Promoting Restorative Discipline

Restorative Justice, which is also called Restorative Discipline, has actually been around longer than we assumed. According to the website, Promoting Restorative Approaches in Behavior Management, it has been around for thousands of years and comes from Native cultures, such as Aboriginals, Maori, and Native Americans, who used this approach to resolve conflict and disagreements (2016). Restorative justice is described as follows,
“…An innovative approach to offending and inappropriate behavior which puts repairing harm done to relationships and people over and above the need for assigning blame and dispensing punishment. A restorative approach in a school shifts the emphasis from managing behavior to focusing on the building, nurturing
In circles, teachers, parents, offender and victim come together to come up with an agreement and allows the offender to realize how he/she can come to amends. The decrease in suspension rates is also eye opening, Ms. Long explains that a Dallas school who implemented restorative justice a year ago has had a 70% decrease in school suspension and the amount of students who were sent to alternative schools were cut in half (2016). Restorative justice also proclaims that zero tolerance policies are ineffective, and this process has labeled students as delinquents because as they are suspended, they are being referred into juvenile justice agencies, which is now, know has the “school-to-prison pipeline”. The restorative approach claims that it will assist in keeping the students out of the school-to-prison pipeline, by finding ways to repair relationships, hold students accountable, and coming to an agreement (Schiff,
On the other hand, there has been a weakness found in this trend. Many proclaim that there is not enough research to support that this approach works. Also, throughout my research, I have found that it can easily be implemented incorrectly, and mistaken as a quick fix, which is not. Lastly, many believe restorative justice should not be used in violent crimes or major issues and that many victims “refuse to be part of the meeting”. The article I read stated, that restorative justice “is not the magic solution to all evils” and should be an option for some cases but not for all situations a victim faces (Gaudreault, 2015). Zehr believes that greatest attribute that restorative justice has is the ability of students to be able to “explore our values”. I agree with Zehr, because restorative justice allows the victim and offender to feel valued and cared for. Also, Zehr also describes restorative justice in one word “respect”, to me that is a correct summary of what restorative justice means. The importance of teaching students that even though we might not like a person, we still have to respect them. Even though the offender hurt the victim, the victim need to understand that the offender is still a person and that person's differences need to be respected (Zehr & Gohar,