Sylvia Clute
30 July 2022
The radically healing power of unitive justice
Audio
Video
Sylvia Clute
President, Alliance for Unitive Justice, Trainer and Author
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Sylvia Clute is the founder of a revolutionary model of criminal justice, known as unitive justice. A former trial attorney, she has devoted her life to justice – but unlike many she has truly reflected on the meaning of this word - justice.
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For Sylvia, there are two fundamental models of justice, one grounded in fear that seeks retribution and revenge and one grounded in love that seeks healing and transformation--what she calls "Unitive Justice”.
In this episode, Sylvia shares her vision and the work she does in not just formulating the model but bringing it to life.
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Bio:
Sylvia Clute has devoted her life to justice – but unlike many she has truly reflected on the meaning of this word - justice.
​
Sylvia has realised that there are two fundamental models of justice, one grounded in fear that seeks retribution and revenge (which is what she practiced in the courtroom) and one grounded in love that seeks healing and transformation--what she calls "Unitive Justice”.
She was a trial attorney for 28 years but left trial practice in 2003 to pursue the vision of creating Unitive Justice as a parallel model operating at the local level, while being part of the worldwide Integrative Law movement.
She now devotes her time to writing about Unitive Justice and its application in other domains such as Unitive Education, Unitive Business and Unitive Spirituality.
Show notes:
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[1:45] Sylvia relates how she transformed from being a trial attorney who 'went for the jugular' to the founder of a kinder, more loving and healing model of justice with no punitive elements.
[7:30] Through remaining actively practising as a trial attorney, Sylvia built up her model of unitive justice. She identified non-punitive counterparts to correspond to the 14 punitive elements she found in traditional justice models.
[11:35] We need new language to discuss unitive justice because we lack even the words to describe the different concepts it represents.
[17:20] Sylvia relates how she came across 'circle processes', which she sought to take into a public housing project. This introduced her to two convicted felons who had themselves discovered the power of unitive justice concepts via a method they called 'radical tenderness'..
[24:26] With Paul Taylor and Weldon 'Prince' Bunn, Sylvia has co-created a programme called Unity Prison Culture Change which they are piloting in prisons and eventually will take to the community.
[28:07] We discuss the empowerment that unitive justice gives to victims, when we understand that many victims go on to become offenders, and then can use their experiences to be 'credible messengers of change'
[35:43] Sylvia talks about the work she is doing in education, with troubled schools. arming teachers with tools to engender culture change.
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Links:
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The Unitive Justice website: www.unitivejustice.com
Alliance for Unitive Justice website: www.a4uj.org
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Dominic Barter and Restorative Circles
About Paul Taylor and Weldon "Prince' Bunn on the Alliance for Unitive Justice website
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