I'm a high school teacher, and we are looking at bringing restorative justice practices into our district. Just starting to dig into the restorative justice framework gives us a stronger way to think about dealing with discipline within a school system.
As I start to have deeper conversations with people well versed in restorative justice, I'm starting to hear really concrete ideas and practices for reforming our justice system in the US.
Edit: To clarify, restorative justice avoids the punitive approach to dealing with crime. Instead, it asks what harm has been done to what relationships when a crime has been committed. The first goal is then to work to restore those relationships. This is an incredibly valuable perspective in schools, where relationships are central to so much of what should be happening in a learning environment. It's a pretty good lens for examining situations in the larger community as well.
I hope you succeed in changing the system. School for most kids is "prison-lite". Like if you don't show up on time for roll call, you get punished by being held in recess or forced to pick up garbage around the school.
And this is not some third world school I am talking about. This is schools in cupertino, one of the wealthiest and most "progressive" areas in the world.
> Years ago, five friends and a I were put in charge of a 150 rowdy fifth-graders for
a long weekend up in Canada. It was almost impossible to be heard over the
din—until I stumbled onto the solution. All we had to say was, “points will be
deducted,” and compliance appeared. There weren’t any points and there wasn’t
any prize, but merely the threat of lost points was sufficient.
The parallels are numerous. You are legally compelled show up under threat of violence (although usually targeted at the child's parents, in the form of being arrested). You are not free to leave when you desire. You lose certain basic human rights while you are there (e.g. [1,2,3,4]). You are subject to the arbitrary authority of non-elected persons. Until recently, you were subject to physical violence at the hands of these persons. Social cliques and violence are relatively common. In many situations, self-expression, experimentation, and curiosity is discouraged.
I know, as a child, public school left a bad taste in my mouth for some of these reasons.
[1] Board of Education of Independent School District #92 of Pottawatomie County v. Earls
At least there's one good thing about it: it's a great motivator to work hard and get rich if one is planning on having kids, in order to avoid sending them to public school.
There are many cases in which one can't restore the harm. If someone dies, you can restore that. Many times the harm is psychological and is not easy to restore. I don't know if restorative justice prevent or diminish the probability of further crimes, but a good justice system employ punishment as an excellent inhibitor of crime. People are sensible to long term sentences in jail.
As I start to have deeper conversations with people well versed in restorative justice, I'm starting to hear really concrete ideas and practices for reforming our justice system in the US.
Edit: To clarify, restorative justice avoids the punitive approach to dealing with crime. Instead, it asks what harm has been done to what relationships when a crime has been committed. The first goal is then to work to restore those relationships. This is an incredibly valuable perspective in schools, where relationships are central to so much of what should be happening in a learning environment. It's a pretty good lens for examining situations in the larger community as well.
One resource, from a school-based perspective: http://www.healthiersf.org/RestorativePractices/
And a more general perspective: http://www.restorativejustice.org/