Victims Confront Offenders, Face To Face

Victims Confront Offenders, Face To Face July 28, 2011 Audio for this story from Talk of the Nation will be available at approx. 6:00 p.m. ET.

Guests Sujatha Baliga, senior program specialist, National Council on Crime and Delinquency Robert Johnson, former president, National District Attorneys Association July 28, 2011 Even when criminal cases end in guilty verdicts, sometimes victims need more. A growing number of jurisdictions are giving offenders and victims a chance to meet each other, and even reconcile. Some go further, giving crime victims a say in the offenders’ punishment, without ever going to trial.

NEWS: RESTORE Director Elected to National Board

Mesa, Arizona, 04/11/2011 — Frustrated neighbors, feuding families, and others caught in stressful situations have a new advocate in their quest to finally put their conflicts to rest.  John Gehm, Director of Restore, Inc. has recently been elected to the Board of Directors of the National Association for Community Mediation.  In this new capacity, John Gehm will serve as a national advocate for increased awareness, accessibility, and utilization of constructive community mediation and other conflict-assistance services.

Community mediation helps those in difficult conflicts directly engage the other side and work through the situation using a trained, impartial mediator.  From noisy neighbors to family fall-outs, interpersonal spats to embattled public policy divisions, community mediation works to move individuals and entire communities from conflict to concord.  In fact, over 400 community mediation programs throughout the country assist countless individuals each year in overcoming seemingly impossible problems to discover their own customized resolutions to earlier discord.

Through Gehm’s new role, programs everywhere will benefit from his extensive background and local experience helping our own community better engage its conflicts.  He will work to equip and enhance these services in other communities, as he shares this national platform and wisdom through his continued service to our own area residents.

For additional information, please contact: Justin R. Corbett, Executive Director of the National Association for Community Mediation (NAFCM), at (602) 633-4213 or admin@nafcm.org.

Additional information about NAFCM: In communities around the globe, programs and volunteers share their expertise to help others constructively engage, transform, and resolve conflict.  NAFCM supports these peacemakers by aggregating their wisdom, amplifying their voice, and advancing their critical work.  An active advocate for constructive conflict-assistive services, NAFCM support the over 400 community mediation programs across the U.S. and many others internationally.  For more information, including an interactive map of local programs and resources to help you move beyond conflict, please visit www.nafcm.org.

 Justin R. Corbett

National Association for Community Mediation

(602) 633-4213

admin@nafcm.org

www.nafcm.org

We incarcerate too many youth and our government is broke

We incarcerate too many youth and our government is broke—we’ve heard both laments lately in the news. The cry goes up for an effective way to deal with youthful offenders—a way that is cost effective, proven, humane, and rehabilitative. The answer is here: Restorative Justice.

Restorative Justice is an age-old way of dealing with infractions upon societal norms. It involves those who have been wronged, and allows them to have a say in the outcome. It holds the perpetrator directly responsible for the wrong-doing, and seeks to reintegrate him or her into the community. It is an alternative to incarceration that reduces recidivism and costs, and provides better emotional outcomes for victims and offenders. It involves a face-to-face meeting between the parties to get answers and provide accountability. Meetings are facilitated by an experienced mediator.

RESTORE, Inc, formerly the Victim-Offender Mediation Program, has offered this service in southeastern South Dakota for nearly 20 years.  The program is underutilized, however, and is ready to step in today to alleviate budget and other problems associated with nonviolent juvenile offenders.  Restorative Justice programs have been used across the United States for over 25 years, but are based in indigenous practices that have been in use for thousands of years.  Dozens of studies exist to prove their effectiveness. In South Dakota, the Center for Restorative Justice in Rapid City was created under the leadership of Judge Merton B. Tice, Jr. in 1997, and mediates many cases each year. I helped set up programs in Indiana, New Hampshire, and Michigan that have been in operation for decades. As a consultant to the National Institute of Corrections, I have evaluated the effectiveness of such programs and have published many articles in the field.  I know it works.

It’s time for South Dakota to stop thinking about punishment only in terms of jail and prison.  Thinking about crime through the lens of restorative justice translates into a philosophy of  making things right—for the victim, the offender, and the community as a whole. RESTORE is ready to put Restorative Justice to work. The question is, is South Dakota ready for a better approach?

Challenging the status quo remains a risky business

Journalism Professor Who Helped Free 5 Innocent Men from Death Roll Has Been Sacked | Civil Liberties | AlterNet.

Burning Bridges

Information Night

A restorative justice information night will be held on Thursday, March 17 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in meeting room A at the downtown public library in Sioux Falls.

The event will open at 6:30 with a 35-minute documentary film shown at 7:00. The film, “Burning Bridges,” will be followed by a question and answer time with refreshments.

Burning Bridges recounts the aftermath of the arson of an historic wooden covered bridge by six local young men in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The focus is on the restorative conference that dealt with the shock and outrage of the community and how the young men were held accountable, as well as the fear and grief experienced by the perpetrators and their families in this small community.

The film provides an excellent introduction to restorative justice, which seeks to repair the harm done to victims of crime and hold offenders accountable in a meaningful, rehabilitative way. Restorative justice can also be used to resolve disputes in schools, churches, businesses, neighborhoods, and families. Information will be available on upcoming mediation workshop opportunities.

The event is sponsored by RESTORE, Inc., a non-profit organization which provides mediation services in southeastern South Dakota. For details, call (605) 338-6020 or email Restore-SD@sio.midco.net

Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation

This is news from Connecticut, a state where, as in Illinois, the movement to abolish state homicide is gathering momentum. One thing that always catches my attention is the MVFR tagline.   Like restorative justice, you can never ‘undo’ what has happened but you can decide how you want to live afterwards.

Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation
Reconciliation means accepting that you cannot undo the murder but you can decide how you want to live afterwards.

March 8, 2011
Friends,
I hope you got a chance to see some of the daylong hearing in Connecticut yesterday. Several victims’ family members including Gail Canzano, Elizabeth Brancato and Walt Everett testified. As soon as they post the archived video and transcripts, I’ll send out a link. In the meantime, there was lots of testimony about the number of folks in Connecticut who support the death penalty based on polling. There is a newspaper poll today in the [Hartford] Courant that we can weigh in on.    See: Courant poll and vote.
Warmly,
Beth Wood

It’s Time For Our Nation To Be Smart on Crime Smart on Crime

Recommendations for the Administration and Congress provides the 112th Congress and the Obama administration with analysis of the problems plaguing our state and federal criminal justice systems and a series of recommendations to address these failures. The report examines the entire criminal justice system, from the creation of new criminal laws to ex-offenders’ reentry into communities after serving their sentences.  Recommendations range from helping to restore and empower victims to identifying ways to protect the rights of the accused. Due to the undeniable human costs and the overwhelming fiscal costs, Americans from diverse political perspectives–particularly professionals with experience in all aspects of the criminal justice system–recognize that the system fails too many, costs too much, and helps too few. Smart on Crime provides the most promising recommendations for resolving our nation’s criminal justice crisis.  You can read or download the full report here.

It is worth noting how many of the recommendations are restorative.

Event: South Dakotans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Hello,
South Dakotans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty is co-hosting an event this Thursday at The Spirit of the Peace United Church of Christ.  The event is at 7:30pm in the Fireside Room.  The event, which is being co-hosted by the Just Peace Action Group, is titled The Road to Abolition: Nearing the End of Capital Punishment in the United States and South Dakota.

The Spirit of the Peace Church is at 6509 S. Cliff Ave (73rd St. and Cliff Ave).

Travis Schulze, coordinator for SDADP, will speak about how recent national trends and the specifics of South Dakota’s death penalty have changed the conversation on capital punishment and will lead a discussion on how South Dakota can move towards death penalty repeal!  Refreshments will be provided.

Restorative solutions … now more than ever….

Crime is a violation of people and relationships. It creates obligations to make things right.   Justice involves the victim, the offender, and the community in a search for solutions which promote repair, reconciliation, and reassurance.

Restorative justice also means being embarrassed to live in a state that locks up more juveniles per capita than any other state in the country.  Are things really more dangerous in South Dakota than they are in New Jersey? Who benefits from this policy?  Now is the time to gather evidence, be passionate, and make your voice heard… You know what to do.  Why not do it?

finding the right words again…

This piece comes courtesy of Cherise Hairston director of the Dayton, Ohio Mediation Center and was sent to members of the National Association for Community Mediation.  It’s worth a read.  Where are there places in our corner of the world to address issues of in-civility, dis-respect, and failure of desire–to communicate as human beings.  We need to remind ourselves that civil discourse sometimes needs a booster shot but the vaccine is available at no charge.

Dearest NAFCM Members,

If you did not have the opportunity to watch/hear President Obama deliver a memorial speech in Tucson last night for the victims of the Tucson, AZ victims, consider “googling” the speech on the internet or catching it on YouTube.

Regardless of one’s political affiliation or feelings about President Obama, this is a beautiful speech that speaks directly to our work as conflict resolution professionals:

“The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better in our private lives-to be better friends and neighbors, co-workers and parents. And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their deaths help usher in more civility in our public discourse, let’s remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy, but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation, in a way that would make them proud. It should be because we want to live up to the example of public servants like John Roll and Gabby Giffords, who knew first and foremost that we are all Americans, and that we can question each other’s ideas without questioning each other’s love of country, and that our task, working together, is to constantly widen the circle of our concern so that we bequeath the American dream to future generations.” (emphasis mine)

I do not want to come off as “opportunistic” in the midst of this tragedy. However, I do see this as an opportunity as a field to work harder at spreading this message of civility in how we treat one another despite our differences. As a field, we hold deeply the belief that if parties to a conflict are supported in constructive ways (i.e., the use of conflict resolution processes, the use of third-party intervenors) that we can manage our most bitter conflicts, in ways that are peaceful and non-violent. We can agree to disagree while not seeking to decimate the character of the people we are in conflict with, or to even strike out and kill one another because we disagree with each other.

This message of managing conflicts and disagreements by peaceful means has been our field’s message. While we have always had a challenge of bringing forth this message to the public, we now face even greater challenges in bringing forth our message of constructive conflict resolution to the world because we, as a people, are constantly being exposed to so many  images of violence and destructive discourse between people. We especially see this almost daily on the news in the images of poisonous political discourse between politicians and pundits, between people of diverse political backgrounds on “both sides of the isle”.

These images of poisonous political discourse are everywhere and invade the public consciousness and promote the message that we can talk nasty to one another, make threats to harm or kill someone because of differing beliefs and values, and be disrespectful to one another failing to recognize that we all have the right to be treated with dignity and to not have our humanity stripped away from us because of our differences, or have our character assassinated because of what we believe.

“But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized—at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do—it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds”

This is the challenge we face as a field in delivering our message of the importance of civil discourse between one another, despite our differences. We face the challenge of the ever increasing tolerance for violence and character assassination when we disagree with one another on fundamental issues of values and beliefs.  Many of our  political leaders, at all levels of government,  fail to realize that they have powerful influence and can set the tone on how we interact with one another. Unfortunately, many times they have failed to do so reinforcing destructive ways of interacting with one another.

From Obama’s speech:

“we can question each other’s ideas without questioning each other’s love of country, and that our task, working together, is to constantly widen the circle of our concern so that we bequeath the American generation to future generations.

“I believe we can be better. Those who died here, those who saved lives here—they help me believe. We may not be able to stop evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us. I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.”

President Obama has issued a call to all Americans (and the world) to be better. His words encourage me to be reflective and always remember that “the way” is always to tap into my  inherent capacities for “decency and goodness”. We all have this inherent capacity for decency and goodness.

The Conflict Resolution field in general, and Community Mediation in particular, must answer this call. We must find ways to unite our message with President Obama’s message and strengthen our efforts to bring the message of the importance of conflict resolution skills and constructive and non-violent processes for managing our conflicts and differences in constructive, civil, and non-violent ways.

“We recognize our own morality, and are reminded that in the fleeting time we have on this earth, what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame—but rather, how well we have loved, and what small part we have played in bettering the lives of others.”

May peace and love always be with each of you as you endeavor to do this important work of providing conflict resolution skills and processes to our fellow community members and to the peoples of the world.

Cherise D. Hairston

Dayton Mediation Center