Recent "Weekly Read" Articles for the Last Four Cycles:  The last four "Weekly Read" sources posted on the Home page will be posted here for the next four cycles. 

Articles that were featured earlier are accessible to members after they login.  They are located at the Weekly Read Archive tab within the Member Resources menu item.

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January 10, 2015

NACRJ Perspective Featured in International RJ Journal

Shaping Justice for the 21st Century in the USA: The National Association of Community and Restorative Justice. Restorative Justice: An International Journal. (2014) Vol. 2, Issue 2.

The article currently featured moves away from our recent focus on applications of restorative practices in our schools.  It considers the broader implications of the restorative and community justice movement for achieving a just and equitable society that responds to harm in meaningful ways that seek to heal and prevent.  The article argues that realization of that future requires a concerted effort to become policy relevant.  It concludes with set of seven issues that are likely to confront those in the movement as we seek to broaden the role of relational justice practices in our lives, communities, institutions and society.  You will also find critical assessments prepared by international scholars from Canada and Finland. 

The article was written by the Executive Director of NACRJ in close collaboration with the President (Dr. Mark Umbreit) and Secretary (Dr. Marilyn Armour) of the association. 

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Nov. 21, 2014

The featured reading today is the School Discipline Consensus Report: Strategies from the Field to Keep Students Engaged in School and Out of the Juvenile Justice System (2014) published by The Justice Center of the Council of State Governments.

 Restorative practices are prominently featured in this report as a viable approach to build community, address problems, address conflicts and heal harms. 

• School Discipline Consensus Report: Strategies from the Field to Keep Students Engaged in School and Out of the Juvenile Justice System (2014), Council of State Governments.

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Oct. 5, 2014

We are rarely able to publish emerging research on restorative and community justice because they typically appear in proprietary academic journals.  The "Weekly Read" for October 5, 2014 is an exception because the publisher allows open reprinting of the article as long as the Authors and the Source are identified.  

Over the last 20 years, research findings on various restorative practices have been quite promising.  While mixed there is general consistency that restorative practices out perform traditional justice practices on most measures.  The featured article this week identified ten studies (of 519 studies initially qualified for inclusion) that met their standards for inclusion.  The authors conclude that: "RJCs cause a modest but highly cost-effective reduction in the frequency of repeat offending...." 

"Are Restorative Justice Conferences Effective in Reducing Repeat Offending?  Findings from a Campbell Systematic Review"

Authors: L. Sherman, H. Strang, E. Mayo-Wilson, D. J. Woods, & B. Ariel

Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 2014, DOI 10.1007/s10940-014-9222-9.

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Sept. 6-15, 2014

The reading featured during this period continues the focus on the relationship between restorative justice and community justice.  Both are relational forms of justice that rely on dialogue to build pro-social relationships and strengthen communities.   

• Restorative justice, focuses on healing harms caused by incivilities, crimes, injustice, inequality and historical harms from discrimination. 
• Community justice, focuses on healing harms to quality of life within neighborhoods, larger communities and the societies to reduce the criminogenic influences generated by adverse social conditions, including the underlying structure of society. 

The featured article explores the use of restorative justice in policing. It offers an integrative perspective which suggests that restorative justice may comtribute to victim-centered policing. The implication of this for domestic violence cases or incidents with mentally ill persons are discussed as well as barriers to implementation.   

Implementing Restorative Justice in Police Departments (Alarid & Montemayor, 2011)

NOTE: The article presented above is by Dr. Leanne Alarid (currently at the University of Texas at El Paso) and Mr. Carlos Montemayor (Graduate Student, Texas State University). It is the "Accepted Manuscript" of the article published in Police Practice and Research (Oct. 20, 2011 on-line) by the Taylor & Francis Group and is available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/15614263.2011.607654.

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