Oxfam on inequality

January 25, 2013

 Oxfam (UK)
The cost of inequality: how wealth and income extremes hurt us all

Declaring extreme wealth unethical, Oxfam thinks economic inequality is not inevitable and has some suggestions – and a goal for 2025 –  about what can be done to reverse the recent growing gaps. http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/cost-of-inequality-oxfam-mb180113.pdf

 Restorative Justice B.C.
Media Kit for Restorative Justice organizations

RJBC has done a service to all of RJ organizations in Canada by making this 58 page, detailed media relations plan available through this pdf.  SJN encourages organizations to adopt its practices, offering as it does not only a tool but a discipline around communications as a whole. http://www.rjbc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Media_Toolkit-1.pdf

 National Institution on Corrections – Margaret Severson
On Language and Limits; Missions and Mental Health

How does a prison prove most helpful in treating mental illness?  Long time technical adviser and University of Kansas sociology professor Margaret Severson has some suggestions.  She concludes: “The articulation of the jail’s mission—and its related boundaries and limitations—is a piece that often is lost in the rhetoric that confuses the jail with a mental institution and that conjures up ideas of detention as being the chief solution to horrific violence. The notion of the jail being one service provider in a community of service providers has never been more important. Embrace that idea and let everyone in your community know it.” http://community.nicic.gov/blogs/national_jail_exchange/archive/2013/01/18/on-language-and-limits-missions-and-mental-health.aspx (free pdf download of the paper)

RJ-on-line
“The public wants to be involved”: A roundtable conversation about community and restorative justice

Robert V. Wolf, a researcher for the Center for Court Innovation, has a list of six things the community wants to incentivize further the involvement in justice work. http://www.restorativejustice.org/RJOB/the-public-wants-to-be-involved-a-roundtable-conversation-about-community-and-restorative-justice Full report in pdf format:  http://www.courtinnovation.org/sites/default/files/documents/Community%20Justice%20Roundtable%20report_final%202.pdf 

 Heartspeak Productions and RJ Victoria
Through A Relational Lens with Rupert Ross

Rupert Ross, retired prosecutor for Ontario Attorney General, relates key features of his personal enquiry into justice as a healing experience.  He explains a paradigmatic shift of perspective and adopts what he calls a relational lens of explanation.  A relational lens examines relationships more than individuals and reveals a more inclusive way of doing justice. More importantly, Ross notes, through a relational lens, most injustices and justice procedures create a new and sudden relationship that requires careful restorative work based on sharing, kindness, humility and respect. (A 48 minute video) http://rjvictoria.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/through-a-relational-lens-with-rupert-ross

 Ottawa Citizen – The Canadian Press – Jim Bronskill and Bruce Cheadle
Requests for Royal Prerogative of Mercy on the rise as federal government restricts pardons

It would seem that the changes in the cost of pardons (from $130 to $630) and in the free-of-crime wait period have resulted in more applications for a pardon under Royal Prerogative of Mercy.  The national Parole Board (http://www.pbc-clcc.gc.ca/prdons/clem-eng.shtml) has a notice on its web site saying that clemency applications are ““only granted in exceptional circumstances.”  There are currently 79 applications, up from 58 last year. http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/metro/Requests+Royal+prerogative+mercy+rise+federal+government/7846102/story.html#ixzz2IuaMp4dQ

 Irish Times – Elaine Edwards
Shatter to act on vulnerable prisoners

Irish Minister for Justice Alan Shatter today published a report on the death by suicide of a prisoner – Shane Rogers – whose intent to commit suicide was well known and announced repeatedly by him to the police, his lawyer, the court and a forensic assessment team.  “No standard operating procedure existed within the prison service covering either the definition of or the management of vulnerable prisoners.”  http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2013/0124/breaking57.html 

 Guardian (UK)
Fall in UK crime rate baffles experts

The stats show murders down but also property crimes down in hard economics times.  The experts are wondering why and positing a number of potential explanations.  Says Professor Mike Hough: “This fall is striking and unexpected, especially in view of the fiscal crisis, whose impact is bearing down sharpest on the poorest and most marginal social groups.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jan/24/fall-uk-crime-rate-baffles-experts

 The Independent (UK) – Nigel Morris
Fall in crime rates may have been exaggerated because of pressure on police not to record lower-level offences

No one seems to deny that the crime rate is falling but some think it that old bugaboo: what you include and what you leave out.  The suspicion here is that police are not reporting some minor offenses.  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/fall-in-crime-rates-may-have-been-exaggerated-because-of-pressure-on-police-not-to-record-lowerlevel-offences-8464692.html