Restorative and Community Justice
Restorative justice strives to repair harms to victims of crime, hold offenders accountable to those harmed and promote community safety by resolving conflicts through voluntary processes such as family-group conferencing, victim-offender mediation, and community-safety groups. Restorative justice principles and practices are used to help victims heal, reduce crime, promote successful reentry of people released from confinement and enable those who cause harm to make amends. Mediated dialog between those who have been harmed and those who have caused harm strengthens informal prosocial controls that govern individual behavior of residents.
Community justice strives to improve the safety and health of neighborhoods. This is accomplished by residents working collaboratively with governmental and non-governmental agencies to improve the quality of life in their neighborhood by reducing the influence of anti-social conditions and strengthening the influence of pro-social conditions.
The following provides several restorative and community justice projects that are being lead by the UTSA Criminal Justice faculty:
- The College of Public Policy will cosponsor the 2nd National Conference on Restorative Justice at the UTSA Downtown Campus on May 13-15, 2009. Dr. Michael Gilbert is the lead organizer for conference. The first conference was held at Schreiner University in Kerrville in June 2007 and was attended by approximatly300 researchers and practitioners from about 20 countries. Both Dr. Gilbert and Prof. Byrd were members of the planning team for the first conference.
- Dr. Tanya Settles and Prof. Robert Rico have been working with Kendall County officials to establish voluntary restorative justice mediation program for victims of juvenile offenses and their offenders. These programs have already processed several cases.
- Dr. Michael Gilbert is leading the San Antonio Restorative Justice Initiative in collaboration with many other criminal justice and social service agencies to use restorative justice processes to help those returning to the community after confinement to successfully reenter the community and rebuild their lives. Gilbert is also conducting a neighborhood-based research project on indigenous development of neighborhood based restorative and community justice processes. He and others are assisting residents of the Lincoln Heights Courts to create a better, safer, and healthier community for themselves and their children. This model may be replicated within the new Haven for Hope homeless community being developed by Bexar County and City of San Antonio and other neighborhood organizations.
- Gilbert was elected Chair for the newly established Section on Restorative and Community Justice within the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences at the national conference on March 13, 2008 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He lead a two-year effort by several members of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences to establish an academic and professional association for educators, researchers and practitioners interested in restorative and community justice.
- The Center for Policy Studies also includes an Office of Community and Restorative Justice focused on broadening the use of restorative and community justice principles and practices by providing information, technical assistance, research and training. Dr. Gilbert serves as the point of contact for those interested in restorative and community justice. He may be reached at (210) 458-2683 or by email at mgilbert@utsa.edu.
The College of Public Policy and it's faculty have become increasingly visible as leaders in the emerging field of restorative and community justice.
Submitted by Michael J. Gilbert, Ph. D, Associate Professor, Dept. Criminal Justice.