RIVER PHOENIX CENTER FOR PEACEBUILDING
Bringing Awareness of Restorative Justice Into Alachua Schools
ABOUT RPCP
Located in Gainesville, Florida, River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding (RPCP) shares a mission of achieving “prevention, intervention, and healing from violence” through the establishment and facilitation of initiatives, one of which is Restorative Justice and Restorative Practices. So far, RPCP has completed training in restorative justice within Florida for more than 350 professionals coming from a variety of fields that have a wide application of restorative justice approaches.
RPCP & RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
Based on year-long experience of researching on and practicing restorative justice, RPCP lists down several benefits coming out of this alternative justice approach.
Reduced recidivism. Studies show Restorative Justice has a high success rate in reducing unproductive, repeat behaviors.
Increased community safety. As harm is repaired and recidivism declines, communities are safer.
More efficient use of community resources. Restorative Justice saves money by employing creative solutions, implemented at the local level.
Victim empowerment. Victims participate fully in the process, getting answers to their questions and letting offenders know how amends can be made.
Victims needs are acknowledged and addressed. Because their voices are heard, victims experience greater opportunities for healing and satisfaction with the process.
Opportunities for offenders to make amends. Restorative Justice allows for truth-telling and the expression of remorse, benefitting victims and offenders.
Support and resourcing. Restorative Justice attends to the unique needs and concerns of the offender as a member of the larger community, by making use of resources available in that community.
Higher rates of satisfaction and completion. The process is voluntary, resulting in greater investment and buy-in from all participants.
BACKGROUND
Why Punitive School Policies failed
Research has long shown evidence that conventional punitive school policies have a tendency to increase the risk of academic failures.
As shown in the chart below, a published study by the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University provided proof that the more times of suspension a 9th grader experiences, the more likely the individual is to drop out (blue bar), fail to graduate (red bar) and get enrolled in post-secondary education (green bar). Thinking further, the above mentioned consequences pave the way for an entrance into the juvenile justice system, as known as “school-to-prison pipeline” where students are prone to end up being deprived of opportunities for education continuation, future employment, and involvement in democracy.
Rehabilitation Enables Dreams (RED), as a nonprofit and restorative justice organization, analyzes the fundamental rationale behind the pipeline problem to be “the use of court referrals as a means of disciplining kids in schools”, which produces massive first time offenders and recidivists. The other reason is an excessive use of suspensions and expulsions. Related studies reveal these punitive policies have “a correlation with high drop-out rates and coming in contact with the juvenile justice system”. Especially when we consider the fact that African American and Hispanic students have a higher likelihood of receiving suspensions for school misconduct behaviors, the picture seems to get clearer that racial disparities constitute another issue to be tackled with in this discipline reform.
BACKGROUND
BEHIND RACIAL DISPARITIES IN ALACHUA COUNTY:
out-of-school suspensions
"When a student is removed from school, they quickly fall behind in their classwork, and may also develop a resentment towards the school system. Both of these factors make the student more likely to be disruptive a second time. When they are suspended they are also more likely to be at home alone, which can create a difficult situation for the child. If a student is suspended and must stay at home without any supervision, they are much more likely to create problems that get reported to the police."
UNDERSTANDING RACIAL INEQUITY IN ALACHUA COUNTY
Prepared by the University of Florida Bureau of Economic and Business Research
RPCP: LOCAL TRAINING PROVIDER
Ben Howort, the Director of Programs and Curriculum Development of RPCP, described his impression towards the adoption or restorative justice in school settings as “has not been much”. For the past few years, RPCP has been conducting training of restorative justice with local schools of different levels, including Resilience Charter School, Newberry Elementary School, Abraham Lincoln Middle School, Kanapaha Middle School, and Gainesville High School. Meanwhile, the center is implementing a school-wide restorative practices at P. K. Yonge Developmental Research School throughout the 2021 school year.
According to Howort, RPCP has been in collaboration with the Alachua County Public Schools for two years. Each year approximately 10 teachers and counselors from two schools are assigned to RPCP for training, after which staff members from RPCP will pay visits to schools and give feedback based on performance observed in practicing restorative justice.
“We have different principles and different teachers and things reaching out saying, ‘Hey, it says in the student code of conduct that we're supposed to be doing restorative practices, but we don't really know quite what that means. Can you help us?’ So we're still in this tricky place where I think the district (Alachua County Public Schools) is kind of growing into what that means. They put that in the Student Code of Conduct, but there's not yet been the larger-scale commitment to do the work that would be needed to implement,” Howort summarized the current predicament local schools are confronted with—where they are making attempts to experiment restorative principles in the school practice as suggested by the school district, but systematic trainings have not come into place.
As a result, if schools continue applying the principles endorsed by the punitive justice system, numbers showing negative suspension results and racial disparities in disciple are to be expected to rise as time goes by. Here is the place RPCP’s interventions come into play with their restorative justice services. According to the Director of RPCP, Jeffrey Weisberg, their work is geared towards elevating current practices used by educators by imbuing some of the restorative distinctions and language for more effective conflict resolution. Ultimately, it is hoped to “build trust between students and amongst staff and to model a certain language and competencies that really translate to young people.”