~~* Paul's Justice Blog - launched July 4 *~~

StopViolence Topics

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Hate Crimes > Gay, Lesbian (LBGT)

New: What Every American Should Know About Crime & Criminal Justice

Domestic Violence & Teen Dating Violence

Rape & Acquaintance Rape

Men Stopping Violence Against Women

School Violence > Youth Violence & Media

Restorative Justice > Faith-based resources

About Victimization & For Survivors

Mediation & general violence prevention

Human Rights & Global Issues

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Recommended Reading

About StopViolence

Sept 11 > Contents ~ Photo of the moment ~ News-Blog (Iraq War) ~ Web Intro ~ Teaching & Pedagogy

Violence & Nonviolence: Pathways to Understanding, by Gregg Barak

Rape As Social Murder by Cathy Winkler

Understanding Rape & The Threat From 'Friends' (It's Not Just About Dating)

StopViolence collects resources about non-repressive responses to a variety of violence, including school shootings, sexual assault, and hate crimes. The underlying belief of StopViolence is that punishment after a crime is not effective crime prevention; a safe and peaceful society requires justice, not overdoses of prison, chain gangs and executions. 

Rather than wage wars on crime and drugs, society needs to explore solutions that contribute to social justice and promote a just peace. The tired 'get tough' rhetoric of politicians is not a solution because violence is not 'caused' by our current sentencing structure. Indeed, the 'get tough' approach is counter-productive when money to build prisons comes from cuts in crime prevention funds, community services and education - kind of like mopping the floor while the tub overflows. 

StopViolence is an ongoing project initially constructed by the students in Dr. Paul Leighton's graduate Violence & Society seminar at Eastern Michigan University in the fall of 1999. The point was not just to learn about violence in society, but learn about reducing violence and turn that knowledge into a website useful for students, teachers, activists, and victims of violence. Additional topics and ongoing expansion occur through the efforts of Paul and his classes, with thanks to EMU for a Faculty Research Fellowship which helped support this project. 

A javascript navigation menu is a standard feature of every page. Navigation options for non-javascript enabled browsers are at the bottom of the page. In addition to many links to outside resources, each main page also contains a search box for Google's award-winning search engine to find additional websites. 
Inevitably, people do things to hurt us. Inevitably, we do things that hurt others. This is part of what it means to be human, to have feelings, to be imperfect, to be vulnerable. Compassion moves us beyond our own wounds and back into human community. It asks the question: What sort of people do bad things? The answer: lonely, scared, ignorant, confused, sick, misguided, angry, fallible, human sort of people - in other words, all of us. 

M. Burton-Nelson, The Unburdened Heart: Five keys to Forgiveness & Freedom

Dr Leighton's other webpage

Paul's Justice Page: The Challenge of Crime in A Free Society

Link to StopViolence:

Please feel free to recommend this site through a text link or by using the 5k gif to the left.

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Background Reading: Internet Citations and Plagiarism

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