Scott Miller

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.

No, we’re not going to discuss cricket (much—although the current Pakistani PM is a cricket hero). We’re going to discuss the relationship between India and Pakistan.

Both countries possess “nukes,” and have historically fraught relations exacerbated by religious differences, the disputed territory of Kashmir, and India’s seemingly well-supported claim that terrorist groups targeting India are based in Pakistani territory (remember a few months ago, when India’s military executed operations in Pakistani territory?).

So they have attracted outsized attention and concern for decades.

• Will the current disputes be resolved peacefully, or will they accelerate in the “wrong” direction?
• What should U.S. policy be toward these countries and their various disputes?
• What other countries have interests in this dispute, and what should their role (if any) be?

I hope some other prospective attendees will come up with some good (but digestible) reading references, but here are three to whet your appetite:

• Untangling India and Pakistan (Foreign Affairs, May 2003)
• India Gambles on its Kashmir Strategy (Foreign Affairs, August 2019)
• A Dormant Volcano (Washington Post, August 2019 article re: Kashmir)

And, of course, you can search Wikipedia for other, background information.