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