Scott Harris

At the core of Scott’s work has been the development of strategies and processes that bring restorative justice to life in real and practical ways within the correctional context.  This work is aimed at facilitating culture change within the prison environment as well as at stimulating new ways for victims, offenders and community members to engage with federal corrections in Canada.

Scott has been actively involved in a wide rage of activities including:

• Delivering restorative justice training and education;
• Providing leadership and resources for Restorative Justice Week in Canada;
• Coordinating the Ron Wiebe Restorative Justice Award
• Developing protocols and policies for restorative justice approaches including victim offender mediation, healing circles and surrogate approaches.
• Supporting and evaluating pilot projects testing restorative justice approaches in prisons.

With over 15 years of experience working in the criminal justice system, social services and related areas, Scott’s career has involved work within profit organizations and has spanned various levels of government, working with both victims and offenders.  He has published several articles related to restorative justice and presented to a wide range of international audiences.  He has also been asked to assist in missions to other countries actively seeking to introduce restorative justice concepts into their correctional systems.

In his personal life, Scott and his wife, Roxanne, are involved in providing leadership to support groups for victims in their church.  This initiative, called Sanctuary, seeks to provide victims with a safe place to explore their tough questions, to talk about their struggles, to find words to express the hard edges of their pain and to be supported as they work towards some sense of healing and closure.

Scott has also recently begun studies at Queens Theological College to pursue his M.Div with a concentration in Restorative Justice.

Important Idea

Restorative corrections makes sense.   We know that crime is ultimately a community affair and as community members we are responsible for responding to crime in ways that create security, safety and peace.

While prisons may delay the need to focus on the community dimensions of crimes – they cannot erase it.  On the contrary, failing to focus on the role of the community and the victim often exacerbates many of their core needs – not the least of which is fear.  Moreover, it can all but extinguish any sense of connection that the offender feels with the community.

Restorative justice provides us the tools to tangibly and meaningfully work on that important dimension of the criminal justice response – even in prisons ---- especially in prisons.  But given the challenges created by the prison context, its continued success will depend on three things:

1. our ability to weave it into other correctional processes;
2. our ability to develop continuums of care and accountability for offenders throughout their sentence; and
3. our ability to help translate offenders’ personal restorative justice insight into tangible activities of reparation, which community members and victims can readily see.
   

Corrections is what chaos theorists would call a complex adaptive system.   As such, it does not lend itself to be forced in one direction on the other. There are far too many stakeholders, interests, and opinions which must be considered and affected.  We may work to nudge the system in certain directions but, ultimately, the success of our endeavour depends on whether it is the right direction for those most affected at the right time.

 -- Scott Harris

Leading Edge

Scott's recent  worked  includes networking with partners across Canada to stimulate the development of a national dialogue/association for restorative justice – aimed, in part, in creating a meaningful forum for promoting restorative justice approaches at all levels.  In addition, he is working with international partners to establish a community of practice for those involved in prison applications of restorative justice.

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Bibliography

December 2007