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Youth Incarceration : Restorative Justice And Social Work Practice, Elissa N. Berlinger

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

This project examined the problem of juvenile crime and incarceration. I explored how two Criminal Justice theories—Attribution theory and Deterrence theory—support and explain the problem, and how two Social Work theories—Social Justice theory and Responsive Regulation theory—offer an alternative view and solution to the problem. I explained the principles and program models of Restorative Justice and strived to understand why there are so few Social Workers involved in Restorative Justice programs. Through this work, I addressed the following questions: with Restorative Justice carrying similar values as the Social Work profession, why are Social Workers not involved in Restorative Justice programs? …