Scott Miller

Tomorrow, we’ll discuss laws (and other efforts) to curb “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation” (SLAPP) actions. If you’re not familiar with the acronym (I was not), here’s a link to the Wikipedia description. And here’s a Washington Post article about a recent Supreme Court action (or…inaction) in the area.

• Does this legislation make sense?
• How can free speech rights be protected?
• What about other “rights of access” to the courts?
• How can the costs of large-scale litigation be avoided?
• How can deep-pocketed litigants be put on a more equitable footing with those with lesser resources?

By the second half of the 1990s, the expression “restorative justice” had become popular, evolving to universal usage by 2006. The restorative justice movement has attracted many segments of society, including “police officers, judges, schoolteachers, politicians, juvenile justice agencies, victim support groups, aboriginal elders, and mums and dads.”

“Restorative justice is a fast-growing state, national and international social movement that seeks to bring together people to address the harm caused by crime,” write Mark Umbreit and Marilyn Peterson Armour. “Restorative justice views violence, community decline, and fear-based responses as indicators of broken relationships. It offers a different response, namely the use of restorative solutions to repair the harm related to conflict, crime, and victimization.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Zehr

Tomorrow we’ll discuss homelessness, particularly as publicized by recent developments in cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and, closer to home, Portland, ME.

I won’t have time to pull links to articles, but you can find them with the assistance of virtual assistant “Google.”

• Why are these cities facing this crisis?
• Why isn’t homelessness as much of a problem elsewhere?
• What should be done about it?

I suspect we’ll find this is caused by many factors, so “solutions” are likely to take many forms as well.

See you tomorrow.