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Who are you? Karen Lang
from Alicia Hanson's article on abc.net.au:
"Imagine you are shopping at Garden City - you are trying to find an appropriate jumper for your daughter. It has to have a high neck. Something that will compliment her blonde hair and fair skin. You know she would want to look her best. Finally you find a soft mauve high neck jumper, you know it will look beautiful on her. You clutch your purchase and contain yourself till you reach your car - where you break into sobs. The jumper is for your daughter to wear in the casket - there will be a viewing and the high neck is to cover her wounds. You will never shop at Garden City again without thinking of her. Imagine." - Karen Lang
May 11, 2012 Other, Case:Violence, Victim, Prison, Case:Homicide
Father of Adam Rogers meets son’s teenage killer in prison
from the story by Sam Chadderton in Lancashire Telegraph:
Adam Rogers’s father and his teenage killer have come face to face in an ‘emotional’ prison meeting.
.... Dave Rogers who has campaigned with wife Pat for an end to senseless violence in their 24-year-old son’s memory, said he would recommend the ‘restorative justice’ process to other grieving families.
Oct 27, 2011 Dialogue, Country:England&Wales, Victim, Offender, Region: Europe, Prison, Case:Homicide
Murderers turned peacemakers
from the article by Laurel Kaufer on Peace X Peace:
How is it that women, with dark pasts, serving time for murder and manslaughter, could possibly become honored peacemakers?
Their story is one of personal commitment to themselves and the community in which most are destined to live out their lives. “This is an environment filled with conflict and violence. There is a dire need and want for change,” says Susan Russo, one of the fifteen initial peacemakers, serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole at the largest prison for women in the world, Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, CA. “Mediation interests all of us because we are lifers and long-termers hoping to make a difference in teaching our peers that there is a better way.”
Beginning her quest in 2007, Sue Russo wrote over 50 handwritten letters from prison to mediators all over California. Her letters went unanswered until August of 2009 when one of her letters made it to me, Laurel Kaufer, Esq., a Southern California mediator and peacemaker and founder of the post-Katrina Mississippi Mediation Project.
Sep 06, 2011 Dialogue, Victim, Offender, Region: North America and Caribbean, Prison, Case:Homicide, Transformation, Country:USA
After the crime: the power of restorative justice. Dialogues between victims and violent offenders
Violence, rape, murder and other abusive crimes: not usually pleasant subjects to read about, yet Susan Miller's book left this reader with a positive feeling. This is largely due to Miller herself, who presents the information in a straightforward, sympathetic but non-judgemental way; to Kim Book, who started the organization Victims' Voices Heard after her daughter was murdered; and to the participants themselves. Not all victims felt able to forgive, and this should not be a criterion for 'success'; but they followed the Amish precept: don't balance hurt with hate. Not all offenders accepted full responsibility. Miller divides restorative justice into diversion, taking the place of the criminal justice process for relatively minor cases, and 'therapeutic' RJ, where the offender is already in custody or has served a prison term. These cases are all in the latter category.
Jul 29, 2011 Dialogue, Prison, Book Review, Offender, Practice, Case:Violence, Victim, Case:Sexual, Case:Homicide, Forgiveness
Colorado mother wishes for meeting with son's killers
from Ivan Moreno's article in the San Francisco Chronicle:
The 3-year-old boy affectionately known as "Biscuit" was sleeping in the back of a parked old Cadillac when the shooting began.
Fourteen bullets hit the car in the drive-by shooting outside a northeast Denver duplex. Biscuit was shot in the head and died. His brother, Calvin, four days shy of his 7th birthday, and a teenage cousin were unhurt.
Sharletta Evans — mother of Biscuit, or Casson Xavier Evans — came to forgive the gunmen, who were 15 and 16 years old at the time of the Dec. 21, 1995, shooting. But it took years for her to decide she wanted to meet them in prison, hoping for closure.
A new Colorado law encourages the state Department of Corrections to facilitate such reconciliation meetings. Yet it's a process that requires they be safe and don't backfire on victims. And prison officials say there's simply no money to make it happen in the near future.
Jul 21, 2011 Dialogue, Victim, Offender, Region: North America and Caribbean, Prison, Case:Homicide, Country:USA
