TjeThere's a concept that has been introduced by the Mennonite community and now are advocating its use for the youth coming in contact with the criminal justice system. It's an alternative to court proceedings. It's an alternative to severe punishment in the form of a jail term or whatever. It's an alternative to the harsh realities of priso, jail, and the courts. person, and I was still with the young people because it's also applicable to adults, but one or young person commit some type of a crime. Let's just say that again, a minor crime, but it's a beginning of a crime wave and the child's life did you get in the way a child's lives that he's going to live with a way that crime is going to be part of his life in the future and it starts somewhere and often starts at age 12 by the way, can be before that, but not usually. Twelve to 14 is where these things start. And by the way, that's the age when these young kids getting drugs to and there's a parallel between drug use at age 12 to 14 and starting to have a crime life during age 12 to 14. So it's a critical time in a child's life. And if you ever trialed in that age group, you have a major task to monitor that kid's behavior, to be on top of it, to be available and to be all part of that child's life in every way possible you can because you want to make sure that your child 12 to 14 does not get involved in a life of drugs and a life of crime. That's the high probability inappropriate that takes place today in our culture on the school property and in the community. But anyway, let's go back to restorative justice. If a child commits some type of a crime, the usual procedure of course is to call the police. And the police arrested him and the police take them down to juvenile hall and then he's retained there for a period of time. And then a court proceeding is held to determine what to do with them and obviously the overriding interest is to how can this kid be handled in such a way that that kind of behavior doesn't happen again in the future criminal behavior he has no more, but unfortunately our criminal justice system for youth is not a very effective and youth re-offend at a enormously high levels, so it's not a very effective system just to send a kid to juvenile hall and put them in the juvenile jail for a matter of three weeks or three months is usually not going to help very much because doesn't do very much there. He may do a little bit of schooling, but as far as reorganizing his life, reorganizing his value system, reorganizing his attitudes, reorganizing his behavior patterns, it doesn't happen and that's what it requires. Do appreciate what they had done wrong. Yeah. It may happen a little bit, but not very much to reconcile with the person that he's offended. It doesn't happen. Doesn't happen in juvenile hall. That's the reason for restorative justice. It's a way for some type of. For some juvenile who has committed a crime to number one, have a place to go with council and with a counselor and with his parents and with the victim. Acknowledge what he had done wrong. Okay, that's the start of it. What has he done wrong? To acknowledge that? Okay, and then number two, to learn to listen to the victim and to learn the impact of his inappropriate behavior of his criminal behavior. See, it's not late to learn what he's done wrong and why that was wrong, but what impact did that wrong behavior have on another person and that person's family, that person's extended friendships. How did it impact that particular person that was offended, so it's this what restorative justice is all about. It's a place to go to learn what was done wrong, why it was wrong, and what impact that had upon the victim, and then it's an opportunity. It's a place. It's an opportunity to make amends, to get forgiveness, to seek forgiveness, do understand forgiveness. I understand why forgiveness is important to understand how one forgives and the value of forgiveness, but this whole thing of forgiveness then can be talked about so that everybody learns more about making amends and making and having forgiveness. Amends is making it right. Sometimes you have to repay, so now you have to pay for something that was broken. Sometimes you have to get something to Eureka and give it back to a person that you've taken. There's lots of ways to make amends. I remember the guy that one time made a men's because he had stolen bushes from a nursery, from a nursery. I mean when he took those home and use them in his house. It was many years later that he became convicted and he wanted to make amends and he went and bought a whole bunch of bushes twice as many as he had taken and he took him to the nursery and gave him back. Didn't get back to three or four that he took. He gave back six or eight of them to make sure that he had settled the deal between them. That's what's making amends is all about and then learning how to take corrective action to live a life of correction, to live a life, and that's what correctional is all about. When you talked about the correctional system, it's supposed to correct the behavior, but restorative justice then ends with the idea of correcting behavior, changing behavior, getting into new behavior pattern in place and living that way, and then monitoring it to make sure that it stabilizes and then it continues on on into the future, not just a promise, but that it actually takes place, so there's periodic times of checkup and a reevaluation and to assess how well it's going so that the amends are not only made, but the corrective action is not only taken an undertaking, but it stabilizes. It becomes part of the lifestyle of that individual. So that's restorative aca, restorative justice and educators. If they use that in the school, they have another means by which to help children, help their students come to terms with inappropriate behavior, correct behavior and correct their lifestyle. It helps the juvenile court system look at a child's inappropriate behavior differently and not just look at it in terms of how many days in jail or how many months in jail or that kind of thing, but how to get from the act of a crime to the act of a correctional behavioral pattern, a corrected behavior pattern, how to go through process of bringing about correction, how to go through that process, about bringing about forgiveness. I would go through the process about bringing about restored relationships and that everybody can win the victim winds and the perpetrator wins. That's what restorative justice is all about, so if you have a kid and your kid gets in trouble, opt for restorative justice, ask if you can participate in a restorative justice program in your community or in your court system. It's generally available. Now. Let me go back to sat seven, referring to their website, sat. Seven is www dot sat, seven usa.org and then slash kids. This is a satellite television programming into the Middle East and into North Africa and it brings about a Christian, a broadcasting programming, academic school programming, socialization programming to these young children who are living in that part of the world. Many of which are living in refugee camps and these other refugee camps that have televisions on their tents and under sheds and the child and their family watches that television all day long. Learning and being educated and being advanced in their own social world and making changes in their life so that they can start to live more independently and more effectively as they move onto the next generation. So I recommend to you sat seven www. Sat Seven USA.org. Check it out. You may want to send them a few bucks. They're doing a great work in the Middle East and North Africa with the refugee kids and those that live in these countries of Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan and uh, Egypt and Palestine and Libya and all these various countries. So, um, take a look at, check out their website and nice to be with you. And don't forget to check out my website books by Hedberg.com books by Hedberg.com. And there I talk about in my book Dr. Teaching Me To parent. I talk about ways in which parents can help children get out of a life of crime. Avoid a life of crime. So check out the book books by Hedberg Dot Com. Bye for now.