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Dr. Stauffer was an early proponent of Restorative Justice movement (first called Victim Offender Reconciliation). He believes the research – especially the neuroscience aspect - is finally starting to catch up with the practice. Our brains are actually chemically wired to try to find the humanity in another person, and to empathize.

Segment 2: Interest in Healing, But No Opportunity.  There is something magical and transformative about the restorative justice process. The capacity for human compassion surpasses understanding. All we need to do is give willing victims and offenders the ability to do this in a safe space and it simply unfolds.

Carl and his young family spent 16 years in South Africa. A mediation trainer position opened up in Johannesburg and they made their way there, along with their two small children. At that time there was a lot of political violence that he did not take lightly. In their years there they did race reconciliation, post-war reconstruction, and transitional justice. Carl believes South Africa enjoyed a partial restorative justice process, but not a true restorative justice. It gave a voice to victims, and made people accountable. However, there wasn’t an attachment to remorse, and there was little or no restitution. There was a lot of interest from the African communities in mending the harm of apartheid, but no opportunity. 

Segment 3: Justice is a Human Need.  So how do we heal ourselves? How do we find justice in a community context? And what exactly is justice? This discussion doesn’t make sense unless we reframe the definition of justice. Dr. Stauffer defines justice as imbedded in relationships. We need to ask ourselves how we can build respect and accountability and work out issues without violence. This can only happen when we work on relationships; it’s not going to happen by a set of codes or legal parameters on paper. The myth of Adversary Ideology permeates western law and judicial teaching.  True justice is an actual human need.

Segment 4: Revenge Is Short-Lived.  Vengeance arises out of the dopamine center of the brain. However, the problem with our brain is that once you get revenge, you feel no pleasure. We have an escalation cycle of punishment without reward. What’s really interesting is that when you bring people together to work on reconciliation, there is a huge dopamine release as people come to an agreement and feel peace. We get no reward to anticipating peace; we only get the reward when we achieve it. Sweet revenge might be there in a moment, but it is very short-lived.

All the things that the criminal justice system stands on, such as incapacitation, deterrents and rehabilitation, are not being backed up by research. They are not effective and yet we are continue to pour a huge amount of resources into them. With restorative justice we are repairing harm and mending society. To find out more about Carl’s work and the classes he teaches, visit http://emu.edu/personnel/people/show/cds494.

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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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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/.

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Segment 1: Restorative Justice, Defined.  Our guest on this edition of The Doug Noll Show we have the honor of speaking with Dr. Mark Umbreit, Professor and founding Director of the Center for Restorative Justice & Peacemaking at the University of Minnesota, School of Social Work. Dr. Umbreit is an internationally recognized practitioner and scholar with more than 40 years of experience as a mediator, peacemaker, trainer, teacher and researcher. Has is the author of eight books and more than 200 other publications in the fields of restorative justice, mediation, spirituality, forgiveness, and peacemaking.

Dr. Umbreit defines restorative justice as a process as one which focuses on harm done and involves the people most affected by the harm in the response. It’s about offender accountability, victim assistance and support, and community involvement. True restorative justice is a victim-centered movement. It is also rooted in deep traditional and indigenous and spiritual practices.

Segment 2: A Good Track Record.  Dr. Umbreit says the restorative justice empirical research trajectory is quite good. He has been involved with several meta-analysis with samples as large as 9,000+ that found significant reduction in crime by offenders, positive data regarding serving victims, and satisfaction with entire process. In fact, there is more empirical evidence to validate the core principles of restorative justice – particularly the dialogue practices – then there are for most of our criminal justice programs (which are not examined thoroughly).

Back in the 1980s there were zero states that had an administrative protocol that allowed victims of severe violence to meet their offenders. Now, 27 states have procedures to allow that process. Victims of severe violence have far more trauma, loss, and grief than other types of victims. They usually have the need to get answers and express their pain to the person who caused their loss.

Segment 3: Taming the Tiger of Fear and Trauma.  Restorative justice at its core is simple: it’s about treating people with respect and honoring humanity. Dr. Umbreit’s latest book, Dancing with the Energy of Conflict and Trauma: Letting Go – Finding Peace, outlines struggles with conflict and traumatic events in the form of true stories. He has been blessed to learn from a wide range of people over the years --- people who would normally be labeled as trauma sufferers or wounded --- have been his greatest teachers and heroes. Trauma shakes up your perception of life and the world. This book is about taming the tiger of fear and working with it. At the end of the book there are tools to help heal and deal with trauma.

Segment 4: The Forgiveness Agenda.  Restorative justice is an expression of a deep sense of spirituality. To say Dr. Umbreit honors the wisdom and the teachings of Jesus doesn’t cancel out the wisdom and teachings of Mohammed or Buddha. Restorative justice has affected the way he views and understands the world, how he relates to the community, the way he interacts with his wife and kids. Dr. Umbreit says incredible things can occur when we humble ourselves and be mindful of not pushing an agenda of forgiveness on others. We need to recognize that people have a right to be angry and give them time to work through the emotion instead of dismissing or denying it. To find out more about Dr. Umbreit’s important work, visit http://www.cehd.umn.edu/ssw/RJP/.

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Segment 1: A Different Paradigm.

Marty Price, J.D., our guest on this edition of The Doug Noll Show, is a social worker turned lawyer turned mediator. He is internationally recognized as a leader in Restorative Justice and peacemaking. Professor Price will soon be returning to India to teach Restorative Justice at a top-ranked law school in India (National Academy of Legal Studies and Research) and on this show we will be talking to him about his upcoming trip to India and Restorative Justice. His website is www.vorp.com.

Marty started out as a juvenile court social worker, but felt he wasn’t making a big enough difference in the lives of troubled kids and their families. In order to change the system he needed to get a law degree and go to court, but he soon discovered he was much better suited for peacemaking than for being a lawyer warrior. He began his peacemaking journey by volunteering at local dispute resolution centers as a mediator, and then moved to Restorative Justice, which he calls “a different paradigm for understanding crime and justice, and responding to crime with a different sort of justice.” Restorative Justice recognizes that crime is about hurting people: the direct victims, the indirect victims, and the community at large. Crime is about harm. Restorative Justice looks at who was harmed and who has an obligation to make it right.

Segment 2: Victim-Offender Mediation.

Victim-Offender Mediation is one form of Restorative Justice. It brings together victims and offenders, voluntarily, if and when they are ready. This work has the potential to transform lives. When people can’t move on, they lose their lives to their crime. Offenders often think of their victims as nameless and faceless. However, through Victim–Offender Mediation, the offender is able to take real, meaningful responsibility for what they have done, and assume an obligation voluntarily. Restorative Justice is not soft on crime; it’s much more difficult to face one’s victim than to face a judge.

Segment 3: India’s Criminal Justice System.

India’s criminal justice system, simply put, is broken. India has an incredible backlog of criminal cases. People wait 10-20 years in jail before they get a trial. This mainly happens to the poor, who cannot afford bail or a lawyer. Because of this lack of justice, the offenders and their families are suffering, and the victims’ families are suffering as well. Marty believes Restorative Justice programs can help. At each of the law schools at which Marty taught, students are carrying on Restorative Justice programs they’ve created. Marty planted the seeds; his students are growing the movement.

Segment 4: Exchanging Knowledge and Building Goodwill.

The Fulbright Commission of the U.S. Department of State sends students and professors overseas to teach and learn; it brings foreign students and professors to the United States to teach and learn. It’s all about exchanging knowledge and building goodwill and peace between nations. In 2012, Marty went to India as a Fulbright Senior Scholar and taught Restorative Justice in three of the fourteen National Law Universities of India. In January 2013, Marty returns to India to teach at the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research, where the vice-chancellor is an advocate for Restorative Justice. He asked Marty to come and teach for a semester, during which Professor Price will have an opportunity to pursue his own goals: to arrange internships for students to do Restorative Justice work. He is raising money to be able to accomplish this because he does not have a Fulbright Scholarship for this year's work in India. If you would like to support Marty Price and this transformative work, please visit his website at www.vorp.com to find out more information and to make a donation.

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