|
In contrast to the offender-driven, retributive nature of our current justice system, restorative justice focuses on each of the parties impacted by crime: victims, offenders and community members. The ideals of restorative justice techniques elevate the importance of the victim in the criminal justice process, through increased involvement, input, and services. Restorative Justice Programs draw upon the innovative and therapeutic principles of several recent criminal justice reform efforts, like community corrections, victim advocacy, the new Alabama Sentencing Standards, and community policing. These programs involve the development of community-based responses to crime and violence that strengthen social harmony and individual healing through dialogue, repair of harm, and peace-building. One Restorative Justice program is called Victim-Offender Conferencing. In this program, with the assistance of trained facilitators, victims are able to express the full impact the crimes have had on their lives and to be directly involved in developing restitution plans that holds offenders financially accountable for the losses they have caused. Offenders are able to take responsibility for their behavior, learn the full impact of their actions, and develop plans for making amends to the persons they violated.
Alabama Appleseed’s project will focus on establishing in Alabama’s Juvenile Courts Victim-Offender Conferencing programs. We have been working with Jefferson County Juvenile Court Judge Brian Huff, his court administrator, lay volunteers and volunteer program consultant to begin facilitator training and program implementation. Judge Huff and other judges in the Jefferson County Juvenile Court are now participating in a five-city pilot initiative called Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative, funded with technical, in-kind assistance from the Annie Casey Foundation. The main goal of this new program is to take a closer look at what type juveniles are actually being incarcerated and then try to devise screening and other programmatic ways to make sure only those juveniles that really need incarceration are placed in detention centers.
Given this new initiative and its use of victim/offender conferencing, we and the others working on Judge Huff’s program are exploring ways to incorporate victim/offending conferencing into the Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative. One particular idea we and the group are exploring is setting up a victim/offender conferencing program in two area public schools that have the highest incidence of referrals to the court of juvenile delinquent behavior.
We also plan to work with Juvenile Court judges in Lowndes and Montgomery Counties in 2008.
In August 2007, John Pickens, Alabama Appleseed’s Executive Director, was appointed by Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb to her Victim Offender Conferencing Commission. This Commission will work to create model Victim Offender Conferencing Rules for state-wide use.
Our work on this project is funded through grants from the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham, Robert R. Meyer Foundation, Susan Mott Webb Foundation, Henry G and Henry U. Sims Foundation, and The Alabama Center for Dispute Resolution.
|
