DONATE
The criminal justice system has long since disproportionately affected BIPOC communities and all individuals who are not cisgender, straight, white, male, or disabled. The oppression and harm of the aforementioned communities continues in their criminalization and potential entry into the criminal justice system. This oppression and harm only conti...
Read MoreIn Philadelphia, schools city-wide have been adopting and expanding restorative justice programs over the past several years. One key figure in this movement is Josh Staub, who oversees restorative programming at the district level. Before returning to Pennsylvania where he grew up, Staub spent several years working in Oakland and learning from res...
Read MoreWith a new semester on the horizon, we encourage you all to make use of Berkeley’s course offerings and integrate restorative justice into your course schedule. We have assembled a list of courses centered on restorative justice and institutional racism below: [LEGALST 190-007] Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation: Responses to State Violence
Read MoreCancel culture. What is it? Does it work? Does it do more harm than good? With the answers to these questions still very much open to interpretation, understanding the implications of this phenomenon is difficult. But for those of us interested in societal ideas about justice, I think it’s pretty important to try. Cancel culture is very unique as...
Read MoreThe criminal justice system has been in dire need of reform since its conception; this reform has come slowly but surely, particularly with the passage of one bill in 2016 focused on ensuring that youth offenders are not transferred to adult court. This bill, Proposition 57, “barred prosecutors from trying juveniles as adults without a judge’s ap...
Read MoreWith as many as 1 in 5 inmates suffering from a major mental illness, it’s not surprising that prisons are frequently called the new asylums. This fact can be seen as part of the broader failure within the justice system to engage in rehabilitative efforts, a position that has especially damaging effects in the case of mentally ill individuals. The...
Read MoreCommunity Works is an Oakland based organization that embodies a philosophy of restorative justice to deliver healing and practical help to system impacted people. This year, they began a revolutionary and inspiring program that provides guaranteed income to individuals reentering their communities after being incarcerated. The program gives parti...
Read MoreThis blog post was written by Jackie Ho, a student in the LS 162 AC course in the spring of 2021. Students in this class are invited to address various aspects of restorative justice and current events and produce blog posts for publication here. The Justice Arts Coalition interviewed featured artists Sandra Miller and Cherie Hacker to understand t...
Read MoreCriminal (noun): 1) One who has committed a crime. 2) A person who has been convicted of a crime. This is the definition given by Miriam Webster, and essentially the same as all other definitions of the word that I could find. But if you’re trying to understand how the word is commonly used, this definition is of little help. That’s because people...
Read MoreI hadn’t heard of restorative justice until I attended university. Now I can’t imagine going into the criminal justice field without an understanding of RJ paradigms. I can’t yet picture the implementation of restorative justice programs on a wide scale. However, the ideas behind RJ practices, and their promising results, have provided me with...
Read More