Restorative Justice

Restorative justice practices in the school learning environment involve the processes of involving the people who are having a stake in a specific offense to collectively identify and address the needs, harms, as well as organizations for healing and putting things as right as possible. The restorative justice practices promote healing, connection, accountability, and learning. Additionally, restorative justice is a voluntary and relational approach to accountability and conflict. The practices allow the teachers and students to come to a facilitated dialogue to understand the consequences of the occurrences before taking responsibility and deciding on repairing of harm. The process of restorative justice encompasses the principles, philosophy, as well as the system-based approaches to nonviolence. It provides an alternative to punishment and blame at every level of conflict as a disciplinary system.
Educators across the world have recognized the importance of fostering healthy and positive learning environments that help the students learn from the mistakes they commit rather than the previous punitive punishment. The educators are partnering with the students, community organizations, parents, and the supervisors as well as the policy makers in emphasizing the restorative justice …show more content…
The mechanism brings together the people who have committed harm and those that are affected by the wrongdoing as it promotes dialogue, accountability, and respectful space. Overreliance on punitive strategies of punishment in schools and other learning environments such as expulsion or suspension has not been effective in making the students realize their mistakes. Besides, high rates of suspension have contributed to low academic outcomes. The department of education in the United States wanted to redesign the school discipline practices without negatively affecting the academic