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Director Dora Schriro
answers an employee question at restorative justice and victim services training
at the Correctional Officer Training Academy in Tucson.
Restorative Justice and Victim's Rights
Training
Restorative justice and victim’s rights programs are gaining momentum
throughout the Arizona Department of Corrections.
On March 11, Director
Dora Schriro and members of her executive staff, met with more than 160 ADC
Correctional Officer IIs, COIIIs and support staff at an all-day,
introductory training session at the Correctional Training Academy in Tucson
to discuss the effectiveness of restorative justice and crime victim
sensitivity.
“We are communicating to
more and more employees about the rights of crime victims and restorative
justice. Being sensitive to victims of crime and taking a restorative
justice approach to prison management, benefits staff, inmates and the
community,” said Programs Division Director Steven Ickes.
Restorative justice is
part of Director Schriro’s “Parallel Universe,” which says life inside
prison should resemble life outside prison and that inmates acquire values,
habits and skills that will help them become productive, law-abiding
citizens. Her plan calls for inmates to work, contribute to the restitution
of their victims and participate in basic educational and work-based
training.
“When you make a mess,
clean it up. When you hurt someone, say your sorry,” said Director Schriro.
“The agency is taking the longer view of public safety. By working with the
inmate population from day one of incarceration to their last day of
community supervision, we can alter the course of their future conduct to
serve the public better and longer.”
Involving victims in the
criminal justice process is a top priority in Director Schriro’s restorative
justice plan, which emphasizes holding offenders directly accountable to the
people, and communities they have violated, and restoring the emotional and
material losses of victims by providing a range of opportunities of
dialogue, negotiation and problem solving.
“We want the Department
to be pro-active in responding to crime victim needs. Many times, victims
get support and services on the front end of the system by law enforcement
and prosecutor’s offices and are then forgotten once the defendant goes to
prison. We are now working to ensure that victims are not forgotten about
when the perpetrator is sentenced to ADC,” said Office of Victim Services
Administrator Dan Levey.
The next restorative
justice and victim’s rights training will be on April 15 during National
Victim’s Rights Week. In 2004, ADC raised more than $18,000 for National
Victim’s Rights Week as a first year participant. |
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Director Schriro discusses
re-entry with a group of prison chaplains from various institutions.
Chaplains Give Director a
Standing "O"
Director Dora Schriro is
not accustomed to getting standing ovations when she walks into the room for
a meeting. But that’s what she received from a group of prison chaplains on
March 11 at the Correctional Officer Academy in Tucson.
“We appreciate the
Director talking to us," said Mike Linderman, administrator for
Religious and Volunteer Services. "Each year, we schedule one or two
meetings with chaplains from all of our institutions. This was the first
time a Director has attended, and I have been working here for 15 years.”
Schriro met with
chaplains to discuss the role of Religion and Volunteer Services in
the agency’s re-entry initiative.
During the meeting,
Director Schriro gave a presentation on ADC’s re-entry initiative, which was
shortly followed by an enthusiastic “Questions and Answers” session. The
chaplains had no shortages of ideas for the Director. One of the ideas
included: reaching out to more religious and volunteer organizations that
help offenders adjust to society once they are released from prison.
“Community religious
organizations can offer a wide range of services to offenders,” said
Linderman. “We target organizations from all parts of Arizona not just metro
areas and those places where we have prisons.”
According to Programs
Division Director Steven Ickes, studies have shown that offenders active in
religious programming are less likely to be involved in negative behavior
within the institution; profit from a spiritual support system during
transition and develop skills that enhance their chance for long-term
success in society.
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