18 Facts About Howard Zehr

Howard J Zehr was born on July 2,1944 and is an American criminologist.

Howard Zehr is Distinguished Professor of Restorative Justice at Eastern Mennonite University's Center for Justice and Peacebuilding and Co-director Emeritus of the Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice.

The son of a Mennonite church leader in the midwest, Howard Zehr was born in Freeport, Illinois, and raised through his elementary years in two other Illinois municipalities, Peoria and Fisher.

Howard Zehr's family moved to Indiana for his middle and high school years.

Howard Zehr then left academia to do grassroots work, directing a half-way house in 1978 in Elkhart, Indiana, and becoming the founder and director of an Elkhart County program now called the Center for Community Justice.

Since 1996, Howard Zehr has been a faculty member of Eastern Mennonite University, based at EMU's Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.

Howard Zehr stepped away from full-time teaching and became co-director of the Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice in 2012.

Howard Zehr is a past member of the Victims Advisory Groups of the United States Sentencing Commission and has taught courses and workshops in restorative justice to more than 1,000 people, many of whom lead their own restorative justice-focused organizations.

Howard Zehr has given restorative justice presentations in 35 states and 25 countries.

Howard Zehr's impact has been especially significant in the United States, Brazil, Japan, Jamaica, Northern Ireland, Britain, Ukraine, and New Zealand, a country that has restructured its juvenile justice system into a family-focused, restorative approach.

Dr Howard Zehr holds a USA amateur radio license, with the call K4LXY.

Howard Zehr has been the great teacher who has invited us to sit beside him to see what he can see through his restorative lens.

Howard Zehr's contributions to the field date to the late 1970s, when he was a practitioner in the foundational stage of the restorative justice movement.

Howard Zehr has led hundreds of events internationally that focus on restorative justice, victim-offender conferencing, judicial reform and other criminal justice issues.

In Changing Lenses, Howard Zehr describes restorative justice as focusing on the harms done, and consequent needs and obligations, of all parties involved.

Howard Zehr has raised awareness that judicial punishment is a social choice, rather than being the only possible response to crime, and that a more socially productive, healing choice can emerge through the application of restorative justice.

Howard Zehr is the author, co-author or editor of two dozen books, plus the source of dozens of chapters, op-ed pieces, and other presentations.

Howard Zehr is widely interviewed by or quoted in the media.