Janine tells us that her Marquette students are very passionate about the Restorative Justice Initiative. Once she is able to get people to understand what RJ is, they fall in love with the process. Her students feel privileged to journey with a victim and find a different way to deal with harm and conflict. The RJ process changes their outlook on life and what they do after they graduate.
Janine and her colleagues also do prison work where they’ve been running a program for 15 years in a maximum security prison. They take 25 high-end offenders serving life sentences and bring them together with victims (but not the offenders’ actual victims). The two groups sit in “circles” for 3 full days, during which they go from building community in the room to having an understanding of how the crimes hurt the victims to everyone telling their stories and doing activities together. It’s a very spiritual and transformative experience for all involved.
Janine’s main take-away from this work is that everyone has the desire to be heard and understood, and that simple dialogue can transform relationships.
Segment 2: There Will Always Be Grief. In additional to her work in prisons and Marquette’s Restorative Justice Initiative, Janine has a caseload of victim-offender dialogues that she and her coworkers facilitate. These meetings are always at the victim’s request, and the minimum prep time is at least six months. It’s a personal journey for the survivor and the offender to go back in time and process their feelings about this terrible incident. The victims decide what they want to ask and what they want to resolve. The meetings are incredibly powerful. It becomes a flow of dialogue between two individuals, and Janine does not interfere. It’s unbelievable for most of us to think that someone whose child was murdered can sit within feet of the offender. Janine stresses that there will always be grief, but often the victims find themselves in a more peaceful place and with an opportunity to move forward with greater ease.
Segment 3: The Circle. Wardens who have sat in during the process have been impressed. They tell Janine that they notice a change in the offenders who have participated in the circle for three days. Janine looks at RJ in a broad sense: through the lens of harm, and not just crime. She and her colleagues have facilitated RJ peace circles with high school sports teams to explore un-sportsmanlike conduct, and with racial profiling cases, and with medical malpractice, and much more. The facilitators first need to just get the two sides to meet, and then reassure them that it is a safe environment meant to start a dialogue. It’s not particularly touchy-feely. Many victim advocates fear the process, as if the victims will be re-victimized. Sometimes it’s difficult to get past the advocate to see if the victim is even interested in exploring the process.
Segment 4: Lawyer to Peacemaker. Janine’s students tell her that they practice law differently because of going through her program. There are many little victories throughout the process, and people’s lives are forever changed. Janine believes if we can improve the way we react, and lawyers can become peacemakers and problem-solvers, then the Restorative Justice Initiative’s teaching will be successful. To learn more about Janine Geske’s invaluable work, visit http://law.marquette.edu/rji/.
To listen to the entire interview: