Restorative Justice
What Is Restorative Justice in Simple Terms?
The term Restorative Justice (RJ) is often used interchangeably with Restorative Practices (RP). At CSC, we make an important distinction: Restorative Justice exists under the umbrella of Restorative Practices. Restorative Justice is the responsive side of RP, while Restorative Practices as a whole include both proactive and responsive strategies. For the purposes of this blog, we will sometimes use "Restorative Justice" interchangeably with Restorative Practices, since that is the term many people search for.
Too often, schools only think about Restorative Justice as a way to address harm after it happens, but it’s much bigger than that. A truly restorative approach begins long before conflict occurs, with proactive strategies that build relationships, strengthen trust, and create a sense of ownership so that when harm does happen, there is a strong foundation for repair. Proactive Restorative Practices—like proactive circles and affective statements help prevent conflict from escalating in the first place. When a school only focuses on the responsive side, using Restorative Justice as a reactionary tool, they risk missing the larger impact of the restorative justice process as a culture-building framework. This process emphasizes repairing harm, holding offenders accountable, and involving victims and the community, contrasting with traditional justice systems by focusing on relationships and impacts of crime.
What Are the Three Main Principles of Restorative Justice?
Understanding the Core Principles of Restorative Justice
Restorative justice seeks to examine the harmful impacts of crime and focuses on repairing that harm while holding offenders accountable. It is not just a set of practices; it’s a philosophy and framework that shifts how communities think about engagement, communication, and discipline. Unlike traditional punitive approaches, restorative justice focuses on rebuilding relationships, accountability, and lasting community integration.
1. Engagement: Centering Voice & Participation
Restorative Practices Training go beyond simply addressing student behavior—they create opportunities for all voices to be heard, ensuring that those impacted by harm play an active role in the process. Engagement is not just about addressing the person who caused harm; it is about centering the experiences, needs, and perspectives of those affected. This principle ensures that:
Both the victim and those harmed have the opportunity to express how they were impacted, articulate their needs, and have a say in what accountability and repair should look like.
Those responsible for harm take accountability in a meaningful way, not just by receiving consequences, but by actively participating in amends and relationship repair.
Staff and students engage in shared decision-making, ensuring that the community collectively determines how to build a strong, supportive school culture and navigate conflicts effectively.
Engagement is also the foundation of Fair Process Decision-Making, which ensures that decisions affecting the school community are made transparently and with input from those impacted. When Fair Process is embedded in a school’s culture, staff and students trust that their voices matter, making it easier to address conflict constructively and collaboratively.
2. Accountability: Taking Responsibility
Traditional discipline often focuses on compliance rather than true accountability—students serve suspensions or detentions without meaningful conversations about the impact of their actions. Restorative Justice shifts this by requiring:
Reflecting on behavior through structured conversations like Restorative Conferences.
Recognizing the impact their actions had on others and holding the offender accountable.
Taking concrete steps to repair the harm done.
This approach doesn’t mean eliminating consequences—it means ensuring that consequences are meaningful and focus on learning, accountability, and repair.
3. Relationship Building: The Key to Restoration
The principle of relationship building is arguably the cornerstone of Restorative Justice practices. It focuses on strengthening connections between students, teachers, and the entire school community. By deliberately nurturing relationships, schools can create an environment where everyone feels valued, which significantly reduces conflict.
Strong relationships form the basis of a supportive school culture where issues can be resolved amicably, minimizing disruption and fostering a positive learning atmosphere. Educators can benefit from actively engaging in relationship-building activities, as they also enhance their rapport with students, creating a more cohesive and collaborative learning environment.
What Are the 3 Big Ideas of Restorative Justice?
Too often, traditional discipline focuses only on the student who caused harm—handing down consequences while giving little to no attention to the person harmed. The result? The one who caused harm may feel punished but not necessarily accountable, while the person harmed is left without a voice in the process, without support, and without a sense that real amends have been made. Restorative Justice takes a different approach. Instead of centering punishment, it centers on accountability, repair, and community. This doesn’t mean that traditional disciplinary measures aren’t utilized! They’re not mutually exclusive!
Exploration of Harm and Its Repair
At its core, Restorative Justice recognizes that harm is more than just a rule violation—it’s a disruption in relationships and trust. This approach ensures that both the person harmed, the person responsible for harm, and community members are engaged in a process of understanding, acknowledgment, and resolution. It creates space for true accountability, where amends are not just assigned but meaningfully determined by those impacted.
Community Involvement in Justice Processes
Another significant component of restorative justice is involving the community in the resolution process. Schools adopting restorative practices do so not just to be reactive but to prevent future conflicts and tensions. By engaging students, staff, and sometimes even families in dialogues and resolution circles, schools can more completely address an incident, truly putting it to rest and preventing it from happening again. Through circles or forums, multiple stakeholders have a voice in addressing the harm, which leads to solutions owned and supported by a wider community. This participatory process aids in reinforcing community bonds and encourages a culture of mutual support within the school.
Emphasis on Healing Over Punishment
Traditional discipline often leads to cycles of disconnection and repeated misbehavior. Restorative Justice, as an alternative approach within the criminal justice system, focuses on healing and accountability instead of exclusion. Schools that prioritize healing:
Decrease suspensions and detentions while improving student behavior.
Build restorative systems that ensure every student and staff feels valued and supported.
Provide students and staff with the skills and structured scripts for conflict resolution, emotional regulation, and positive communication.
What Are 5 Examples of Restorative Justice?
Circle and Their Implementation
Proactively, circles are used to build community and establish strong relationships before conflicts arise. Whether it’s incorporated into a Morning Meeting or Advisory Meeting with students, a staff meeting, or a leadership discussion, circles provide a structured way to ensure that all have an opportunity to weigh in. This consistent practice helps prevent conflict by increasing understanding, providing a structured opportunity to share what’s on people’s minds, reinforcing shared expectations, and simply making time to have fun together!
Responsively, circles provide a structured and supportive space for repairing harm when issues do arise. Unlike traditional discipline, which simply isolates individuals and assigns consequences without meaningful dialogue, restorative circles bring together those involved in a conflict—both those harmed and those responsible—to reflect, listen, and collectively determine a path forward. This approach ensures accountability while also supporting healing, making it more likely that real amends are made and that the harm doesn’t repeat.
Crucially, circles are not just for students. Staff and leadership can also use them to build a healthier, more engaged workplace culture. In schools that have adopted Restorative Practices, circles are often used in staff meetings to strengthen relationships among educators, resolve tensions, and engage in Fair Process Decision-Making, ensuring that all voices are included before major decisions are made.
Peer Mediation Initiatives
Peer mediation is another practical example of restorative justice where students take an active role in resolving disputes among their peers. By training students to become mediators, schools empower them to handle conflicts independently, fostering leadership skills and promoting a peaceful environment. Through peer mediation, students develop critical thinking and empathy, which can have lasting effects on their personal and academic lives. The success of this initiative often depends on comprehensive training and support from school professionals who guide the process.
Restorative Justice in the Classroom: Case Studies
CSC has worked with schools to adapt both classroom management strategies and behavior response flowcharts to better align with Restorative Justice practices in the classroom. Woven into current classroom management practices, teachers now have a menu of options to Calm, Reflect, Repair, and Plan- providing options to keep teachers involved in decision-making while ensuring students take meaningful responsibility. Should a student need to be removed from the classroom, the menu also provides options for the admin or support staff to utilize that are restorative and keep them on the same page as the referring teacher, preventing a break in the relationship between not just the student and teacher, but also the teacher and the support staff.
Building Restorative Justice Programs
Developing a full restorative justice program within a school requires thoughtful planning and community involvement. Successful programs typically include training for staff, students, and parents, ongoing professional development, and clear integration into existing school policies. Schools might start by introducing restorative language and practices in everyday interactions, gradually expanding to more structured interventions such as restorative conferences. With dedication, these programs can profoundly reshape the school's approach to discipline and relationship building.
Successful Case Studies in Schools
There are numerous successful case studies from schools that have fully integrated restorative practices, showing significant reductions in disciplinary actions and improvements in the overall school climate. For example, the implementation of comprehensive systems in schools across cities like Chicago and Oakland has led to notable decreases in suspensions and arrests, stronger student-teacher relationships, and reduced frequency of infractions, notably as reported by teachers. Such successes underscore the potential of restorative justice to create a more compassionate and effective educational environment when implemented with fidelity and commitment.
To read more about Restorative Practices in School read our blog!
How to Find In-Person Restorative Justice Training?
In the journey of integrating restorative justice practices into your educational setting, finding the right training is crucial. While online resources are plentiful, there is unmatched value in participating in in-person training sessions. Such experiences not only foster a deeper understanding of the concepts at play but also provide the much-needed hands-on interaction that invigorates the learning process.
Effective training goes beyond theory—it includes:
Hands-on practice of key strategies like Restorative Conversations and Circles.
Guidance on integrating Restorative Practices into existing school frameworks, like PBIS, SEL, and disciplinary practices.
CSC specializes in tailored Restorative Justice training that ensures schools move from theory to real-world classroom implementation.
Importance of In-Person Training
In our experience, in-person training is a powerful experience for almost all attendees, even the nay-sayer. There are a myriad of concepts and practices that cause “ah-hah” moments and enable people to connect to and share their own expertise. In-person training allows for greater immersion, face-to-face interactions, and the benefit of real-time discussions, practice, and feedback. More importantly, it humanizes the learning experience, harnessing social elements that mirror the very principles of community and relationship-building central to restorative justice.
Building a Supportive Network
Attending in-person sessions also opens up the opportunity to connect with fellow educators and administrators who are on the same journey. It builds a network of support where ideas, challenges, and successes can be shared, thereby enriching the overall experience and fostering a sense of camaraderie.
Consulting Experts vs. an Online Search
While the internet offers a myriad of resources, nothing beats speaking directly with experts in restorative justice. By consulting professionals who have considerable experience in this field, you gain insights that are tailored to your educational context. These experts can provide anecdotes, strategies, and customized solutions based on real-world applications, which are often missing from generic online resources.
Therefore, when seeking restorative justice training, prioritize engaging with professionals who have a proven track record of working with schools. Ensuring that your trainers understand and can articulate school-specific perspectives ensures better internalization and implementation of restorative principles.
Key Elements to Consider When Choosing Training Programs
When evaluating training programs, consider the following:
Alignment with School Goals: Ensure that the training aligns with your school’s objectives and culture to maximize its relevancy and impact.
Qualifications of Trainers: It is crucial that the trainers have hands-on experience within educational institutions. Their insights should be grounded in practical application, not just theoretical knowledge.
Interactive Components: Select programs that offer experiential learning opportunities such as role-playing or live demonstrations. These components are key to applying and internalizing restorative justice strategies.
Follow-Up Support: Opt for training solutions that provide ongoing support. Continued guidance helps ensure that the principles learned during training are sustained and embedded into everyday practice.
At Collaborative School Culture, we understand the unique needs of schools striving to foster restorative environments. We offer bespoke, in-person training programs led by experienced experts who bring valuable, practical insights to your educational team. Rest assured that our support extends beyond training sessions, as we guide you in implementing effective restorative practices that leave a lasting positive impact on your school community. Reach out today to learn more!