Restorative Justice
Restorative justice focuses on restoring prisoners back to the community in a manner
that helps them fit into society. Besides education, counseling and drug treatment,
restorative justice also attempts to use reconciliation between offenders and their
victims.
The following are some statistics and comments from books and articles on restorative
justice programs. PLEASE SEND US NEW DATA AND ARTICLES IF YOU HAVE THEM.
Former GOP lawmaker promotes restorative justice
Pat Nolan spent 16 years in the state Assembly and then two in federal prison on
racketeering charges. The former Republican leader says he once promoted the
punitive laws that increased sentencing for prisoners and said he didn't recognize them as
"humans."
Today, based on his experiences in prison, he is the president of Justice Fellowship,
a Virginia-based group trying to change the justice system's focus from punishment to
healing. Locking people up and throwing away away the key, Nolan said, isn't doing
the criminals or their victims any good.
The problem, Nolan said, is that when prisoners emerge, many are no more likely to
obey the law then when they went it. They are jobless, homeless, hooked on drugs and
illiterate.
"We define crime as a broken law," Nolan said describing Justice Fellowship.
"The Bible defines crime as a broken relationship. Humans are involved,
not government. Real humans. There's a real person harmed and a person who's
done the harm. . . . . Make the victim whole. Now, that is tough."
"We should lock people up because we are afraid of 'em, not because we're mad at
them," Nolan said. "We lock up a lot of people just because we're mad at
them. It's very destructive. We don't heal them." OCRegister, 3/1/98.
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Date last modified: 3/1/98.
