Howard Zehr

Howard J. Zehr (born July 2, 1944) is an American criminologist.

Zehr is considered to be a pioneer of the modern concept of restorative justice.

He is Distinguished Professor of Restorative Justice at Eastern Mennonite University's Center for Justice and Peacebuilding and Co-director Emeritus of the Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice.

The son of a Mennonite church leader in the midwest, Howard Zehr was born in Freeport, Illinois, and raised through his elementary years in two other Illinois municipalities, Peoria and Fisher.

His family moved to Indiana for his middle and high school years.

He studied at two Mennonite institutions, for a year each – Goshen College in Indiana and Bethel College in Kansas – before finishing his undergraduate degree in European history at Morehouse College, an all-male liberal arts college that is historically black, in Atlanta, Georgia.

In Restoring Justice–An Introduction to Restorative Justice, Daniel W. Van Ness and Karen Heetderks Strong say that the term "restorative justice" was likely coined by Albert Eglash in 1958 when he distinguished between three approaches to justice: (1) "retributive justice," based on punishment; (2) "distributive justice," involving therapeutic treatment of offenders; and (3) "restorative justice," based on restitution with input from victims and offenders.

Zehr was the first white to earn a B.A. from Morehouse when he graduated in 1966.

Thanks to the school's then-Morehouse College president Dr. Benjamin Mays, Zehr was able to complete his schooling through a minority scholarship that Mays assisted him in securing; Zehr graduated second in his class.

He earned an M.A. in European history at the University of Chicago in 1967 and a Ph.D. in modern European history from Rutgers University in 1974.

Zehr's contributions to the field date to the late 1970s, when he was a practitioner in the foundational stage of the restorative justice movement.In that capacity he was one of the original founders of the Center for Community Justice( https://www.centerforcommunityjustice.org), a nonprofit that is still active today.

He has led hundreds of events internationally that focus on restorative justice, victim-offender conferencing, judicial reform and other criminal justice issues.

The book made reference to the positive results of efforts in the late 1970s and 1980s at victim-offender mediation, pioneered in the United States by Howard Zehr, Ron Claassen and Mark Umbreit.

A number of scholars believe it is not a coincidence that Mennonites in North America, like Zehr and Claassen, and the social-action arm of their church-community, Mennonite Central Committee, played major roles in popularizing the theory and practices of restorative justice.

"[T]he antinomian groups advocating and supporting restorative justice, such as the Mennonites (as well as Amish and Quaker groups), subscribe to principled pacifism and also tend to believe that restorative justice is much more humane than the punitive juvenile and criminal justice systems."

From 1971 to 1978, he taught at Talladega College in Alabama.

He then left academia to do grassroots work, directing a half-way house in 1978 in Elkhart, Indiana, and becoming the founder and director (1978–1982) of an Elkhart County program now called the Center for Community Justice.

Through this program, Zehr directed the first victim-offender reconciliation program in the United States.

For 17 years, 1979–1996, Zehr directed the Office on Crime and Justice under Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in Akron, PA. While with MCC, Zehr began doing photojournalism, producing professional-quality photographs that were published in MCC journals and books, such as A Dry Roof and a Cow – Dreams and Portraits of Our Neighbors (Akron, Pa: MCC, 1984).

As of 2023, he was the author of five photography-centered books published by Good Books of Intercourse, Pa.: Doing Life: Reflections of Men and Women Serving Life Without Parole (1996; Japanese edition, 2006); Transcending – Reflections of Crime Victims (2001; Japanese edition, 2006); The Little Book of Contemplative Photography (2005); What Will Happen to Me?, about the children of prisoners (2010); Pickups: A Love Story (2013), a light-hearted look at pickup trucks and their owners.

In 2022, Zehr and co-author Barb Toews returned to prisoners featured in the 1996 book and produced Still Doing Life: 22 Lifers 25 Years Later (The New Press, New York & London, 2022).

"Your ability to listen and your respect for human beings, whether they are victims or offenders, is vividly expressed in your two books of photographs and interviews, Transcending – Reflections of Crime Victims, and Doing Life – Reflections of Men and Women Serving Life Sentences," said Thomas J. Porter, JD, executive director of JUSTPEACE Center for Mediation and Conflict Transformation at Hamline University in a ceremony announcing a "lifetime achievement award" for Zehr.

An Ebony magazine reporter wrote: "Howard Zehr, the restorative justice pioneer recognized for building bridges for the voiceless, calls them [the children of prisoners] hidden victims. His latest book, What Will Happen To Me?, places the lens on 30 children whose parents are behind bars. It allows each to be heard as he or she shares thoughts and reflections... The truth of the matter is that approximately 3 million children go to bed with a parent in prison or jail."

Zehr's book Changing Lenses–A New Focus for Crime and Justice, first published in 1990, is credited with being "groundbreaking," one of the first to articulate a theory of restorative justice.

It has been translated into seven languages.

The title of this book refers to providing an alternative framework for thinking about – or new lens for viewing – crime and justice.

Changing Lenses says that in a "retributive justice" framework, crime is an offense against the state, whereas in a restorative justice framework, crime is viewed as a violation of people and relationships.

By the second half of the 1990s, the expression "restorative justice" had become popular, evolving to universal usage by 2006.

The restorative justice movement has attracted many segments of society, including "police officers, judges, schoolteachers, politicians, juvenile justice agencies, victim support groups, aboriginal elders, and mums and dads."

Since 1996, Zehr has been a faculty member of Eastern Mennonite University, based at EMU's Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.

He served as the center's co-director for five years, 2002–2007.

He stepped away from full-time teaching and became co-director of the Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice in 2012.

Zehr is a past member of the Victims Advisory Groups of the United States Sentencing Commission and has taught courses and workshops in restorative justice to more than 1,000 people, many of whom lead their own restorative justice-focused organizations.

Representatives of the Council for Restorative Justice at Georgia State University, Youth Justice Initiative in Iowa, and Mediation Northern Ireland are among the leaders Zehr has taught.

He has given restorative justice presentations in 35 states and 25 countries.

His impact has been especially significant in the United States, Brazil, Japan, Jamaica, Northern Ireland, Britain, Ukraine, and New Zealand, a country that has restructured its juvenile justice system into a family-focused, restorative approach.

The impact of New Zealand's restorative approach is outlined in The Little Book of Family Group Conferences, New Zealand Style, co-authored by Zehr.

Dr. Zehr holds an USA amateur radio license, with the call K4LXY.

"No person has done more to inspire the restorative imaginations of citizens of this planet than Howard Zehr. He has been the great teacher who has invited us to sit beside him to see what he can see through his restorative lens."

- John Braithwaite