Sheryl’s knowledge and study of the Restorative Justice process goes back over 20 years. As a student under Mark Umbreit, she took a workshop and knew immediately that Restorative Justice was the direction she wanted to go in. She began to incorporate restorative dialogue in her work, whether it was in her then-current career or her volunteer work. Mark took her on as a protégé and she began facilitating community mediation and witnessing reconciliation cases. Sheryl has learned that there are moments when you have to allow silence, and just trust the process.
Segment 2: Repairing the Harm. Defining Restorative Justice is difficult, but Sheryl’s quick definition is: repairing the harm that crime or wrongdoing has created. It’s about putting the situation, the community, and the people involved in a different and better place than before the conflict occurred. There is a lot of prep work that goes into a RJ session, and a big part of the prep is managing expectations. Sheryl’s goal is to make the players on both sides aware of what they might expect in a session and the key elements that are on the table.
Segment 3: The Victim Offender Mediation Movement is Not Going Away. Doug tells us that Fresno was the birthplace of mediation and also the birthplace of three strikes, which is a striking paradox. Sheryl’s experience with judges and prosecutors has been mostly positive regarding Restorative Justice. However, she’s currently working with a woman from Michigan who has asked to meet her offender. The victim did not know how to precede with a meeting, so she reached out to Sheryl for help. Sheryl approached the Michigan government, including the State Attorney’s office, but they rejected the idea of victim-offender contact. “No contact” between victims and offenders is very staunchly imbedded in their system. Sheryl is starting a ground roots movement to ask Michigan to change their policies and allow victim offender mediation. She believes that this type of movement is not something that is going away. It makes great economic sense and is going to become more commonplace in the future.
Segment 4: Tell Their Stories. Southern Truth and Reconciliation (STAR) works primarily with organizations that are seeking to do some Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) projects in terms of racial violence that has occurred in some of these communities in the past. STAR partners with communities for projects and outreach programs, which speaks to Sheryl’s passion exploring the Civil Rights Movement. In fact, her first love, as an African American, is researching the Civil Rights Movement and learning how those events shaped her own life and the lives of her parents. Restorative Justice is trying to put a name to the harms that were done and a name to the reconciliation process. Sheryl’s goal with her book is to research and interview larger-than-life figures, like Andrew Young, listen to them, record their stories, and begin the healing process.
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