How can restorative justice services be reliably safe and accountable to our own principles?
While for some, creating “standards” in restorative justice seems like an effective path forward to ensuring good practice, concepts of “standards” and “standardization” are tricky! These terms bring up important issues of hierarchy, power, privilege, and worldview. Who sets the standards, who “enforces” them, and how do they encourage, rather than discourage innovation? Without them, how do participants, referral agents and community members understand whether a particular organization practicing restorative justice is trustworthy? Are these even the right questions?
Is creating standards controversial? Well, it should be!
In this Zehr Institute webinar from 2018, Aaron and Catherine explore “the promise and perils” of standards in restorative justice, and describe an initiative in British Columbia, Canada, which sought to develop a set of flexible program standards through a community engagement process. This is an older resource which we think still has relevance for our field today. Check the webinar out here and let us know what you think!
The Promise and Perils of “Standards” in Restorative Justice – YouTube