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Awesome things happen when people come together
Recently, I met with representatives from Prison Fellowship Italy (PF Italy) visiting the Washington, DC area. In early 2010, a colleague and I had visited Italy to train members of the new organisation in the Sycamore Tree Project® so I was really looking forward to hearing about their experiences and the lessons learned. I wasn’t prepared for the awe inspiring stories that they told.
The Sycamore Tree Project® is an in-prison restorative justice programme bringing together unrelated victims and prisoners for a series of six to eight sessions. Through the sessions, participants explore the impact of crime, taking responsibility, confession, repentance, making amends, forgiveness and reconciliation. PF Italy worked quickly to implement this programme in Italian prisons but faced a few obstacles. In the end, the prison administration allowed them to start but with the proviso that the first group consist of prisoners who were mafia members convicted of committing murder and survivors of victims of such mafia activity. I remember receiving that news and thinking, “That’s not where I would want to start.”
Feb 14, 2011 Region: Europe, Correspondent:Lynette Parker, Other, Victim, Prison, Country:Italy
Interview with Debbie, a rape victim of Robert Power
from the interview by Ines Aubert:
Ines Aubert was a pen pal of Robert Powers who had been sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl. She discovered over time that Robert had changed profoundly and that he wanted, among other things, to extend an apology to any of his victims who wished to receive that.
This took on some urgency at the end of 2010 as Robert neared the end of his life (he died of cancer on December 3). Ines contacted restorative justice consultant and RJOnline Correspondent Lisa Rea for assistance, but they were unable to find a way to reach out to Robert's victims. Lisa wrote about this in an earlier blog entry on RJOB.
Commenting on an article about Robert's death in a Florida newspaper, Ines wrote that he had wanted to apologize before his death but had been unable. Another reader -- one of Robert's victims -- replied to Ines that she had forgiven Robert. The two were able to connect, and Ines recently interviewed Debbie about her experience as a victim and the reasons for her forgiveness. The following is a short excerpt of an answer Debbie gave to Ines' question about how she felt when she learned that Robert had a pen pal.
Feb 11, 2011 Apology, Offender, Prison, Other, Case:Violence, Victim, Case:Sexual, Forgiveness, Country:USA
Alcoholic boy of nine found in thug family during anti-social behaviour crackdown
from Krissy Storrar's article in the Daily Mirror:
Officials probing a family terrorising neighbours were stunned when they found their boy of nine was an alcoholic.
....Residents had been making 13 complaints a month about the thuggish family amid claims of menacing and lewd language, criminal damage, vandalism and threats.
Anti-social behaviour officer Richard Jordan said: “People were so intimidated by this family at least two neighbours moved away just to escape them.
Feb 10, 2011 Story, Country:England&Wales
Should DUI mug shots be on Facebook?
from Johnathan Kana's entry on ThinkChristian.net:
Shame has its proper place, of course. Until we experience shame, deep remorse for our deeds is impossible and enduring reform is unlikely. But shame as a noun is quite a different thing from shame as a verb. The former is not induced by the latter. Good shame is advanced through acts of love, not acts of retribution.
I am therefore highly skeptical of whether publicly shaming DUI offenders will actually save many lives. Even supposing such a measure might prove effective, though, I fear the collateral damage done to offenders’ friends and family may be too high a price to pay. And from the sounds of it, a “party city” like Huntington Beach would not be able to maintain a shame culture for very long. Within months there would be dozens or more photos posted, and it is difficult to publicly shame someone when his face becomes lost in an ever-widening crowd.
Laura's Law: Remembering the victims of violence
by Lisa Rea
Considering gun related violence and its impact on the victims, I remember the courageous work of Amanda and Nick Wilcox in Northern California in the name of their daughter, Laura. A recent press piece describes what they have done to fight violence since the shooting death of their daughter at the hands of Scott Thorpe on January 10, 2001.
Feb 08, 2011 Correspondent:Lisa Rea, Support, Practice, Case:Violence, Victim
No script for the journey
Feb 07, 2011 Conference, Limitations, Support, Practice, Correspondent:Lynette Parker, Volunteer
Martin Luther King and making amends
from Samuel Newhouse's articly in Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?”
This quote by King is helping recovering drug addicts find the wisdom behind restorative justice in the Brooklyn courts.
“Martin Luther King Day has really become a day of volunteer work, and encouraging people to do volunteer work,” said Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Jo Ann Ferdinand, supervising judge of Brooklyn Treatment Court (BTC).
Nonviolent drug-offenders and criminal defendants in the BTC receive lesser sentences for successful completion of treatment and courses. Besides basic drug rehabilitation, the BTC mandates that the drug offenders volunteer their time and “give back to the community” that they harmed.
Feb 04, 2011 Retribution, Theory, Community Service
Apologies help heal
from an editorial in the Abbotsford-Mission Times:
Last week, we wrote of the bravery of the 16-year-old girl who was the victim of an apparent gang rape at a rave in Pitt Meadows last September.
The young woman has issued a statement thanking both those who supported her and those who spread lies and bullied her in the wake of the incident. Both, she said, had made her a stronger person.
The victim was forced to leave school after images and rumours about the attack began circulating. She is now taking most of her classes online.
Feb 03, 2011 Offender, Case:Violence, Apology, Case:Sexual
The national empathy divide
from Robert Koehler's entry on Huffington Post:
The movement known as restorative, or transformative, justice, which is slowly taking root and making a difference across the country and around the world, challenges the notion that our basic response to crime should be punishment rather than healing. And healing means restoring a broken system to wholeness, which addresses and honors the complexity of who we are and how we are connected. It includes all of us. The aggrieved and victimized only become empowered when they are able to connect with the ones who have caused them harm.
Furthermore, any criminal act, especially an act of violence, produces consequences, and damages relationships, that radiate in all directions. Only if all who are affected sit down in relationship to one another, a process that is by no means easy or simple, and may well take an enormously long time, can healing occur. Such healing, which means the strengthening of social ties, is the true meaning of peace.
Feb 02, 2011 Case:Homicide, Case:Violence
Restorative justice: Why I confronted the man who raped me
from Zoe Williams' article in The Guardian:
When Joanne Nodding met the man who raped her, the first thing she noticed, she says, was how scared he was. "He thought I was going to be angry," she says, "he was expecting me to shout and scream and tell him that I hated him. But if I had [been uncontrollably angry] they wouldn't have allowed me to meet him."
Instead she told the man, who cannot be named, how she had felt during the attack, and how it had affected her family. She explained that she had been terrified, while he was raping her, that he was going to kill her.
"That had a really big impact on him," she says. "He said 'sorry', and I did feel like it was a genuine 'sorry'."
Feb 01, 2011 Country:England&Wales, Case:Violence, Region: Europe, Case:Sexual
