oakland restorative justice week
How do we create a Beloved Oakland?
WHAT IS RESTORATIVE JUSTICE?
What is Restorative Justice?
A philosophical framework, or way of being, based on indigenous values and practices that encourages individuals to come together for the purpose of building, strengthening, and maintaining healing communities.
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Restorative justice emphasizes bringing together everyone affected by wrongdoing to address their needs and obligations and to heal the harm as much as possible.
Restorative justice is applied in multiple contexts, including schools, families, workplaces, the justice system, global conflict, and as a tool to transform structural and historic harms. By building, maintaining and restoring relationships between members of the entire community, we help to create an environment where all can thrive.
Framework
While the traditional justice system looks to punish “offenders” by asking:
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What laws have been broken?
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Who did it?
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What do they deserve?
Restorative justice looks at the needs created by the harmful offense and asks:
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Who has been harmed?
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What are their needs?
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Whose obligations are these?
Restorative justice contends that harm to one member of the community is harm against the whole.
Restorative justice produces consensus-based plans through face-to-face dialogues that meet the needs of all affected parties including the person harmed and the person responsible for the harm. This can take many forms, most notably community conferencing models and talking circle processes.
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RJ Circles: Circles are ancient – used by many indigenous communities as a way of healing harms, resolving conflict, communicating, mourning, and celebrating. Participants sit in a circle so that there is a sense of equality. Preferably, there are no tables or obtrusive objects inside the circle so that participants are open to each other. Most elements of a circle contain an opening, community activity, guidelines/ values, guiding questions, reflection and a closing.
Restorative Community Conference: A restorative process that brings community members together to support healing by addressing the harms, needs, and obligations resulting from an offense to one or more members of the community. Restorative Community Conferences are confidential.