Successes and Challenges Facing Restorative Justice Practices in Schools
Karp, David R. and Beau Breslin, %u201CRestorative Justice in School Communities,%u201D Youth and Society, Vol. 33, No. 2 (December 2001).
This article examines schools in Minnesota, Colorado, and Pennsylvania that have used restorative justice policies instead of zero tolerance to deal with behavior, drug and alcohol problems. Authoritarian punishment largely prevents students from learning from their mistakes, increases alienation, and generally fails to fix the negative effects of their actions within the community. Furthermore, exclusionary discipline is likely to exacerbate behavior problems, drug and alcohol consumption by pushing students away from the school community. But unlike straight punitive discipline, restorative justice: a) address both the victimizer and the victim, b) works with and builds relationships within the students’ natural community, rather than between administrator and offender, and c) offers opportunities to integrate/reintegrate into a greater social fabric through jobs, mentoring, counseling, etc.
Minnesota Public Schools were able to benefit from state–wide implementation of restorative justice and state funded restorative programs. Schools used mediation circles, in which victims, offenders, the families of each, and administrators attempted verbal reconciliation. Both elementary schools and high schools saw reductions in suspension and expulsion by 25–30% after two years of restorative justice programs. While the Denver Metropolitan Schools used a similar model for restorative practices, the authors argue that they were incompatible with the ongoing use of traditional punitive policies. The article concludes that restorative justice practices face a number of challenges in schools: pressure from school superintendents, outside community opinion, and juvenile justice officials who all favor punitive actions for school misbehavior; increased resources and time needed to implement restorative justice practices; the conflict between local law and internal school policy when dealing with criminal offenses like drug use; and the difficult of changing long–standing internal processes.