| When the link to this site was first sent to me for comment 
              in terms of its potential usefulness in our work in facilitating 
              dialogue between 'victims & offenders' in cases of serious criminal 
              harms, I was sceptical: "Oh, no", I thought, "not 
              another simplistic formulaic approach to the healing of the most 
              complex matters of the human heart." But, having looked more 
              closely, I am impressed that it does assist in causing one to think 
              through a number of the most important elements of genuine apology.
  
              — Dave Gustafson, Co-Director, 
                Community Justice Initiatives, Langley, BC, Canada" Saying sorry is rarely easy. This website is an inspiring 
              example of restorative justice in action. It breaks apology down 
              into simple steps that make it harder for us to deny our responsibility 
              to apologise.  
              — John Braithwaite, author 
                of Crime, Shame and Reintegration, from Cannaberra, Australia. While in general I'm not excited about generated letters, 
              the advantage of this one is that it helps people address the key 
              elements of apology. This is especially important since most of 
              us don't seem to know this.  
              — Howard Zehr, author of Changing 
                Lenses. Apologyletter.org is a brilliant idea and an extremely 
              useful devise that can be used by just about anyone in any circumstance. 
              Saying sorry is not easy and the website provides useful prompts 
              and insights as well as the support so often needed in making that 
              first courageous step towards apology. Whether the letter is sent 
              or not, in the act of composing an apology to someone can come great 
              healing.  
              — Marina Cantacuzino, founder 
                and director of The Forgiveness Project, http://www.theforgivenessproject.com/, 
                London, England. The concept of helping people framing a genuine apology 
              will be very useful for those who struggle with words. We make assumptions 
              that people know how to do this naturally, but apology and acknowledgement 
              are quite complex social skills. This program will help those who 
              want to make things right for those they have wronged.  
              — Marg Thorsborne, restorative 
                justice trainer, http://www.thorsborne.com.au/, Australia. “It is a lovely piece of work that will help 
              people think about the process of heartfelt apology. It clearly 
              is going to be used in the context of other work and perhaps at 
              the end of a course or workshop. The writing of the letter is one 
              process for the writer - the sending of it involves much more consideration 
              . . . the readiness of the recipient to receive such a communication 
              should be tested out before anything is sent as to receive such 
              an explicit letter could be a real shock.”  
              — Tim Newell, Past prison 
                governor United Kingdom, currently working with those affected 
                by serious crime. This is a very interesting, creative, and useful exercise. 
              Even beyond the highly important area of apology, the exercise can 
              serve as a model to elicit pertinent information and emotions in 
              a wide-range of contexts, including many legally-relevant ones.  
              — David B. Wexler, founder 
                Therapeutic Jurisprudence, http://www.therapeuticjurisprudence.org, 
                and law professor University of Puerto Rico.  Since several years I use this website as a learning 
              tool with my students of Victimology in the Criminology degree of 
              the University of the Basque Country. It provokes in them a lot 
              of critical thinking concerning key issues of human suffering, reparation, 
              recovery, rehabilitation and forgiveness etc. It does so not only 
              from an academic point of view but also from a personal and socially 
              engaging perspective. 
              - Gema Varona, senior researcher 
                at the Basque Institute of Criminology and coordinator of the 
                degree in Criminology (University of the Basque Country, Spain). |