Althouse: "Restorative justice is not a place for me to use or send a case to sweep things under the rug or to avoid making difficult decisions."

June 24, 2016

"Restorative justice is not a place for me to use or send a case to sweep things under the rug or to avoid making difficult decisions."

"It is a place for this community to work with its young people to build a more just and peaceful community."

23 comments:

MadisonMan said...: It is a place for this community to work with its young people to build a more just and peaceful community.

Here's a hint, young people. Don't go around threatening others with knives.

Presto! The community is more peaceful!; 6/24/16, 5:10 PM
Michael K said...: The Post Office is running the country.; 6/24/16, 5:16 PM
n.n said...: The "young people" only negotiate at the edge of a knife.

I wonder if mom and dad would meet with them.; 6/24/16, 5:19 PM
Rick said...: Pull a knife on multiple people and get treated like you drank underage. Unbelievable.; 6/24/16, 5:22 PM
Wince said...: Is Madison Police Chief Mike Koval trying to look and dress like Rob Halford of Judas Priest?

Breakin' the Law - Breakin' the Law !; 6/24/16, 5:22 PM
madAsHell said...: Restorative justice is not a place for me to use or send a case to sweep things under the rug or to avoid making difficult decisions

So, restorative justice IS just a way to sweep things under the rug, and avoid making difficult decisions.; 6/24/16, 5:40 PM
Fernandinande said...: “Had she not created a disturbance, had she not brandished a knife, had she agreed to stay at East Towne Mall while the police investigated, to be taken peacefully into custody, to not physically resist and to not use spitting and digging her nails into an officer’s arms to resist arrest, this case would not have happened at all,” Ozanne said.

Ozanne is a genius.

“In this situation, it’s an opportunity here to help heal this community that has been fractured by the situation,” Johnson said. “This is an opportunity for this young lady to take responsible for whatever she did that involved this situation but also to be provided with human and community service opportunities to help her straighten out her life so she can … move her to the next level.”

Johnson is also a genius: "community that has been fractured", "whatever she did that involved this situation" - pure comedy.; 6/24/16, 5:45 PM
Rae said...: Young people have to start considering how their life will look in a google search.; 6/24/16, 5:50 PM
retail lawyer said...: So many euphemisms in that story. Justice is a place. Who knew? You have to be in practice to read things like that. Anyway, I think I can translate some: "restorative justice" means caught, but no justice. "Give voice to" means . . not sure of that one. "Healing the community" means dialing back BLM for a few days.; 6/24/16, 5:54 PM
Curious George said...: Message sent: If you are black, gun, knife, nothing will happen to you.

I can't wait until Madison turns into another liberal shithole.; 6/24/16, 6:45 PM
Gahrie said...: I can't wait until Madison turns into another liberal shithole.

I hate to be the one to break it to you....; 6/24/16, 6:51 PM
David Begley said...: If this deal the Dane County DA cut doesn't include a full and complete release of any potential civil liability he should be voted out of office.; 6/24/16, 6:52 PM
Rick said...: help her straighten out her life so she can … move her to the next level.”

This means he expects her to actually stab someone next time?; 6/24/16, 7:18 PM
Michael K said...: "Blogger Rick said...
help her straighten out her life so she can … move her to the next level.”

This means he expects her to actually stab someone next time?"

Probably shoot someone. What has she got to lose testing the system?; 6/24/16, 7:22 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: We have now reached the point where the government gives its blessing to 'special' forms of punishment for Black folks.; 6/24/16, 8:09 PM
David said...: Even with the knife involved, I don't have a big problem with this result for a younger person with no other criminal history. She has to go through the program and comply with its requirements. It's a kind of probation, which isn't uncommon.

I do hope that the "restorative" program involves teaching her that a person making threats against others and resisting arrest is likely to be the recipient of powerful force to make her submit, and that the force is justified. I don't have a lot of hope that this will actually happen in the program, but perhaps the young woman has some friends and family that will school her in this reality, and suggest that having a knife and making threats, not being black, is the source of the problem.

That said, the nomenclature of "restorative justice" does not give me high confidence. I would rather that a first offender not be branded a felon for life but if the result of the program is to make her continue to think that she is a victim not a perp, it's not going to help her one bit.; 6/24/16, 9:07 PM
J. Farmer said...: Curiously, who decides what makes a community "more just?" And what does "more just" even mean? It seems to me that the entire SJW movement is bit on mad libs. You just plug in requisite phrases and trite bromides like "no justice, no peace" and then pat yourself on the back for defeating a straw man and winning an imaginary argument. The entire enterprise is one big circle jerk.; 6/24/16, 10:33 PM
J. Farmer said...: Here's a radical idea: how about raising the voting age to, say, 25? Young people are stupid. The "community" should be educating and molding "young people," not giving in and capitulating to their impulsive, self-interested obsessions.; 6/24/16, 10:35 PM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: I mean, did she actually brandish a knife and threaten to harm someone? If so this seems a little too permissive, no? I'm not sure how you avoid having this set a precedent one way or the other.

If she didn't actually have a knife and this was more of an argument/disturbing the peace that got out of hand I can see where this type of a resolution would be the smart choice all around.; 6/24/16, 10:46 PM
Michael said...: That was a yapfull of goodspeak wound round righthink to a happy peace love end; 6/24/16, 11:02 PM
Fred Drinkwater said...: It's all fun and games until someone gets a shiv in the eye. But you can rest comfy in the certainty that Koval, Ozanne, and Johnson wont lose their sinecures no matter what happens after the Restorative is concluded.
So we've got that going for us...; 6/25/16, 2:21 AM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: Ozanne doesn't want to prosecute members of his own tribe.; 6/25/16, 9:38 AM
mikee said...: I, for one, want justice to be blind and the scales to balance equally no matter what individual sits on them. I ain't getting what I want, ever again, in the US, am I?; 6/25/16, 12:46 PM