Justice and Peacebuilding – serie

A guide to conflict resolution, or as the author prefers, “conflict transformation” that emphasizes the importance of building relationships and social structures through a radical respect for human rights and life.This clearly articulated statement offers a hopeful and workable approach to conflict—that eternally beleaguering human situation. John Paul Lederach is internationally recognized for his breakthrough thinking and action related to conflict on all levels—person-to-person, factions within communities, warring nations. He explores why "conflict transformation" is more appropriate than "conflict resolution" or "management." But he refuses to be drawn into impractical idealism. Topics include:Defining Conflict TransformationConflict and ChangeConnecting Resolution and TransformationCreating a Map of ConflictDeveloping Our CapacitiesAnd much more!Firmly rooted in faith and Mennonite teachings, and related to the popular concept of restorative justice, conflict transformation is an idea with a deep reach. Its practice, says Lederach, requires "both solutions and social change." It asks not simply "How do we end something not desired?" but "How do we end something destructive and build something desired?" How do we deal with the immediate crisis, as well as the long-term situation? What disciplines make such thinking and practices possible?This title is part of The Little Books of Justice and Peacebuilding series.

So we'd all like a more peaceful world—no wars, no poverty, no more racism, no community disputes, no office tensions, no marital skirmishes. Lisa Schirch sets forth paths to such realities. In fact, she points a way to more than the absence of conflict.She foresees just peace—a sustainable state of affairs because it is a peace which insists on justice. Chapters include:Defining Strategic PeacebuildingValues for PeacebuildingAn Overview of Peacebuilding ProcessesWaging Conflict NonviolentlyReducing Direct ViolenceTransforming RelationshipsAnd more!Schirch singles out four critical actions that must be undertaken if peace is to take root at any level): ) waging conflict nonviolently, reducing direct violence, transforming relationships; and building capacity. From Schirch's 15 years of experience as a peacebuilding consultant in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.“This Little Book is an attempt to bring together the various fields and activities related to peacebuilding to integrate them into one conceptual framework. At the core of this framework is the idea of strategic peacebuilding, an interdisciplinary, coordinated approach to building a sustainable justpeace—a peace with justice. Strategic peacebuilding requires clear goals. While the concept of justpeace is growing in popularity, few writings lay out the vision and practice of justpeace. One aim of this book is to promote the concept of justpeace as an overall goal or vision for peacebuilding.A title in The Little Books of Justice and Peacebuilding Series.

Chris Marshall writes, "the Bible has had a profound impact on the development of Western culture. So exploring biblical perspectives on justice can help us appreciate some of the convictions and values that have helped shape Western political and judicial thought.”Christians also regard the Bible as a uniquely important source of guidance on matters of belief and practice. What the Bible has to say about justice, therefore—both social justice and criminal justice—ought to be of great significance for Christian thought and action today. Yet coming to grips with biblical teaching on justice is by no means easy. Chapters here include:What is JusticeJustice in the Biblical WorldviewHe Contours of Biblical JusticeJesus and JusticeUpfront, Marshall addresses the many complexities that surround "justice" in the Bible: the Bible seems to hold conflicting points of view; there is a huge amount of data to deal with; the world of the Bible and our present world are vastly different. Marshall's honest treatment of this subject is direct, yet almost lyrical in tone. He manages a thorny, multi-faceted subject clearly and ultimately singles out the broad areas of theological agreement among the Bible's writers. Highly stimulating. Highly inspirational.

How can teachers and administrators better deal with discipline, punishment, bullying, truancy, and other issues? Can community-building begin in a classroom?The authors of this book believe that by applying restorative justice at school, we can build a healthier and more just society. With practical applications and models.Can an overworked teacher possibly turn an unruly incident with students into an "opportunity for learning, growth, and community-building"? If restorative justice has been able to salvage lives within the world of criminal behavior, why shouldn't its principles be applied in school classrooms and cafeterias? And if our children learn restorative practices early and daily, won't we be building a healthier, more just society? Topics include:Why restorative justiceThe role of discipline and punishmentCharacteristics of peaceable schoolsFlexible policiesWhole school training approachesClass meetingsTruancy mediationBullyingAnd more!Two educators answer yes, yes, and yes in this new addition to The Little Books of Justice and Peacebuilding series. Amstutz and Mullet offer applications and models. "Discipline that restores is a process to make things as right as possible." This Little Book shows how to get there.

Over 170,000 copies sold! Restorative justice argues that crime destroys people and relationships. Justice, then, must repair and rebuild people and relationships. This is true for men and women that are incarcerated as it is for victims.The more than 2.3 million incarcerated individuals in the United States are often regarded as a throw-away population. While the criminal-justice system focuses on giving offenders "what they deserve," it does little to restore the needs created by crime or to explore the factors that lead to it. Restorative justice, with its emphasis on identifying the justice needs of everyone involved in a crime, is helping to restore prisoners' sense of humanity while holding them accountable for their actions.In this book, Barb Toews, with years of experience in prison work, shows how people in prison can live restorative-justice principles. She shows how these practices can change prison culture and society. Chapters include;Crime and Criminal JusticeRestorative JusticeReconnecting CommunityReconnecting IndividualsReconnecting Victims and Their Communities of CareReconnecting OffendersReconnecting Offenders’ FamiliesRestorative-Justice PracticesRestorative Practices, Justice, and PrisonRestorative Living in PrisonWritten for readers who are incarcerated, and for all those who work with people in prison, this book also clearly outlines the experiences and needs of this under-represented and often overlooked part of our society.

Here is a process for talking about tension-filled topics. Useful for families, small groups, businesses, and private and governmental organizations, now, more than ever, because we are divided by political party, race, religion, and region, dialogue is an essential tool.The word "dialogue" suffers from over-use, yet its practice is as transforming and as freshly hopeful as ever. Authors Schirch and Campt demonstrate dialogue's life and possibilities in this clear and absorbing manual: "Dialogue allows people in conflict to listen to each other, affirm their common ground, and explore their differences in a safe environment." Chapters include: Defending Dialogue, Organizing a Dialogue Process, Moving from Dialogue to Action, Assessing Dialogue Effectiveness and more.Schirch has worked throughout the Southern hemisphere in peacebuilding projects. Campt has focused on racial and class reconciliation in American cities.Part of the Little Book of Justice and Peacebuilding Series.

For the first time, the four most popular restorative justice books in the Justice & Peacebuilding series—The Little Book of Restorative Justice: Revised and Updated, The Little Book of Victim Offender Conferencing, The Little Book of Family Group Conferences, and The Little Book of Circle Processes—are available in one affordable volume.Restorative justice, with its emphasis on identifying the justice needs of everyone involved in a crime, is a worldwide movement of growing influence that is helping victims and communities heal while holding criminals accountable for their actions. This is not a soft-on-crime, feel-good philosophy, but rather a concrete effort to bring justice and healing to everyone involved in a crime. Circle processes draw from the Native American tradition of gathering in a circle to solve problems as a community. Peacemaking circles are used in neighborhoods, in schools, in the workplace, and in social services to support victims of all kinds, resolve behavior problems, and create positive climates.Each book is written by a scholar at the forefront of these movements, making this important reading for classrooms, community leaders, and anyone involved with conflict resolution.

Will prove valuable and timely to mediators, restorative justice practitioners, community organizers, as well as leaders of peacebuilding and change efforts.When conflicts become ingrained in communities, people lose hope. Dialogue is necessary but never sufficient, and often actions prove inadequate to produce substantial change. Even worse, chosen actions create more conflict because people have different lived experiences, priorities, and approaches to transformation. So what’s the story?In The Little Book of Transformative Community Conferencing, David Anderson Hooker offers a hopeful, accessible approach to dialogue that:Integrates several practice approaches including restorative justice, peacebuilding, and artsCreates welcoming, non-divisive spaces for dialogueNames and maps complex conflicts, such as racial tensions, religious divisions, environmental issues, and community development as it narrates simple storiesBuilds relationships and foundations for trust needed to support long-term community transformation projectsAnd results in the crafting of hopeful, future-oriented visions of community that can transform relationships, resource allocation, and structures in service of communities’ preferred narratives.Hooker presents an important, stand-alone process, an excellent addition to the study and practice of strategic peacebuilding, restorative justice, conflict transformation, trauma healing, and community organizing.This book recognizes the complexity of conflict, choosing long-term solutions over inadequate quick fixes. The Transformative Community Conferencing model emerges from the author’s thirty years of practice in contexts as diverse as South Sudan; Mississippi; Greensboro, North Carolina; Oakland, California; and Nassau, Bahamas.

In our era of mass incarceration, gun violence, and Black Lives Matters, a handbook showing how racial justice and restorative justice can transform the African-American experience in America.This timely work will inform scholars and practitioners on the subjects of pervasive racial inequity and the healing offered by restorative justice practices. Addressing the intersectionality of race and the US criminal justice system, social activist Fania E. Davis explores how restorative justice has the capacity to disrupt patterns of mass incarceration through effective, equitable, and transformative approaches. Eager to break the still-pervasive, centuries-long cycles of racial prejudice and trauma in America, Davis unites the racial justice and restorative justice movements, aspiring to increase awareness of deep-seated problems as well as positive action toward change.Davis highlights real restorative justice initiatives that function from a racial justice perspective; these programs are utilized in schools, justice systems, and communities, intentionally seeking to ameliorate racial disparities and systemic inequities. Chapters include:Chapter 1: The Journey to Racial Justice and Restorative JusticeChapter 2: Ubuntu: The Indigenous Ethos of Restorative JusticeChapter 3: Integrating Racial Justice and Restorative JusticeChapter 4: Race, Restorative Justice, and SchoolsChapter 5: Restorative Justice and Transforming Mass IncarcerationChapter 6: Toward a Racial Reckoning: Imagining a Truth Process for Police ViolenceChapter 7: A Way ForwardShe looks at initiatives that strive to address the historical harms against African Americans throughout the nation. This newest addition the Justice and Peacebuilding series is a much needed and long overdue examination of the issue of race in America as well as a beacon of hope as we learn to work together to repair damage, change perspectives, and strive to do better.

A Practitioner's Reference and Guide to Implement Restorative Justice on CampusHere’s a call to colleges and universities to consider implementing restorative practices on their campuses, ensuring fair treatment of students and staff while minimizing institutional liability, protecting the campus community, and boosting morale, from an associate dean of student affairs who has put these models to work on his campus.Restorative justice is a collaborative decision-making process that includes victims, offenders, and others who are seeking to hold offenders accountable by having them (a) accept and acknowledge responsibility for their offenses, (b) to the best of their ability, repair the harm they caused to victims and communities, and (c) work to reduce the risk of re-offense by building positive social ties to the community.David Karp writes in his introduction, “As a student affairs administrator, I have become deeply committed to the concept and practice of restorative justice. I have experienced how it can work given the very real pressures among campus conduct administrators to manage high case loads, ensure fair treatment, minimize institutional liability, protect the campus community, boost morale in a division with high turnover, and help students learn from their mistakes without creating insurmountable obstacles to their future successes.”

A practical guide to listening well in restorative justice programs and any relationship.The Little Book of Listening is an introduction to and practical guide for listening as an emergent strategy for creating a transformed world. It presents radical listening as an essential macro-skill, one that is essential in forming “right relationships” with ourselves and others that are the necessary prerequisite to all lasting forms of social change.This is a collaborative book, constructed from the contributions of twenty-six listeners from a wide variety of backgrounds who have shared their strategies, experiences, inspiration, and hopes for a transformed world through listening justly and equitably. One of the primary goals of the book is to offer practical tools for readers to develop the skills to listen to themselves and others more effectively, drawing attention to the barriers and filters that so often distract us from listening. Another goal is to inspire readers through the personal stories of how just listening has impacted the authors and invite readers to adopt these approaches themselves. Finally, we aim for this text to be a resource for practitioners in the fields of justicebuilding and peacebuilding.Conversations are how humans explore new ideas and reach new understandings: paradigms shift and the world is changed by our communication with each other. Whatever processes are used, it is imperative that facilitators and participants listen deeply, humbly, and attentively, without ego or agenda, to themselves and to one another.

Over 150,000-copies sold! Author Howard Zehr is the father of Restorative Justice and is known worldwide for his pioneering work in transforming our understanding of justice.Here Zehr proposes workable principles and practices for making Restorative Justice possible in this revised and updated edition of his bestselling, seminal book on the movement.Restorative Justice, with its emphasis on identifying the justice needs of everyone involved in a crime, is a worldwide movement of growing influence that is helping victims and communities heal, while holding criminals accountable for their actions.This is not soft-on-crime, feel-good philosophy, but rather a concrete effort to bring justice and healing to everyone involved in a crime. In The Little Book of Restorative Justice, Zehr first explores how restorative justice is different from criminal justice. Then, before letting those appealing observations drift out of reach into theoretical space, Zehr presents Restorative Justice practices. Zehr undertakes a massive and complex subject and puts it in graspable from, without reducing or trivializing it. Topics include:Three pillars of restorative justiceThe “who” and the “how” are importantThe goals of restorative justiceCore approaches often involve an encounterAnd much more!This resource is also suitable for academic classes and workshops, for conferences and trainings, as well as for the layperson interested in understanding this innovative and influential movement.