When the link to this site was first sent to me for comment
in terms of its potential usefulness in our work in facilitating
dialogue between 'victims & offenders' in cases of serious criminal
harms, I was sceptical: "Oh, no", I thought, "not
another simplistic formulaic approach to the healing of the most
complex matters of the human heart." But, having looked more
closely, I am impressed that it does assist in causing one to think
through a number of the most important elements of genuine apology.
— Dave Gustafson, Co-Director,
Community Justice Initiatives, Langley, BC, Canada"
Saying sorry is rarely easy. This website is an inspiring
example of restorative justice in action. It breaks apology down
into simple steps that make it harder for us to deny our responsibility
to apologise.
— John Braithwaite, author
of Crime, Shame and Reintegration, from Cannaberra, Australia.
While in general I'm not excited about generated letters,
the advantage of this one is that it helps people address the key
elements of apology. This is especially important since most of
us don't seem to know this.
— Howard Zehr, author of Changing
Lenses.
Apologyletter.org is a brilliant idea and an extremely
useful devise that can be used by just about anyone in any circumstance.
Saying sorry is not easy and the website provides useful prompts
and insights as well as the support so often needed in making that
first courageous step towards apology. Whether the letter is sent
or not, in the act of composing an apology to someone can come great
healing.
— Marina Cantacuzino, founder
and director of The Forgiveness Project, http://www.theforgivenessproject.com/,
London, England.
The concept of helping people framing a genuine apology
will be very useful for those who struggle with words. We make assumptions
that people know how to do this naturally, but apology and acknowledgement
are quite complex social skills. This program will help those who
want to make things right for those they have wronged.
— Marg Thorsborne, restorative
justice trainer, http://www.thorsborne.com.au/, Australia.
“It is a lovely piece of work that will help
people think about the process of heartfelt apology. It clearly
is going to be used in the context of other work and perhaps at
the end of a course or workshop. The writing of the letter is one
process for the writer - the sending of it involves much more consideration
. . . the readiness of the recipient to receive such a communication
should be tested out before anything is sent as to receive such
an explicit letter could be a real shock.”
— Tim Newell, Past prison
governor United Kingdom, currently working with those affected
by serious crime.
This is a very interesting, creative, and useful exercise.
Even beyond the highly important area of apology, the exercise can
serve as a model to elicit pertinent information and emotions in
a wide-range of contexts, including many legally-relevant ones.
— David B. Wexler, founder
Therapeutic Jurisprudence, http://www.therapeuticjurisprudence.org,
and law professor University of Puerto Rico.
Since several years I use this website as a learning
tool with my students of Victimology in the Criminology degree of
the University of the Basque Country. It provokes in them a lot
of critical thinking concerning key issues of human suffering, reparation,
recovery, rehabilitation and forgiveness etc. It does so not only
from an academic point of view but also from a personal and socially
engaging perspective.
- Gema Varona, senior researcher
at the Basque Institute of Criminology and coordinator of the
degree in Criminology (University of the Basque Country, Spain).
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