It also asks the offender to find an appropriate way to make amends with the victim.

Further, it helps bring the perpetrator back into the school community, rather than further excluding them. This approach humanizes both sides by giving students the chance to understand one another and learn to express their vulnerabilities. The goal is for the perpetrator to hear how their actions have affected the victim, from the victim’s perspective. Restorative justice encourages the use of support systems - such as talking circles, peer juries and trusted adult counselors - to facilitate a conversation between victim and offender. By involving the victim in the work of justice, this approach encourages the reparation of harm. In most previous approaches, the victim was entirely left out of the process of justice. One major difference between restorative justice and previous paradigms is the active role of the victim. Rather than focusing on “fixing” the offender, it focuses on repairing the relationship between the victims and the perpetrators of a crime. While they share some overlap, restorative justice takes a different approach yet. Examples of rehabilitative justice include counseling, educational programs, or anger management courses. Rather than focusing on the offense, this approach focuses on the therapeutic rehabilitation of the offender. Examples of this system include detention, suspension, and expulsion.Īnother popular approach is called rehabilitative justice. In this system, justice is a set of rules that cannot be broken without the perpetrator getting retribution for his or her infraction. Zero tolerance falls under the paradigm of retributive justice. This approach hones in on the offense itself and operates by punishing the offender for committing crimes. Following this trajectory from left to right, you can see how the way we think about justice (and criminals) has evolved. The following infographic shows three different paradigm shifts that have occurred in education in recent decades.

Rather than viewing students who commit crimes as criminals, it asks educators to view them as responsible community members. It’s a paradigm shift in the way schools think about discipline that asks educators to fundamentally challenge their perceptions of students who violate school policies. Restorative justice isn’t just a technique or tactic. Keep reading to learn more about restorative justice and how it differs from previous paradigms of school discipline! A paradigm rooted in relationships & the reparation of harm If you have such questions, we might be able to help. What exactly is restorative justice? What philosophy and research underpin this new trend in education? Maybe you’ve heard a little bit about Michigan’s new law encouraging schools to replace damaging zero-tolerance policies like suspension or expulsion with restorative practices.īut you still have a few questions floating in your mind, like:

Paradigm shift in education