Discipline in some school districts is an enormous issue. In 2012 roughly 3.5 million students were suspended in public schools and as a consequence nearly 18 million instructional days were lost. Should schools react to disruptive behavior in a manner that is mostly punitive, or should they try alternative approaches such as restorative justice?

Suppose there is a serious transgression by a student whom we shall call the “offender” against another student whom we shall call the “victim”.  And of course, there are the “bystanders”.    What might or should the goals be by the school administration for these three types of students?

For the offender the goals might be accountability and learning more appropriate behaviors in the future.  For the victim the objective must include feeling safe (again) and “whole” again. For the bystanders the goals include feeling safe and possibly deterrence from future destructive behavior.

Let’s see what punitive policy of zero tolerance and suspension does.

Suspension does remove the offender from the school. But does it change the behavior?

Victims and bystanders might feel safe during the suspension, but not after the suspension. But will the victims feel like justice has been served? Victims often would like to feel convinced that offenders do understand the harm their behavior has caused.

So, what would restorative justice look like?

A moderated meeting between offender and victim.

Meetings of victims who had the same offender or suffered similar offenses.

Or, in the case of vandalism, graffiti on the wall, custodial projects with the janitorial staff.

In 2014 the Chicago Public School district abandoned its zero tolerance policies that had been in place since the 1980s with the Suspensions and Expulsion Reduction Plan. This is basically a restorative justice program.

What happened? What are the effects of changing to the restorative justice program?

1. Out of school suspensions for high school students dropped by 18%.

2. Child arrests declined by 19%.

3. Child arrests outside of school declined by 15%.

4. The school climate improved measurably.

The paper below is among the first, if not the first, comprehensive paper to assess the benefits of restorative justice programs in school in one very large public school district. Perhaps other districts would consider following the Chicago Public Schools lead. Their students would be better off, and justice would be served.

https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/BFI_WP_2023-117.pdf