Restoring justice and things of this sort

On the second Thursday of every month, I attend my Restorative Justice meeting. It's a fine opportunity to connect with new Kiwi friends, debate important issues in criminal law and sentencing policy, and listen to one really strong south, south, south, really southern south island accent. The fact that the accent issues from the mouth of a hilarious former cop who has found more meaning in saving lives than incarcerating them only makes the occasion that much better.

This woman is a youth justice coordinator, a particularly New Zealand position in a particularly New Zealand institution. She runs Family Group Conferences, which are a Kiwi invention conceived to help young offenders get some idea of the harm they cause through crime. The offending kid has to sit with his/her family, the victim, possibly the victim's family, and sometimes community members. They all have a say in what happened because of the crime committed. Then they get to say what they want to happen. If that gets done by the kid, whether its car-washing or housecleaning or anger management or drug rehabilitiation, then the kid fulfills the contract and stays out of the big house. It's the early model for Restorative Justice in New Zealand, and it has successfully kept many kids out of detention facilities and off the criminal path.

I don't just like this lady for her accent or her job, I suppose. I also admire her candor about her complete 180 from super-cop-woman to super-youth-justice-woman. Plus, she is married to a cop who doesn't like her aboutface. She says to him, and it took me three or four times to understand it, "tough." And she proceeds along, trying to bring a bunch of kids face-to-face with the problems they cause, and getting them to acknowledge that it stinks. I wish you could hear her say stink. Now, with me, she is a facilitator with a Restorative Justice organization. She is expanding her reconciliation movement to the adults. The best thing is, for reals now, she used to play netball in Invercargill. She grew up somewhere around there. That's why she has that accent.

Netball. It's basketball played only by girls who wear short skirts, can't run with the ball and have to stay at least three feet away when challenging the ball handler. Good defense is a slight raising of the one hand toward the girl with the ball, but nicely. No waving it about. Plus, only two or maybe three people can actually try to shoot a basket and when they do, everyone gets really quiet and stops moving to let the player concentrate on her shot. Netball.

Here are some words I have worked out from my friend's mouth:

Stink = Stongk
Tasty = Tes ti
Tough = two f
Netball = neep ble (hee hee).