Restorative Justice

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Grand Canyon University *

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Arts Humanities

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Dec 6, 2023

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Restorative Justice Maria V. Santiago College of Humanities and Social Science, Grand Canyon University JUS-212: Criminal Behavior and Victimology Professor Stephen Ross May 7, 2023
Name: Maria Santiago Date: May 3, 2023 Instructor: Stephen Ross Course: Jus: 212 Restorative Justice What is restorative justice? Restorative Justice is defined as using humanistic, nonpunitive strategies to right wrongs and restore social harmony. (Siegel, 2018) Restorative justice requires that society address victims’ harms and needs, holds offenders accountable to put right those harms, and involve victims, offenders, and communities in the process of healing” (Siegel, 2018) The core value of this restoration process is respect for all, even those who are different from us (Siegel, 2018). But, does it really work or does it cause more problems in the future? Although the use of restorative justice in schools is hardly new globally, the emergence of school-based restorative justice in the United States as an educational practice to address the far-reaching negative impacts of punitive discipline policies is a more recent phenomenon. (Gonzalez, 2012) To prevent and control others from committing crimes the laws use two forms of punishment. One punishes the violator in a harsh way by putting them in prison and throwing away the key by a long prison sentence and the other uses the restorative methods of justice. For this essay, I will focus on school age children and the effects of restorative justice. Restorative justice practice in schools is often seen as building on existing relationships and complementary with other non-discipline practices, such as peer mediation or youth courts. (Gonzalez, 2012) when you use punishment on school children it does more harm than good because it causes rebellion. A good example of this is my 16-year-old nephew David. He dropped
out of school and has a drinking problem. He kept on being suspended from school for fighting and due to this fell behind in all his classes He was sent to juvie and came out worse than when he went it. All he does is sleep, beg for money, hang with the wrong crowd. He was expelled from the school he was going to. And recently he was rushed to the hospital for alcohol blood poisoning. However, his older sister recently was in trouble but did not go to juvie she was sent to do community service instead. She is now going to school, working her first job on the weekends and doing everything she needs to do. There is a major difference in the behavior of both one who is rebelling and the other one who has changed. The Advancement Project documented that punitive discipline policies have led to a tripling of the national prison population from 1987 to 2007. (Gonzalez, 2012) If documentation shows that punitive discipline makes the student worse than it should. Let’s do away with punitive punishment in favor of restorative justice. It only causes harm to the student. My nephew was asked by a friend of his why he does what he does. He told his friend that no one cares about him all they prefer to do is lock him up in juvie because we think he is trouble so now he does everything wrong since that is what is expected of him to do. He further stated that we prefer his sister over him because we never sent her to juvie and she was never suspended from school for doing the same thing fighting. School-based restorative justice practice is a whole-school approach focused on inclusion in the school community, rather than exclusion, to address issues of student discipline, student performance, school safety, student dropout, and the school to prison pipeline without a disproportionate reliance on suspensions and expulsions. (Gonzalez, 2012) but can it work on everyone like it worked on my niece. Every program has its pro and it cons. However, in any locale where a program operates, there are individuals who have been touched by the restorative justice experience. Crime victims interviewed here speak of
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