Justice That Transforms — Book Series

First 3 Volumes Fall 2018; Volume One Republished January 2020; one more September 2024

SEARCH and ARCHIVES options are at the bottom of all website pages.

WN: I’m pleased to add this page about three books produced fall 2018. They are of my writings on Restorative Justice over the years, including (in Volume One) by a few contributors. They are part of a projected multivolume series. I then hope to publish another series of my Peace/Peacemaking writings, tentatively titled Justice the Harvest of Peace.

Dr. Ruth Morris

Dr. Liz Elliott

The title of the series is from one of the persons to whom I also dedicate it: Dr. Ruth Morris. She was an early outstanding mentor to me. You may read this dedication to her memory by Dr. Liz Elliott, here. She also was a great personal mentor.

In my paper about Ruth’s thunderously repeated slogan, Not Enough!–and International Restorative Justice, vis à vis conventional notions of Restorative Justice as promoted by Howard Zehr and others, I write:

“Not Enough!” and the Way Forward

However, Restorative Justice has stopped at the borders of state criminal justice, and has so far not pushed to the “final frontier” of international state relations and international law.¹ Ruth Morris, 2000 recipient of the Ron Wiebe Restorative Justice Award, coined a notable response to Restorative Justice as it emerged in North America during the 1990’s: “Not Enough!”²

Her subsequent research in particular took her to comparisons between white collar and street crime. She died before the era of massive criminal revelations about Enron, the movie The Corporation, the international War on Terror, and much more that  would substantiate her ground-breaking concerns In it, she mentions the trip we made just months before Ruth Morris’ being awarded the Order of Canada–Canada’s highest honour.

Liz also cites another very good friend, whom I gratefully have coffee with regularly: Gerry Ayotte.

***

Below are three Tables of Content, three Forewords, and one Preface (that explains about the books — slightly revised each time).

PLEASE NOTE: Every chapter title is clickable, taking you to the paper on this website.

I’ll add reviews, etc., (hopefully) in due time. If you order any of the books, a review on Amazon and sent to me for possible posting would be great! Thanks.

All the chapters below are not only on the website, but also. with a few more, on academia.edu here.

Finally: Wipf and Stock Publishers gratefully re-published (my re-edited) Volume One January 9, 2020. However, due to financial commitments (their business model for all but well-established authors requires a financial investment), I have decided to publish no  further Volumes by them. But they keep thereby all their books in print indefinitely! No complaints therefore. There was also enormous time investment to prepare a manuscript to their exacting standards! But they offer the option to readers to search this website for the remaining books in the series. Crowdfunding anyone?… 🙂

 I have also unpublished on Amazon and Kindle their versions of the first volume. I made sufficient revisions to mainly introductions (“Context” in reissued Volume 1), that I’d rather have you order the latest.

The graphic artist created a beautiful cover, as you can see!

Volume One

NOTE: An audio file of the 2018 version may be accessed thus:

• Click on link;
• then click on down arrow of “Open With”;
• then click on “Music Player for Google Drive”. (You may also need to sign up for a Google account.) As you can see, there is the option also to download the file.

Each book audio file is about 600 MB — far too large to place onto website directly.

Foreword

There has been, sadly so, a predictable tendency within the historic Western tradition to read, interpret and apply the Bible within the crime and punishment, justice ethos in a retributive manner—an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, Shylockian pound of flesh dominating the day, fair Portia banished from the stage.  A rather narrow and reductionistic read of the Hebrew canon (Old Testament) has dominated and, in an imperial sort of way, colonized alternate notions of both justice and mercy that can equally be found in the Old Testament, Apocrypha and New Testament. The Jewish prophets and the Sermon on the Mount are two needful portals and correctives to a one-dimensional and reactionary read of the Bible.

There has also been a predictable tendency within the much longer historic Western and Christian tradition to develop, in greater depth and detail, via legal systems and jurisprudence, more finely tuned notions of Retributive Justice. We might ask why this single-vision approach to justice has so come to dominate and what other options might be mined within both the Bible and the Christian Tradition that question and doubt the reigning monarch of Retributive Justice? The answer to such a nagging question can be aptly and amply answered, from a variety of angles, in this superb book by Wayne Northey.

Each of the in-depth and detailed chapters in this must-read beauty of a tome highlight, in not-to-be missed insights, how and why the ideology of Retributive Justice has dominated, the consequence of such a reality, and why Restorative Justice has not really been tried and found wanting.

Wayne, to his credit, has spent many a decade in the restorative trenches (he was there at the beginning many a decade ago) and he tells a worthy tale about the need to, Phoenix-like, resurrect the Restorative Justice tradition. There has been a tendency to pit the liberal rehabilitative approach against the more conservative retributive approach, but the 3^rd way of Restorative Justice has many a possibility worth the fuller probing. The genius of the book is the way Wayne both probes ever deeper and thinks ever wider and fuller about these timely and timeless issues. Again, I might add that Wayne’s thinking and writing emerge from decades of being in the thick of the fray and the diverse articles embody such a reality.

The fact that the Restorative Justice position has often been marginalized, misunderstood or caricatured as a sort of naïve idealism is found wanting in Wayne’s animated and vigorous defense of Restorative Justice. I might add that beyond the importance of Restorative Justice is the broader notion of Transformative Justice that Wayne has often pondered. I have been fortunate, over the decades, to have had Wayne lecture in my classes in Philosophy of Law and other classes on Restorative/Transformative Justice. Students have raised tough questions about both positions and Wayne has answered each question admirably, well, charitably and wisely. This book does much the same but in a more in-depth way and manner.

The fact that Wayne engages Biblical exegetes’ questionable read of the Bible when applied to justice, the way the Western Tradition has erred in significant ways in this area, and how significant approaches by the Evangelical and Reformed Christian tribes have only seen with one eye on this issue are held up for serious scrutiny by Wayne in this packed and challenging bounty of a book. Wayne has lived in the midst of these issues at the Biblical, Christian Tradition and contemporary Evangelical and Reformed levels. He knows the nuances and subtleties but he is also acutely aware of how, time and again, Retributive Justice dominates the day (and the practical implications of it). There is a unique sense in which Wayne (although probably not seeing himself as such) comes as prophetic voice to the establishment and status quo Sanhedrin and dares to question their misread of the Bible and Christian Tradition. Again a careful read of this well-crafted book will, if read discerningly, reveal much that is often, tragically, ignored in how Christians interpret the Dostoevskian crime and punishment dilemma.

I have gently urged Wayne, over the years, to compile and thread together many of the articles he has written on Restorative Justice (and they are legion). I have no doubt that those who read and inwardly digest the articles chosen by Wayne for this unique collection and book will be generously rewarded by each read and reread. Certainly the way Wayne immerses the curious reader in the trying issues will refocus the way justice is often defined and understood. I do, therefore, heartily recommend this exceptional book to the reader with an open mind: their understanding of justice may never be the same again.

I might add, by way of conclusion, that George Grant’s English Speaking Justice will walk the interested yet further down the philosophic trail that Wayne (and peers) are well on.

Amor Vincit Omnia

Ron Dart

Department of Political Science, Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of the Fraser Valley

NOTE: The chapters linked below have revisions in the new Volume 1 mainly to a new “Context” heading.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

Table of Contents

New Paradigm of Justice

Restorative Justice Then, Now and A Dream

Spirituality of Penal Abolition

Punishment and Retribution: An Attempt to Delimit Their Scope in New Testament Thought

Homo Homini Ubuntu

Spirituality Evaluation of Restorative Justice, Sixth International Conference on Restorative Justice, “Best Practices in Restorative Justice”, Vancouver, June 4, 2003

Restorative Reintegration, Sixth International Conference on Restorative Justice, “Best Practices in Restorative Justice”, Vancouver, June 1, 2003

Restorative Justice and Prison Visitation

Restorative Justice Spirituality

“Not Enough!” and International Restorative Justice: COV&R Presentation, May 31 – June 4, 2006, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Is There A Place For Dreaming?: Restorative Justice and International State Conflict

Restorative Justice Stories – MCCC 50th Anniversary, December 14, 2013

The Sex Offender as Scapegoat: Vigilante Violence and a Faith Community Response

Transformative Justice Vision and Spirituality

About the Author

Volume Two

Justice That Transforms:Volume Two (paperback), or Justice That Transforms: Volume Two (Kindle) Cdn;  or Justice That Transforms: Volume Two (paperback), or Justice That Transforms: Volume Two (Kindle) U.S.

NOTE: An audio file may be accessed thus:

• Click on link;
• then click on down arrow of “Open With”;
• then click on “Music Player for Google Drive”. (You may also need to sign up for a Google account.)

As you can see, there is the option also to download the file. Each book audio file is about 600 MB — far too large to place onto website directly.

Foreword 

I admire Wayne’s long-time passion for Restorative Justice. He was among the early pioneers who encouraged us to keep ‘digging’ deeper. Without ceasing, in and out of season, he kept reflecting on justice issues theologically and biblically and keeps publishing.

Thanks Wayne!

Pierre Allard, President, Just.Equipping/Juste.Équipage

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

Table of Contents

A Halting Spiritual Quest, Three Affirmations, and Restorative Justice, M2/W2 CORE Training: Spirituality

Blindness and Sight, Darkness and Light

Book Review of No Future Without Forgiveness, Desmond Mpilo Tutu

Devotional – M2/W2 Staff-Board Retreat, June 12, 1999

Rediscovering Spiritual Roots: The Judeo-Christian Tradition and Criminal Justice

M2/W2 and Enemy Love As Core Gospel

The Two Great Commandments and Prison Ministry

The Cross: God’s Peace Work – Towards a Restorative Peacemaking Understanding of the Atonement

Why I Oppose the Death Penalty: “The Talking Place: Discussing the Death Penalty” Forum on the Death Penalty, Fairbanks Alaska, March 22, 1997

“Pardon Me?!”

Mercy, Mr. Harper, Not Sacrifice (Jesus)

Scapegoating The Sex Offender

Book Review of Beyond Retribution: A New Testament Vision for Justice, Crime, and Punishment, Christopher D. Marshall

Book Review of Compassionate Justice: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue with Two Gospel Parables on Law, Crime, and Restorative Justice, Christopher D. Marshall

Book Review of Compulsory Compassion: A Critique of Restorative Justice, Annalise Acorn

Book Review of The Death Penalty: An Historical and Theological Survey, James J. Megivern

Book Review of The Fall of the Prison: Biblical Perspectives on Prison Abolition, Lee Griffith

“Then They Shouldn’t Eat Chicken!”

Book Review of: God’s Just Vengeance: Crime, Violence and the Rhetoric of Salvation, Timothy Gorringe

About the Author

Volume Three

Justice That Transforms: Volume Three (paperback and Kindle) Cdn; or Justice That Transforms: Volume Three (paperback and Kindle) U.S.

NOTE: An audio file may be accessed thus:

• Click on link;
• then click on down arrow of “Open With”;
• then click on “Music Player for Google Drive”. (You may also need to sign up for a Google account.)

As you can see, there is the option also to download the file. Each book audio file is about 600 MB — far too large to place onto website directly.

Foreword

It was Wayne’s enthusiasm that drew me into the restorative justice movement early in its formative years – many years ago.  Because of my victim experience, I wasn’t always a natural fit, yet he had the ability to find a place for me. He was always thorough and meticulous in his research, presentation, and promotion of the programs wherever he went. He oozed Restorative justice and struggled to make it relevant in today’s society, in the criminal justice system, and in his own life. I’m thrilled that he is writing and publishing his findings and his life’s work. They are and always will be, invaluable.

Wishing you the best with this work.

Wilma Derksen, C.E.C., O.M.

Wilma Derksen (one of four women to whom I dedicate this and the last Volume also) in Canada early on embraced Restorative Justice, and she parlayed that into a creative force for those harmed by crime across Canada and wider afield. She also ever held Restorative Justice practitioners and theorists to account to never forget those harmed by crime. A rare honour for Wilma was her family’s story told in inimitable style by Malcolm Gladwell in David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

Rwanda Dispatches May 18 to July 12, 2018

The Craft of Forgiveness

War, Police and Prisons: Cross-Examining State-Sanctioned Violence, Streams of Justice, September 28, 2009

WAR AND HELL – and Exception-Clause Footnote Theology

Just War, Just Deserts, Just Hell

From Restorative Justice to Transformative Justice, Tri-Cities Justice Forum, November 29, 1999 Book

Book Review of Justice That Restores, Charles W. Colson, Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2001

Book Review of The Executed God: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America, Mark Lewis Taylor, Fortress Press, 2001

Book Review of Solving Hell: A Mystery Story, by Chris Friesen, A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary, for the Degree Master of Theology, 2003, unpublished

Book Review of The Nonviolent Atonement, J. Denny Weaver, Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2001/2011

Book Review of Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition, Hans Boersma, Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004 About the Author

 

Restorative Justice — “Not Enough!” Volume Four

Justice That Transforms: Restorative Justice — “Not Enough!” Volume Four | September 2024

by Wayne Northey (Author), Professor emeritus Bruno Van Der Maat (Author), Professor emeritus Otto Driedger (Foreword), Professor Ron Dart (Introduction) | Related to: Justice That Transforms series

In my Preface, I state the thesis, adumbrated in the subtitle: It is also the time to radically transform punitive/retributive criminal justice systems that operate worldwide, and are deeply addicted to violence! Addicts of all kinds — including nation-states — generally cannot “reform”: they must practise abstinence! So too with retributive criminal justice systems.

My friend and mentor, Ruth Morris, who died in 2001, gave a consistent clarion call in response to “Restorative Justice” as embraced by many in the early years: “Not Enough!“ She was convincing.

Restorative Justice had back then stopped at the borders of state criminal justice, and had not pushed to the “final frontiers” of penal abolition, international state relations, and international law. This remains largely the case in 2024. It would be wonderful to hear about exceptions! . .

Many of the book’s essays reflect further on why “Not Enough!” As with previous Volumes, they are a collection of edited writings spanning almost five decades, many previously published in various journals, etc.

Preface (to all Volumes)

My good friend Ron Dart, proposed that I finally pull together my Restorative Justice writings. As you see, I asked Ron to write the Foreword. He is also a prolific author and avid educator.

Two chapters were each time as indicated co-authored (though further added to/edited by me; thanks to Pierre Allard and Hugh Kirkegaard; and permissions given to include the reworked articles in this Volume.). One chapter was by Dr. C.F.D. Moule who thirty years ago granted permission to reprint it. It was powerful for me in setting a theological course in my future work.

Throughout most of the 1990s I toiled in the Restorative Justice field for Mennonite Central Committee Canada. That granted me a high perch from which to observe the increasing Canadian and worldwide awareness of this emerging phenomenon.

The 1990s was a kind of spreading-wings time of creating awareness, honing theory, delivering practice, and producing research. Criminal justice jurisdictions began encountering Restorative Justice in North America and worldwide. Many publications started emerging alongside beginnings of evidence-based research on impacts of this often-claimed “paradigm shift” (a term first used in this field by Howard Zehr, I believe) in dealing with perpetrators and people who were offended against. Whole conferences and umbrella organizations were organized and formed, to promote Restorative Justice and share expertise, the term “best practices” often employed.

Programs in many parts of the world began cross-pollinating as attempts at supplying precise definition and standards of practice proliferated. Institutions of higher learning commenced teaching it; governments started embracing and funding it; and critics, in particular from the “victim” (“victim” a term that rightly should be for the most part displaced in favor of “those harmed by crime” or the like) community, were analyzing and at times critiquing it as pro-offender and naïve. Some even accused it of being nothing more than “compulsory compassion” foisted on “victims” that left them further wounded, “justice” even perhaps (so thought) more denied while perpetrators were all but let off the hook.

Its sheer mushrooming across the planet within mere decades precluded “controls” that might have headed off some of the at times legitimate attacks.

But crime “victim” communities embraced Restorative Justice as well. Wilma Derksen in Canada early on affirmed it, amongst many others, and she parlayed it into a creative force for those harmed by crime across Canada and wider afield. She however ever held Restorative Justice practitioners and theorists to account to never forget those harmed by crime. A rare honor for Wilma was her family’s story told in inimitable style by Malcolm Gladwell in David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants.

I had the (at-the-time-unknown) privilege of stumbling upon this early seeding through accepting an assignment in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada with Mennonite Central Committee Ontario as Director of the two-year-old V.O.R.P.: Victim Offender Reconciliation Project (only—acknowledging its initial tentative nature). It later became a Program, and rightly “mediation” replaced “reconciliation” as less religiously and even teleologically charged. “Compulsory” for those harmed by crime however never—at least not in intent of practice from the outset in my involvement then and subsequently with early and most practitioners and theorists over the decades.

As to seeding: an early Restorative Justice friend, colleague, practitioner and theorist, Dave Worth of “Elmira Case” fame (see “Context” in the first chapter), during those formative years of promoting Restorative Justice repeatedly drew on Clarence Jordan of Koinonia Farm, Georgia, and author of Cotton Patch Gospel, to explain that if a farmer wanted to encourage others to try out new seed, he’d not go out and rent a lecture hall to get them in to hear about it, he’d plant rather a “demonstration plot” right at the main crossroads and let all see for themselves how well the seed produced!

Dave was one of those farmers; and eventually at the crossroads of the criminal justice world, the Restorative Justice harvest of justice became renowned for its peacemaking.

A classic biblical text in this regard reads: “When peacemakers plant seeds of peace, they will harvest justice. (James 3:18, CEV).”

The first chapter touches more on the early years.

 My wife Esther and I had an amazing eight-week experience in Rwanda May 18 to July 12, 2018. We were exposed to much about Rwanda’s post-genocide (1994) Restorative Justice/reconciliation journey. We were left with “impressions” when we departed, with no particular authority gained to assess realities there. While in Rwanda I wrote a series of “Dispatches” about our reconciliation learning. They may be found in Volume Three of this series.³ It was exhilarating and immense privilege to see Restorative Justice there in response to genocide taken to a whole new level.

Why publish these now? Because I can might be as good an answer! (I had learned how to do this on Amazon and Kindle in publishing a novel, Chrysalis Crucible. This volume first appeared on their Kindle Direct Publishing platform.) Because as well they may be of historical interest. And because they give opportunity to put out there the continued joy, challenge and prospect of this peacemaking work.

These writings were first gathered, edited, and uploaded onto a website, project of my retirement years, from 2014 onwards. They obviously are repetitious: Copy and Paste commands were used over the years, as audience and/or readership varied. If the art of good teaching is in part repetition, may you experience this as good indeed . . . Let the reader skip whatever however—and do his or her own editing—if wished, when repetition is encountered. You will readily note my oft-used sources.

There is no suggested order of reading them, except encouraging reading the first chapter first. Each essay is complete in itself. The most comprehensive and far-reaching in application is the chapter, “Is There A Place For Dreaming?: Restorative Justice and International State Conflict, Scholar-In-Residence Public Lecture Saint Paul University, September 13, 2007”—to which a perhaps impatient reader may wish immediately to turn.

A friend said the writings appeared to him “helter-skelter.” I like to think that, rather than being in a disorderly confusion, they have a consistent organizing theme reflected in the series’ title, as indeed do all volumes in the series. There seemed no obvious chronological or otherwise progressive order to adhere to, apart from the first chapter needing to be so placed.

There was of course copy-editing, some further light editing, and in a few cases the addition of new material, but for the most part they are included as were.

This new edition has however included more, at times longer, explanatory footnotes, at times lengthier introductions under the “Context” headings, and other changes; including corrections to the earlier publication.

Additional volumes may be found as mentioned on Amazon and Kindle. I expect there to be about five or six in all. Another series of my general writings on peace and justice is projected, tentatively titled Justice The Harvest of Peace (as per James cited above).

And the usual disclaimer: all errors I own!⁴

• Wayne Northey, with gratitude and joy for this lifelong peace-full and justice-yielding journey, Agassiz British Columbia, September 2019.

Acknowledgements

Co-writers of earlier publications of the final two chapters, respectively Hugh Kirkegaard and Pierre Allard, were gracious in allowing these to be reissued, and in the last chapter especially, significantly rewritten.

 

 

1. Please see my subsequently written/presented: “Is There A Place For Dreaming?: Restorative Justice and International State Conflict” after this chapter.[↩]
2. See her article, ““Not Enough!”, Mediation Quarterly, Volume 12, Number 3., Guest Editor, Harry
   Mika, Ph.D. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, pp. 285 – 291” (1995); and her book Penal Abolition: The Practical Choice (1995), pp. 70ff.[↩]
3. They are also on my website.[↩]
4. A technical note: Wipf and Stock Publishers request use of American spelling throughout.[↩]