The Future of Restorative Justice
The world is ever evolving, and with some pushing and shoving — so has the criminal justice system, creating all new opportunities and resources from both the inmate and victim. Miriam Gohara an associate professor of Law at Yale University, starts her article A prison program in Connecticut seeks to find out what happens when prisoners are treated as victims with: “Prisons are full of people who were once victims of violence and abuse.” setting the tone for her controversial topic. Miriam starts to show statistical facts from The Department of Justice about the trauma that usually plagues the prison population stating, “As many as 75 percent of people who are in prison have experienced violence or childhood neglect” — almost twice the amount of the general public she also claims. The author then begins to address the Unites States need for retribution, even though, most of the inmates themselves have also been a victim at one time in their life. She poses the question “What if our justice systems treated victims of violence who harm others as also deserving of healing?” eluding to the desperate need of bring back humanity and dignity in both the criminal system and the people is supposed to be helping.
Miriam Gohara’s credibility should not be defined by her education alone, but her real world experience and extensive knowledge she put behind her research of Restorative justice. Miriam also adds links to many academic sources as a well as articles coinciding with the topic, including but not limited to papers published at Harvard University, The Department of Justice, and National Institute of Corrections. Articles such as these were used to support her findings on the evidence for programs she wrote about, she had also used them in context, not creating logical fallacies or a narrative to fit her agenda. It is just enough information and while also giving evidence to reinforce the idea that restorative justice is something the US and its citizens desperately need. Miriam plans on envisioning a criminal system based on her research and findings funded by Yale, where she was able to visit a Prison Program in Germany that focuses more on restorative justice than punishment. Which is why she was able to write her article around fact-based assertions with compelling statistics, rather than appeal to emotion like other articles with the same topic and intent usually do, because she’s exclusively studied this and has the academic knowledge behind it.
Miriam’s article is only asserting factual statistics based on both the real-life Criminal Justice System and the Restorative Justice programs that stem from it — that Miriam herself has went on to research and study. While Miriam’s biography on the Yale School of Law site confirms the reliability to her grasp on the criminal system. Stating: “Miriam Gohara is a Clinical Associate Professor of Law at Yale Law School. Before joining the Yale Law School faculty, Professor Gohara spent sixteen years representing death-sentenced clients in post-conviction litigation, first as assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) and then as a specially designated federal public defender with the Federal Capital Habeas Project. Professor Gohara has litigated cases in state and federal courts around the United States, including the United States Supreme Court.”. Miriam’s schooling is a huge part of why she has legitimacy and her views should be taken seriously. Learning, teaching and implementing law is especially optimal for discussing a topic such as this; showing that she understands the logistics of politics more than most. With Miriam’s education and work experience — A Harvard University alumna then going on to be a professor of Law at Yale, adds to her knowledge and credibility towards the issue at hand while also solidifying her intent and opinion on the matter.
Miriam’s views and understanding should not be taken lightly seeing that not only her credibility but also the programs being discussed credibility is strong, legitimate and informative. Restorative Justice is practiced and implemented in certain scenarios, creating amazing results for the offender, victim and their communities. This article goes to further show that Restorative Justice not only functional and practical but something the US criminal justice system is in desperate need of.
References
· Addressing Trauma Among Incarcerated People — Corrections & Mental Health — Corrections Community, community.nicic.gov/blogs/mentalhealth/archive/2012/10/05/addressing-trauma-among-incarcerated-people.aspx.
· Western, Bruce. “Lifetimes of Violence in a Sample of Released Prisoners.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, vol. 1, no. 2, 2015, p. 14., doi:10.7758/rsf.2015.1.2.02.
· “Yale Law School.” Yale Law School, 11 Apr. 2019, law.yale.edu/.
· Gohara, Miriam. “A Prison Program in Connecticut Seeks to Find out What Happens When Prisoners Are Treated as Victims.” The Conversation, 7 Mar. 2019, theconversation.com/a-prison-program-in-connecticut-seeks-to-find-out-what-happens-when-prisoners-are-treated-as-victims-111809.
· Listenbee, Robert L., et al. “Report of the Attorney Generals National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence.” PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2012, doi:10.1037/e537692013–001.
· “Miriam Gohara.” The Conversation, 17 Mar. 2019, theconversation.com/profiles/miriam-gohara-688087.
· “Miriam Gohara.” Yale Law School, law.yale.edu/miriam-gohara.
