Justice That Transforms, Volume One

by Wayne Northey, Ron Dart (Foreword)

Restorative Justice was a term and concept largely unused before the mid-1970s. Wayne Northey happened to be in on the ground floor of facilitating its worldwide adoption as a challenge to Western retributive justice systems, ultimately to violent responses to conflict domestically and internationally. The most replicated early model of Restorative Justice, based on the well-known ""Elmira Case,"" was a Canadian first, initially dubbed Victim Offender Reconciliation Project (VORP). The author became its second director in 1977. The term ""mediation"" later displaced the more religious word, ""reconciliation,"" as the model spread outside Christian moorings; and ""program"" displaced the initially more tentative ""project."" At seminary, Northey had learned to think through one's vocation theologically. He began in that vein, writing and publishing on this profound call for a systemic ""paradigm shift,"" and has been at it ever since. This publication is volume 1 of a series of his collected writings, of which two additional volumes may be found online. Two or three further volumes are projected.

230 pages, Hardcover

Published January 9, 2020

About the author

Wayne Northey retired as Director of Man-to-Man/Woman-to-Woman – Restorative Christian Ministries (M2/W2) in British Columbia, Canada in 2014. He has been active in the criminal justice arena and a keen promoter of Restorative Justice since 1974.

He has published in this field for many years, including: with Pierre Allard a chapter on “Christianity: the Rediscovery of Restorative Justice”, in The Spiritual Roots of Restorative Justice , Michael L. Hadley, editor, Albany: State University of New York SUNY Press, 2001; co-authored with Hugh Kirkegaard, “The Sex Offender as Scapegoat: Vigilante Violence and a Faith Community Response”, in the anthology, God At Work, Ottawa: Chaplaincy, Correctional Services Canada (or available at this website; and published a chapter about the atonement and restorative justice in the collection of essays: Stricken by God? : Nonviolent Identification and the Victory of Christ, edited by Brad Jersak and Michael Hardin, Abbotsford: Fresh Wind Press and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007. Other articles may be found here; in 2018 he supplied a chapter in part dealing with Restorative Justice for Hellrazed?, Columbia, SC: CreateSpace, 2017. He republished a novel on Western Christianity and violence in 2015: Chrysalis Crucible , Abbotsford: Fresh Wind Press. More on the novel is here. In September 2018 he also published Justice That Transforms (Volume One), Kindle Direct Publishing – a collection of Restorative Justice writings.

Like all people of faith, he is on an uncertain journey of discovery.