Vermont Bar Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2 Summer 2014, Vol. 40, No. 2 | Page 27

by Jan Peter Dembinski, Esq. Special Issue: Interview with Derek Miodownik of the Vermont Department of Corrections Jan Dembinski: Derek, how long have you been with the Vermont Department of Corrections? Derek Miodownik: For 14 years. JD: What positions have you held with the Department? DM: I began as a community resource coordinator, recruiting and training volunteers for reparative boards. In 2002 the Department of Corrections (DOC) received a federal grant to partner with local communities in developing restorative approaches to the reentry process through which individuals returned to community life after incarceration. I was brought on as a grant specialist responsible for managing subgrants that were derived from the federal funds and awarded to community justice centers for the planning and implementation of these restorative reintegration programs. I then held the positions of Restorative Systems Administrator and Restorative and Community Justice Director. My current official position is Community and Restorative Justice Executive. JD: Is there a difference between community justice and restorative justice? DM: This has been a topic of increased attention lately, and, believe it or not, is not an easy question to answer. I want to think of community justice as being under the umbrella of restorative justice. But that may not be an accurate metaphor. Restorative justice seeks to answer three fundamental questions: Who has been hurt? What are their needs? Who has the obligation to address the needs—to put right the harms and to restore relationships? Depending on the offense, there will be different answers—some will involve more community members, some less. There can be offenses where there are just not one or two victims but are truly community offenses, for instance, damage done to a public monument. However, the offenders who damaged the public monument and their families would still need to be centrally involved in the restorative community process. It is a difficult question to answer because how do we draw a line between an individual and the community in which one lives? It is a question of degrees. But I think www.vtbar.org the greater representation of three main stakeholder groups with an offense—those who have been harmed and their families, those who have caused the harm and their families, and the community representatives who have been impacted—the more restorative a process will be. So it may not be helpful to use the term “community justice” to designate something not in the arena, so to speak, of “restorative justice.” At the same time, I think “restorative justice” should always be thought of in terms of “community.” JD: Alright. That makes my next question a little more diff