Reflecting on Restorative justice, through film and discussion

Restorative Justice (RJ) is a complementary approach in criminal justice that aims to get the offender to reflect on the damaging consequences of his or her conduct and to work towards repairing the fracture produced by the offence. The discussion on RJ was launched in Switzerland some years ago. More recently, in the Italian-speaking part of the country the discussion is enabled by the regional group of the Swiss Forum for RJ, namely through activities jointly organised by the Institute of Law (IDUSI) and the Institute of Argumentation, Linguistics and Semiotics (IALS) at USI. Among these, the public screening of the documentary "Je ne te voyais pas" by Swiss film director François Kohler, for the first time with Italian subtitles, on October 2, 2021, in the USI Auditorium at the Lugano West Campus - followed by a panel discussion with political, judicial and academic experts.

"Restorative justice, while generating much interest among practitioners, too often remains on an abstract level", says Prof. Annamaria Astrologo of IDUSI. "Given that the aim of the Italian-speaking regional group of the Swiss Forum for Restorative Justice is to raise public awareness on the issue of RJ, and having managed to obtain a copy of the film Je ne te voyais pas by François Kohler with Italian subtitles, we felt that this could be a good opportunity to bring the discussion and reflections to the wider audience and, as such, comprehensible to all those who want to know and understand the meaning of this new form of justice".

The initiative is part of a series of events organised jointly by IDUSI and IALS. The intense collaboration between the two Institutes on the subject has led, among other things, to the creation of a continuing education course called "Narrare, dialogare, (ri)costruire", which debuted in August 2021 at USI and which is designed for former convicts as well as people still serving time in the open section of the penitentiary, with the teaching and scientific supervision provided by professors Sara Greco (IALS) and Annamaria Astrologo (IDUSI).

For information on the public event of October 2: 
www.usi.ch/it/feeds/16846, or the flyer attached.