Mapping US Peacemakers

The NACRJ Law and Policy Working Group is recruiting a team of legislators and advocates to participate in a national conference call to discuss strategic issues and moving forward with legislative advisement and advocacy. Contact Dr. Sandra Pavelka at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you are interested in participating in this important dialogue.

NACRJ is also showcasing good examples of Restorative Justice Legislation in three key areas: Juvenile Justice, Adult/Criminal Justice, and Educational Settings/Schools.^[i]

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RESTORATIVE PRACTICE CONSORTIUM • ONTARIO CANADA 2017

The Restorative Practice Consortium of Ontario Canada has recently released a 255-page resource document for applying restorative practices to schools. The Restorative Practice Resource Project is packed with colorful charts, articles, and presentation materials for helping schools navigate their way into a holistic approach to implementing RP in schools.

The Restorative Practice Consortium is also making this material free of copyright, and encourages the sharing of this content to help spread the work of restorative practices in North America. Thank you Canada!

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On the 30th anniversary of the production of Dennis Maloney’s seminal work, “The Balanced Approach,” the Juvenile and Family Court Journal has now issued a set of articles this spring that revisit the beginnings and spread of what has largely been known, over the years, as BARJ.

Included in this journey is a recent article by co-authors Sandra Pavelka and Douglas Thomas, “Evolution of Balanced and Restorative Justice," which creatively takes the reader through the hypothetical experiences of youth offender Joey who navigates a complex justice system that may or may not include a balanced approach.

Maloney (for whom one the NACRJ award categories is named after), along with other colleagues, came up with the balanced triad of accountability for victims, competencies of offenders, and protection for communities, as a way to encapsulate the thrust of restorative justice as it was unfolding in the 1990s in the realm of criminal justice for youth offenders.

San Francisco’s newest District Attorney, Chesa Boudin, is promoting restorative justice options for all victims of crime. "I want to give every victim of every crime in San Francisco the right to participate in restorative justice if they choose to," he said. "It's going to take time, and it's going to take work, and we're going to have to see how many victims want to engage in the process. Some won't, but this is about putting victims first."

As reported in a 5-minute NPR feature on All Things Considered, Boudin's reformist views were shaped by his personal story. Like more than half of all Americans, he has an immediate family member behind bars. "Years now, decades, of visiting my parents behind bars taught me hard lessons about how...devoid of compassion [the criminal justice system] is. It's not healing the harm that victims experience. It's not rehabilitating people. And in many ways, it's making us less safe."