Restorative Justice Column No. 1
By Abdul Malik Muhammad, Co-Editor, Restorative Justice Column
Welcome to the first edition of the Northwestern Insider Restorative Justice Column. My name is Abdul-Malik Muhammad, aka Malik. I am a member of the NPEP Restorative Justice (RJ) Community at Stateville Correctional Center and I am working in collaboration with the NPEP RJ teams at Stateville and Logan Correctional Center. It is a great privilege to bring together our collective voices in this column to repair harm and build community.
Reconciliation challenges us to make strides to repair any harm that was inflicted on a particular individual or community.
Accountability forces us to acknowledge any wrongdoing and/or harm we have caused.
Community allows us to come together collectively as a group while aiding and assisting one another in our restorative justice (RJ) journey.
Empathy gives us the opportunity to see and feel the pain through the lens of our harmed parties.
With these four pillars, we have created a virtual RJ space, a virtual circle in which we can share our stories through essays and connect with each other emotionally by responding to prompt-style questions. It takes courage to allow others to know how you are feeling and what is causing you to feel that way, which enables us to understand, listen, and consider how someone else may be feeling. All NPEP students are welcome to respond. No one’s voice will be excluded.
Welcome again to the NPEP RJ virtual circle.
What is Restorative Justice?
Annie Buth is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Law in the Center on Negotiation, Mediation, and Restorative Justice at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and supports NPEP’s restorative justice program.
There is no singular definition of restorative justice, and it can be viewed as a framework, theory of justice, set of practices, movement, or way of life.
Current restorative justice praxis is influenced by streams of practice in Indigenous Peacemaking, faith traditions, schools, criminal legal systems, and other communities.
Restorative justice emphasizes a relational, value-based approach to creating healthy and equitable communities in an interconnected world and repairing harm when there is a breakdown in relationships.
Accordingly, it requires a shift in thinking about crime. It focuses on the impact of harm rather than merely the guilt of someone who has broken a law.
Restorative justice centers on taking responsibility, remorse, reparation, and healing instead of punishment, and it recognizes the transformational power of stories for connection.
