Former Senator Ellie Kinnaird is a lawyer and a legislator with long experience with restorative justice in North Carolina. Recently, the elders at Carol Woods held a program on restorative justice.
In North Carolina, restorative justice is not part of the criminal justice system except for very low level crimes in juvenile court in Wake and Orange Counties. By nature it can’t be part of the adversarial court system which pits defendant and lawyer against the District Attorney advocating on behalf of the victim.
By contrast, restorative justice offers the victim understanding, sympathy, and appreciation of their injury. If carried to its furthest, it will involve the perpetrator who understands injuring the victim and expresses regret for doing so. Restorative justice is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of the victim and the offender as well as the involved community.
This contrasts more punitive approaches where the main aim is to punish the offender or to satisfy abstract legal principles. The approach is based on a theory of justice that considers crime and wrongdoing to be an offense against an individual or community rather than the state.
Mennonite communities in Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh are familiar with this and long has been a pioneer in the field of restorative justice represented by Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia which is now the first in the country to offer restorative justice programs within a graduate teacher education program. EMU programs and offerings are related to this disciplinary steady tract. If you are interested, contact EMU, some call it the emus and the local Mennonite church.
— Wes Hare
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