Justice & Peacebuilding Series

Family group conferences (FGCs) are the primary forum in New Zealand for dealing with juvenile crime, as well as child welfare issues. This third volume in the Little Books of Justice and Peacebuilding Series is about the juvenile justice system that is built around these conferences. Since their introduction in New Zealand, family group conferences have been adopted and adapted in many places throughout the world.

This is not soft-on-crime, feel-good philosophy, but rather a concrete effort to bring justice and healing to everyone involved in a crime. In The Little Book of Restorative Justice, Howard Zehr, the father of restorative justice and is known worldwide for his pioneering work in transforming understandings of justice, first explores how restorative justice is different from criminal justice. Then, before letting those appealing observations drift out of reach into theoretical space, Zehr presents restorative justice practices.

Victim offender dialogues have been developed as a way to hold offenders accountable to the person they have harmed and to give victims a voice about how to put things right. It is a way of acknowledging the importance of the relationship, of the connection which crime creates. Granted, the relationship is a negative one, but there is a relationship. Amstutz has been a practitioner and a teacher in the field for more than 20 years. This excellent audio resource draws on her experience and contributes indispensably to the Little Books of Justice and Peacebuilding Series.

Much more than a response to harm, restorative justice nurtures relational, interconnected school cultures. The wisdom embedded within its principles and practices is being welcomed at a time when exclusionary discipline and zero-tolerance policies are recognized as perpetuating student apathy, disproportionality, and the school-to-prison pipeline.