Almost 19 years ago, four white teenagers assaulted an older black man in Grand Rapids, torturing him until he died. Willie Jones was a GM retiree who had just finished bowling when the teens beat him up, stuffed him in the trunk of his own car, and drove the car around until the next morning, […]

The New Orleans District Attorney’s office is implementing restorative justice to resolve murder cases. It’s been used to induce a plea agreement for one murderer, and reduce the sentence of another. Jeremy Burse was just 15 in 2010 when he and his friend Anthony Davis, 16, tried to rob a security guard. Burse shot at […]

The Detroit News is running a front-page story today about the success of Michigan’s Community Dispute Resolution Program (CDRP), focusing on the Wayne and Macomb mediation centers. The CDRP has survived ups and downs in its thirty years of serving Michigan, and continues strong today. I’ve been involved with it since its inception, and enjoy […]