2006 Community of Christ International Peace Award Recipient
Howard ZehrBiographical Information
Zehr is a co-director of the Centre for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, USA. He is an internationally known practitioner, writer, lecturer, and teacher in the field of criminal justice. He is considered one of the founders of the contemporary restorative movement, and his groundbreaking book, Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice (Herald Press), is widely regarded as a standard in the field. One of his most recent books is an excellent introduction, The Little Book of Restorative Justice (Good Books).
Zehr directed the first victim-offender reconciliation program in the United States in the 1970s. Victims and offenders were far more satisfied that justice has been done with the more cooperative, problem-solving approach than were those whose matters were handled through traditional court processes. Zehr suggests that the two keys to a genuinely restorative approach are the active participation of the community and the central place that the crime victim must be given.
In 2003 Zehr was awarded the International Prize for Restorative Justice by Prison Fellowship International’s Centre for Justice and Reconciliation. PFI is an association of prison ministries in more than100 countries around the world. The mission of the center is to promote the use of restorative justice so that one day it will be the common response to crime around the world.
Zehr and a colleague were appointed by the federal court in the Timothy McVeigh Oklahoma City bombing trial to assist attorneys in working with victims. Out of this developed a program of exchange visits of survivors of the U.S. embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya, and the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.
Zehr has lectured, consulted, and trained in several dozen countries throughout the world. He has worked with community groups, police, and correctional agencies in countries such as Northern Ireland, England, Russia, Jamaica, Bosnia, New Zealand, and South Africa. He is also an accomplished documentary and journalistic photographer with several publications to his name. Of particular interest is that Zehr’s bachelor’s degree is from Morehouse College, where he was the first white graduate of this historically African- American college. He earned his master’s degree from the University of Chicago, and his doctorate from Rutgers University.