Center for Justice Reform - Vermont Law and Graduate School

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Overview

The Center for Justice Reform at Vermont Law and Graduate School is a statewide, regional, national, and international educational and training location for justice reform efforts including restorative justice. The center trains law and graduate students, community members, criminal justice professionals, educators, social service providers, and policymakers in the value of restorative and innovative criminal justice programs.

The Center for Justice Reform is uniquely positioned to address deficiencies in our justice systems and to train the next generation of justice leaders. Our residential and online educational programs include a Master of Arts in Restorative Justice (MARJ), joint JD/Master of Arts in Restorative Justice, Professional Certificate in Restorative Justice. Coupled with meaningful experiential learning opportunities, students gain the skills to become agents for change within the justice system.
Download the Center for Justice Reform Brochure

The Center for Justice Reform Mission

Because justice requires a new way to think about and respond to harm, conflict, and crime. Wrongdoings are not just transgressions against government or institutions; harm involves a breach of relationships. Responding to harm requires more than punishment—more than retribution—the response requires an opportunity for acceptance of responsibility, amends to the aggrieved parties, and the creation of an environment that promotes healing.

By bringing together students committed to developing new ways of thinking about harm with national and international restorative justice leaders, Vermont Law School will educate the next generation of justice reformers; leaders who understand the workings of the existing legal system but who are also educated and equipped to infuse systems and communities with principles of inclusion, tolerance, equity, compassion, and positive change.

Curriculum

The Center for Justice Reform offers innovative educational and training opportunities for restorative justice both on-campus and online. The center trains law and graduate students, community members, criminal justice professionals, and policymakers in the value of restorative and innovative criminal justice programs.

JD/Master of Arts in Restorative Justice (MARJ)

The JD/MARJ degree program offers students the opportunity to earn both a Juris Doctor (JD) and a Master of Arts in Restorative Justice (MARJ) in three academic years—the period of time ordinarily required to earn the JD. The joint degree program combines traditional law courses with restorative justice courses to prepare graduates to address deficiencies in our justice system and become the next generation of justice leaders.

For more information visit the Joint Degree Programs page.

Master of Arts in Restorative Justice (MARJ)

The MARJ program was created for students who want to address deficiencies in our justice system and become the next generation of justice leaders. The curriculum combines traditional law courses with restorative justice courses, simulations, and experiential learning opportunities to prepare graduates for careers in restorative justice. Vermont Law and Graduate School is poised to train agents of change who develop new approaches to criminal justice.

For more information visit the Master’s Degrees Page

Professional Certificate in Restorative Justice

The Professional Certificate in Restorative Justice is a unique curriculum for undergraduate and graduate students, restorative justice leaders, state and non-profit managers, and other professionals who wish to develop a career focusing on restorative justice. This 9-credit program includes courses in restorative justice theory and practice, public speaking for advocates, and other course offerings.

For more information visit the Non-Degree Courses page

Courses

7325/Advanced Restorative Practices

The Advanced Restorative Practices course teaches students how to design, prepare for, and facilitate a variety of restorative practices. Students will learn from restorative justice experts and then design and lead simulated restorative practices on their own. Students will be graded on a High Pass, Pass, Low Pass, and Fail basis. The Principles of Restorative Justice or Origins, Evolution and Critical Issues course (described above) is a prerequisite for this course.

7360/Advanced Victim Rights Seminar

This course builds upon the foundation of Adversity, Trauma and Victimization to explore deeply the legal interplay between victim rights and the criminal justice system. Students will engage in a detailed analysis of victim rights law and their juxtaposition with constitutional and other protections for criminal defendants. Students will contemplate fair statutory structures to ensure appropriate and inclusive victim input into justice systems and will develop a detailed proposal for establishing, safeguarding or expanding victim rights. Prerequisites: RSJ7210 or

7210/Adversity, Diversity, Trauma and Victimization

This course will explore the legal, historical, cultural, and psychological frameworks underlying victim rights law, as well as best practices for effective victim/survivor engagement across the American criminal justice system.

7140/Applied Criminal Justice

This course will explore the use of criminal legal systems to address social and environmental harms. Following an introductory section covering the basics of criminal law and procedure, the course will explore conventional and alternative criminal justice applications to address crimes against people including drug and internet offenses, animal abuse, and environmental harms. The course will also explore new arenas in which criminal law might be used to advance social justice.

7270/Clemency, Pardon and Expungement

This course will examine clemency in full beginning with its historical development and interpretation by the U.S. Supreme Court. The class will analyze all facets of clemency: pardons, commutations, fines and forfeitures, reprieves, and amnesty, and engage in discussions about the applicability of clemency today. The discussions will also compare and contrast the broad federal pardon power with the more limited pardon power given to the Governor in Vermont’s Constitution.

5122/Communications, Advocacy and Leadership

Designed to provide students with the knowledge and skills to operate effectively in a variety of careers. Topics include communications to achieve public policy aims; development and implementation of legislative and policy campaigns; and management of enterprises. Offered as both ENV and RSJ.

7290/Drug Policy Reform

This seminar looks at the history and evolution of drug laws in this country, the science and physiology of substance use disorders, and the historical, contemporary, and anticipated new directions in drug policy. Students will be evaluated on their class engagement, submission of a final paper, and presentation.

7350/Ethics and Restorative Justice

This course provides a brief review of ethical codes of conduct applicable in various professional disciplines and analyzes the possible tension between modern codes of conduct and a pure restorative approach to harm and conflict. Students will be presented with a series of ethical dilemmas by guest practitioners across various disciplines and will be asked to analyze the ethical issues in each problem. The course will draw upon philosophical underpinnings and will analyze and explore how to discern a proper path in complex ethical situations.

7250/Global Restorative Justice: Restorative Practices Around the Globe

This course will consider how other places and countries have adopted and utilized restorative practices to address systemic harm. The location or locations that form the basis of the semester will depend on the expertise of the professor. The initial time this course will be offered it will focus on “Recent Advances in Rwanda.”

7333/Juvenile Justice and Law

This course will explore the historical and current administration of juvenile justice in the US, including the legal and policy justifications for having a separate system for young offenders, and whether this division continues to make sense today. This course will also explore contemporary alternatives to the more traditional juvenile justice responses to include the use of restorative practices.

7215/Narrative Writing Seminar

Today, being an advocate requires more than knowing how to write a brief. Fluency in a variety of written forms – memorandums, op-eds, letters, emails, blog posts – is all but required. This course will cover these forms and others. Students will be graded on regular written assignments and a final paper.

7320/New Approaches to Domestic and Sexual Violence

This course will address how we respond to domestic and sexual violence, the shortcomings of our current approach, and explore meaningful alternatives to our current responses. The course will consider the political, cultural, and legal factors that are influencing shifting attitudes toward crimes of interpersonal violence.

7120/Origins, Evolution, and Critical Issues in Restorative Justice

This course covers the evolving definitions and history of restorative justice and related regulatory and relational practices and approaches. Faculty and students will consider the ways concepts and debates in restorative justice are evolving and being used to tackle some of society’s most challenging problems.

7270/Peacemaking Courts

This course introduction begins with the exploration of the roots of peacemaking from indigenous nations within our national border. Students will learn about differing world views, tribal justice systems (through Native voices), and tensions between Native justice systems and Western model court systems. In addition, students will learn about current efforts to nurture communication, collaboration and common ground between the two.

7380/Pleas, Sentencing and Accountability

This course will combine a statutory, rule, and case-law based exploration of plea bargaining and sentencing law and procedure with an experiential component of interviewing and writing background biographical reports about criminal defendants in actual Vermont cases. These reports will augment the Pre-Sentence Investigative Reports (PSI) prepared in major felonies and, in other cases without a PSI, assist judges, community justice centers, and parole boards in understanding the “whole person” upon whom consequences are pending.

7355/Police Use of Force

This three-credit seminar explores the constitutional and other implications of police use of force. Students will learn about police training and consider the application of that training in the context of instances of alleged excessive force. Students will write a graded paper and present at the end of the semester.

7115/Principles of Restorative Justice

This highly participatory course will explore restorative justice and the ideas that form its foundation, question its strengths and shortcomings, examine restorative practices, and investigate opportunities to put the theory into practice.

7340/Race, Crimes, and Restorative Justice

This course explores the impact of race on the criminal justice system and how restorative justice approaches might help address the systemic racism that permeates the system. Starting with the US Constitution, the course will explore the 13th Amendment, convict leasing, Jim Crow, and the War on Drugs, mass incarceration, and racial disparities in arrest, prosecution, and sentencing practices.

7330/Restorative Justice in Educational Institutions

This course explores how restorative justice approaches can provide important alternatives to more traditional responses to harm within educational settings. Restorative justice has three primary applications in school settings, which include both K-12 schools and higher education. Restorative circles are commonly used to build and strengthen relationships between students and with their teachers. Restorative practices help develop “social-emotional learning.” Restorative conferences are used in response to conflict and misconduct.

7230/Restorative Justice in Indigenous Communities

This course will focus on how indigenous people from many countries and cultures respond to conflict and harm. The course will consider how contemporary restorative practices find roots in the approaches from indigenous people.

7365/Teaching Restorative Justice

This three-credit course considers how restorative justice can be taught in a way that is in alignment with restorative values while preparing students to share restorative justice with others through effective teaching and training. Students will learn experientially through teaching a course on restorative justice.

Youth Justice Reimagined

This three-credit course considers the shortfalls of current juvenile justice approaches and invites students to explore an alternative set of overarching juvenile justice goals, endeavoring to better serve the needs of youth, their families, and their broader communities and consider what practical strategies accomplish these goals.

National Center on Restorative Justice

The National Center on Restorative Justice (NCORJ) is a partnership between Vermont Law and Graduate School, the University of Vermont, the University of San Diego, and the U.S. Office of Justice Programs. The NCORJ is funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) to educate and train the next generation of justice leaders and to support and lead research focusing on restorative justice and addressing social inequities to improve criminal justice policy and practice in the United States.

The purpose of the NCORJ is to:

Educate and train the next generation of justice leaders on restorative justice to improve criminal justice policy and practice in the US.
Support and lead research focusing on restorative justice and addressing social inequities in the US criminal legal system.

The initiatives of the NCORJ fall into three broad categories:

Education and Training: Higher Education
The existing criminal legal system replenishes itself regularly with newly minted graduates trained in an adversarial model. Educating undergraduate, graduate, and law students in the adversarial model perpetuates the use of the adversarial model. The NCORJ creates change by promoting restorative justice education in undergraduate, graduate, and law programs, equipping the next generation of criminal justice professionals to bring the restorative justice approach to bear in reforming a broken system.
Education and Training: Public Education
Expansion of implementation of restorative justice in the criminal justice context hinges on greater buy-in from justice system actors (police, judges, lawyers, probation/diversion officers, etc.) who have the power to refer cases to restorative justice and the general public. Justice system actors and the general public need to know what restorative justice is and why they should care. The NCORJ offers trainings, events, a coaching program, and creative communication strategies to meet this need for public restorative justice education.
Research
Restorative justice research has lagged behind practice. Where research does exist, it is often narrowly applicable to a specific program or context that is difficult to translate across settings. Foundational research such as shared language and definitions, assessment and fidelity tools, outcome instruments, and implementation approaches are notably lacking. In response to these needs, the Restorative Justice Research Community (RJRC) was established as an independent, interdisciplinary academic community that provides a platform for advancing and sustaining the field of restorative justice research. The RJRC prioritizes an approach to research that aims to empower community-based research partnerships and diverse voices.

To learn more about the National Center on Restorative Justice and access resources, visit NCORJ.org.

NCORJ Scholarship

Now accepting applications.

The National Center on Restorative Justice is funding five full-tuition awards, open to new PCRJ program applicants. Scholarship recipients are responsible for the cost of fees and books. To learn more visit the Scholarships & Grants page.

Summer at the Center for Justice Reform

The Center for Justice Reform is excited to welcome students, lawyers, professionals from across other disciplines, and interested community members to learn about restorative justice during our Summer Session.

Restorative justice invites a different approach to harm and conflict, one that focuses on healing and repair. While as complex and unique as truly every human, a restorative process is equally as flexible and adaptable across situations and systems. Its adaptability offers tremendous hope for overcoming broken relationships, harm caused, and adversarial systems, while building deeper connection and understanding in all communities, personal and professional.

The Summer Session is a time to explore your interest in restorative justice and is open to students from other graduate schools, nationally and internationally, as well as non-degree students and professionals. Whether you are focusing on core required classes, exploring an area of interest through an elective or toward a Professional Certificate in Restorative Justice, our Summer Session offers a variety of options to meet your needs and interests.

CJR Speaker Series

To view the entire series, please visit our CJR Speaker Series page

CJR Newsletters

CJR Newsletter April 2022

CJR Newsletter February 2021

CJR Newsletter November 2020

Center for Justice Reform News and Events

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Event

Welcoming New Americans Symposium

June 14th

Join organizations from around Vermont for a free, public symposium on working with and advocating for asylum seekers and other Vermonters seeking humanitarian immigration rel…

Event

Center for Justice Reform Fall Conference

November 3rd

Event

Center for Justice Reform Fall Conference: Second Look

November 3rd

Join us to explore the latest developments in criminal justice reform and the implementation of “Second Look” legislation, an opportunity to reevaluate an individu…

Event

Restorative Justice at Vermont Law and Graduate School Webinar

October 24th

Assistant Professor and Director of the Center for Justice Reform, Jessica Brown and Assistant Director of Education and Outreach at the National Center on Restorative Justice…