Elmar Weitekamp, professor of law from the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, talks about his extensive work in mediation, and in community and problem-oriented policing using a restorative justice approach. Restorative justice is a value-based approach to responding to wrongdoing and conflict, with a balanced focus on the offender, victim, and community. Restorative justice emphasizes transforming wrongdoing by healing the harm, particularly to relationships, that is created by harmful behavior. This discussion is hosted by The College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University.
Elmar Weitekamp is a restorative justice pioneer in Germany. He is studying the relationship between the restorative justice movement and the human rights movement which led to truth and reconciliation commissions. He currently serves as Professor of Criminology, Victimology and Restorative Justice in the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology at Katholieke University in Leuven, Belgium. Weitekamp began his career as a Social Worker in the Department of Juvenile Welfare for the City of Mchengladbach, Germany. After earning an M.S.W. in Social Work in 1980 at Fachhochschule Niederrhein, Mnchengladbach, Germany, and an M.A. in Criminology (1982) at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, he entered the field of criminological research at the University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany. Weitekamp then taught in various positions at the University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School, and earned a Ph.D. in Criminology for the Graduate Group of Managerial Sciences and Applied Economics, The Wharton School (1989).