needs?
Whose obligation is it to fulfill those needs?
Asking these questions includes and values the voices and experiences of the people closest to the harm, and tries to support everyone. It does not necessarily exclude a component of punishment (incarceration) but does recognize its limits.
================
I liked this author's summary of Restorative Justice in simple terms, as she paraphrased from Howard Zehr.
Her article and experience finding out her newlywed husband had raped two women was well written, from a perspective of overcoming problems (not remaining oppressed as a helpless victim), by studying and taking responsibility for understanding and correcting them.
Both are great, how she shares her story and how she explains Restorative Justice.
