Justice That Transforms

My good friend and scholar, Ron Dart, proposed that I pull together my Restorative Justice writings, to publish them on Amazon and Kindle, at least. Since I had done a few publications that way (only one written by me, though I had written Forewords each time), I acted on the idea. This is Volume Three of a multivolume set. Throughout most of the nineties I worked in the Restorative Justice field for Mennonite Central Committee Canada, that granted me a high perch from which to observe the increasing North American and worldwide awareness of this emerging phenomenon. That decade was a kind of spreading-wings time of creating awareness, honing theory, delivering practice, and producing research. Criminal justice jurisdictions began encountering Restorative Justice in North America and worldwide. Many publications started emerging alongside beginnings of evidence-based research on impacts of this often-claimed "paradigm shift" in dealing with perpetrators and people who were offended against. Whole conferences and umbrella organizations were organized and formed to promote Restorative Justice and share expertise, the term "best practices" often employed. Programs in many parts of the world began cross-pollinating as attempts at supplying precise definition and standards of practice proliferated. Institutions of higher learning commenced teaching it; governments started embracing and funding it; and critics, in particular from the "victim" community, were analysing and at times condemning it as pro-offender and naïve. Some even accused it of being nothing more than "compulsory compassion" foisted on "victims" that left them further wounded; "justice" even perhaps more denied while perpetrators were all but "let off the hook." Its sheer mushrooming across the planet within mere decades precluded "controls" that might have headed off some of the at times legitimate attacks. But crime victim communities ("victim" a term that rightly should be for the most part displaced in favour of "those whom crime impacts" or the like) embraced Restorative Justice as well. There will be at least a fourth and fifth volume of collected writings. Then I will publish a series of monographs on Peace/Peacemaking, tentatively titled: "Justice That Yields Peace." Why publish now? Because I can might be as good an answer! Because as well they may be of historical interest. And because they give opportunity to put "out there" the continued joy and prospect of peacemaking work.