Curriculum Modules Home ››› Mindset Shifts ››› Restorative Practices
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Restorative Justice (RJ) became a core IRL practice—used to build relationships and community and address conflict and harm. RJ allowed IRL to move beyond simply acknowledging conflict to actively trying to heal relationships.
Restorative Justice is a community-sustaining framework that encourages conversation, connection, and community building with oneself and others. It is rooted in mutual accountability and equity.
Restorative Justice is profoundly relational and emphasizes bringing together everyone affected by wrongdoing to address needs and responsibilities and to heal the harm to relationships and community to the degree possible. It is a justice that seeks not to punish, but to heal. A justice that is not about getting even but about getting well. It is a healing justice, rather than a harming justice. (Dr. Fania Davis)
 IRL Podcast |  External Video |  Article |  Book |  Case Studies |  Document |  Slide deck |
Fundamental Principles of Restorative Justice
“No Accountability without Relationship: Restorative Justice as a Preventive Practice”
Restorative Justice Reading List
A listing of materials available at the Justice Institute Library. Always current at: http://www.jibc.ca/library/research-help/bibliographies
Principles of Restorative Justice for IRL
“Principles of Restorative Justice: Healing and Transforming Communities” by the Restorative Justice Committee members at IRL.
IRL Restorative Justice Community Building and Conflict Resolution Process for In-Person Convenings
This example document explains the goal of fostering a supportive environment where relationships are built, community is strengthened, and healing is promoted. Through restorative practices, the IRL community may be empowered to build trust, understanding, and collaboration within the community while taking responsibility for its actions and repairing harm when it occurs.
The Social Discipline Window
The underlying premise of restorative practices rests on the belief that people will make positive changes when those in positions of authority do things with them rather than to them or for them.
Re-Storied: IRLs Journey with Restorative Justice
In 2022, IRL invited Breath Circles to Minnesota to integrate Restorative Justice into their Culture of Health.
The Paradigm Shift of Restorative Justice – Sujatha Baliga
“I live by the notion that a seed never sees the flower.” — Sujatha Baliga
Sujatha Baliga is a former victim advocate and public defender and a frequent guest lecturer at universities and conferences about her decades of restorative justice work. Her talk, “Restorative Justice: From the Paradigm of Punishment to Ecosystems of Healing” is part of the Collective Trauma Summit.
An Example of Restorative Justice with Sujatha Baliga
This discussion focuses on the meaningful dialogue between the person responsible and the impacted individual, highlighting how creative, personalized resolutions can foster healing and transformation outside of the traditional legal system.
What is Justice? – Dr. Fania Davis
Fania E. Davis is a long-time social justice activist, civil rights trial attorney, restorative justice practitioner, writer, professor, and scholar with a PhD in Indigenous Knowledge. Coming of age in Birmingham, Alabama during the social ferment of the civil rights era, the murder of two close childhood friends in the 1963 Sunday School bombing crystallized within Fania a passionate commitment to social transformation.
Restorative Justice: From the Paradigm of Punishment to the Ecosystem of Healing – Sujatha Baliga and Thomas Hubl
Sujatha Baliga and Thomas Hubl discuss restorative justice—a term coined by Howard Zehr that represents a paradigm shift in the way we think about harm and wrongdoing. It calls us to eschew the extreme and ineffective punitiveness of the criminal justice system in favor of community-based processes that align with our interdependent nature.
Restorative Welcome and Re-entry Circle
This video combines footage from the circle with interviews of the re-entering students at Bunche High School and the circle facilitator.
The Little Book of Restorative Justice – Howard Zehr
When a crime occurs or an injustice is done, what needs to happen? How should societies respond to wrongdoing? What does justice require? The western legal or criminal justice system’s approach to justice has some important strengths. Yet there is also a growing acknowledgment of this system’s limits and failures. Restorative justice is an attempt to address some of these needs and limitations.
Little Book of Circle Processes: A New/Old Approach to Peacemaking – Kay Pranis
Circle processes offer a way of bringing people together to understand one another, strengthen bonds, and solve community problems—a necessity in an era of division, polarized politics, and angry debate.
The Little Book of Race and Restorative Justice – Fania E. Davis
In our era of mass incarceration, gun violence, and Black Lives Matters, this handbook shows how racial justice and restorative justice can transform the African-American experience in America.
The Little Book of Racial Healing – Thomas Norman DeWolf
This Little Book describes the Coming to the Table Approach to racial healing, a continuously evolving set of purposeful theories, ideas, experiments, guidelines, and intentions, all dedicated to facilitating racial healing and transformation.
The Little Book of Trauma Healing – Carolyn Yoder
How do we address trauma, interrupt cycles of violence, and build resilience in a turbulent world of endless wars, nationalism, othering, climate crisis, racism, pandemics, and terrorism? This fully updated edition offers a practical framework, processes, and useful insights.
Assata: An Autobiography – Assata Shakur
This extraordinary autobiography provides a rare opportunity to see behind the carefully orchestrated distortions of fact concerning the life and motivations of Assata Shakur. Writing simply and vividly about the racism that permeated her childhood and young womanhood—those ordinary experiences of Black people in the United States that have driven millions to despair and many to rebellion—Assata leads us all to understand more about the society we live in.
Colorizing Restorative Justice – Edward Valandra
Twenty restorative justice practitioners of color relate their experiences in the field, examining the inherent contradiction of using these practices within Western, White-dominant, settler societies. Discussion questions and suggested activities included.
Healing Justice Lineages: Dreaming at the Crossroads of Liberation, Collective Care, and Safety – Cara Page and Erica Woodland
This book is a profound offering and call to action—collective stories, testimonials, and incantations for renewing political and spiritual liberation grounded in Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and Queer and Trans healing justice lineages.
IRL’s Paradigm Shift: Prioritizing relationships and building trust
Ashley Ellis of Breathe Circles describes her work with IRL’s Restorative Justice Team. She specifically highlights the critical paradigm shift that was required for leadership to prioritize building relationships and trust among the leadership team. This shift opened the portal for healing to take place. This piece of the conversation with Luis Ortega demonstrates the importance of both individual and systemic reflection and how both can create conditions for healing. Also listen to the entire, exceptionally rich, conversation between Ashley and Luis.
Centering Relationships in Health Equity Research
Restorative Justice (RJ) provided us with tools for repairing harm and moving towards health equity. While conflict is inherent in relationships, it does not have to be destructive. RJ is a powerful tool for building and sustaining community involvement when conflicts arise.
Distinguishing Between Transactional and Relational Community Engagement with Luis Ortega
Sustainable community-engaged research requires moving from transactional (extractive) to relational (reciprocal) engagement. Without internal alignment and genuine relationship building, community involvement cannot be sustained beyond a grant cycle.
Where Restorative Justice and Narrative Change Meet
Ashley Ellis and Luis Ortega talk about the intersection between restorative practices and narrative change. Also listen to the entire, exceptionally rich, conversation between Ashley and Luis.
Mirror Work and Critical Self-Reflection as a Liberatory Practice
Ashley Ellis and Luis Ortega discuss mirror work and critical self-reflection as a liberatory practice. Also listen to the entire, exceptionally rich, conversation between Ashley and Luis.
