Amplify RJ (Restorative Justice)
Restorative Justice is often framed as an alternative to punishment in criminal legal and education settings, and but that’s only part of the story. Join host David Ryan Barcega Castro-Harris to learn how to apply Restorative Justice philosophy, practices, and values in your everyday life.
Amplify RJ (Restorative Justice)
125. Building a Police-Free World Through Transformative Justice w/ Cindy Mahendar
Cindy Mahendar is a Training and Operations Manager for the Healing and Justice Center and an alumni of Dream Defenders.
Our conversation takes a fascinating turn as Cindy discusses the alternative initiatives implemented by the Healing and Justice Center. From a mobile crisis unit to a peacemaker team, Cindy and her team paint a picture of a reimagined approach to navigating conflict and harm. Her candid sharing of the project's highs and lows offers a thorough understanding of the unique challenges and rewards of their work.
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https://www.healingandjusticecenter.org/
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Welcome to this Restorative Justice Life. I'm your host, david Ryan, barcaga, castro, harris All five names for all the ancestors and today I'm here with Cindy Mahendar to dive deep into the way that restorative justice and transformative justice have played a role in her personal and professional life. This is a part of our continuing series highlighting restorative justice in the South, shouting out many of the people who are doing this work in Florida, south Florida, specifically, both as a way to highlight the work that is going on, but also as our previous guests have shared. You know, we've got this restorative justice conference coming up RJ the remix exploring, living and expanding restorative practices for the down south community, october 20 through 22 of this year. All the information you need to need to know about that is at floridoverstoratofjusticecom. For those of you who have already heard about that, signed up for this and are ready to dive into our conversation with Cindy, here we go. So, cindy, welcome to this restorative justice life. Who are you?
Cindy:Awesome. Thank you, I'm really excited to be here. I am Cindy. I use she and they pronouns I am the. I'm currently the training and operations manager for the healing and justice center, but for the past five years I've been the transformative justice coordinator at dream defenders.
David:Who are you?
Cindy:I am a mom of Angela and stepmom of Aiden.
David:Who are you?
Cindy:I am a queer Caribbean small island, small coming from a small village with a big family, immigrant survivor of many things.
David:Who are you?
Cindy:I am a daughter and sibling.
David:Who are you?
Cindy:I am a spaceholder for my community.
David:Who are you?
Cindy:I am somebody on a never ending healing journey.
David:And finally for now, who are you?
Cindy:I am Cindy and I use she.
David:they pronouns so grateful to have you here, so grateful to make this connection. We're going to get to the intersections of so many of those things over the course of this next little bit, but it's always good to start our conversations with checking in, so, to the fullest extent that you want to answer the question right now, how are you?
Cindy:I am doing okay. I had a question the other day about rows and thorn. I don't know. It's a practice that we do a lot in community spaces. Just what's your rose? Something sweet. What's your thorn? Something like ouch. My rose is that healing is not linear and my thorn is also. Healing is not linear. So, dealing with a lot of grief this year, but also finding moments of joy, pleasure, enjoyment in life and just being really grounded in my faith and really grounded in who I am.
David:Yeah, I think it's really important to have those things that help ground you. If you said for your faith and I'll ask in a second, like how do you return back to who you are? But, reflecting over the course of the last almost three years that we've been doing this podcast, the how are you of it all is always in flux. Right In late 2020, there was a lot of heaviness in those answers, because that's what was present for a lot of folks and even within that heaviness, there are still moments of light, love and joy. You talked about being grounded in your faith and being grounded in yourself. I'm curious what are some of those practices that are helpful for you to stay that way?
Cindy:Yeah, so I recently transitioned into being the Training and Operations Manager for the Healing and Justice Center and a part of that role is coming into the office every day and doing our operations. And I found that a practice is really like only listening to meditations and music. That is like the lo-fi hip hop beats and just really music. That's really serene, calming and just having a good practice in the morning of a light, my incense, or a lighter candle or something like that. And then we have this really awesome card deck that was created it's an affirmation card deck called the Sacred Ori card deck and it was created by the person who trained me in restorative justice and it's an affirmation deck on catching communities, doing the work of catching communities, of holding our communities, and so I pull a card every morning when I come in to just kind of set the tone for my day. And that's a practice that I've really been leaning into, not only for myself but for the office space and anyone who comes in and utilizes our office space.
David:I'll put a link in the description for those who are interested in that deck. But what has that practice of the intentionality of pulling cards, lighting candles, lighting incense having that vibe? What has that done for you and your community?
Cindy:Yeah, I think for me it's been. It's grounded me and helped me just really take a moment to myself to get in touch with who I am and get a good routine and just feel like I'm coming in with intention for the day and that I'm just manifesting a clear head, a clear mental space, a clear spiritual space, a clear physical space. I think earlier this year was really rough for so many reasons, Like personally, within Dream Defenders, we lost a comrade of ours. That was really heavy. And so just going back to the practice of like being present, for in that moment that I'm lighting an incense, I'm present in that moment pulling my card every day. It's an affirmation that I say every day that allows me to like sustain through challenging times and over the course of time, I feel like when I'm no longer in a challenging space, I'm coming out of it feeling really grounded.
David:I think what's so important to remember again is that people who listen to this podcast will be familiar with me saying this.
David:When we think about these ideas of presence and tensionality, it's a lot easier for us to live restored in values.
David:People just need to be reminded so much more than we need to be taught. If people sit down and start to think about what is the thing that we'll do that will serve our relationships here, that will help us build, repair, strengthen our relationships, rid of equity and trust. The answers are often pretty clear, but engaging in practices that will help remind us of wanting to be that way, or remind us of the sacredness of ourselves, the sacredness of our human relationships, goes a long way into, yes, being able to repair harm when it happens, but probably preventing things from popping off day to day, moment to moment. I know that's not always possible for some folks, but thank you so much for sharing that practice and the impact that it's been having on your community. I've been thinking a lot about how restorative justice is a formal set of words, but the practices around it are probably things that you've been engaged in before you even knew the term. So, in your own words, how did your journey with this work. Get started for you.
Cindy:Yeah, so I think I want to talk about my formal, my kind of formal introduction to restorative justice. I went to York University in Toronto and I was in a program called Human Rights and Equity Studies. I was studying, I had a course on social movements and we had to present at the end of our course, you know, a project around a social movement, teach the rest of the class about it. And I was, like you know, feeling I was kind of in leftish spaces, being radicalized on campus through different social groups and things like that and through what I was studying and learning in class. So I was like in this phase where I want to pick the most radical thing that I can think of and present on it, and I ended up picking the prison abolition movement, which I knew nothing about, and I was just like this is a thing that came up on like a list or some sort, and I presented on it and I don't think I did a very good job. I got a lot of challenge, I got a lot of pushback from my classmates, but one thing that happened was I was transformed. I was now like this feels like it makes sense to me and this is something that I want to get more into. I want to learn more about. I started like developing a hunger.
Cindy:Then I learned more about restorative justice through the prison abolition movement as a way of if we don't have police in prisons, we need to be able to repair relationships and restore our communities. So I went on this path of learning about restorative justice through that lens of prison abolition and then studying more about it, and then I ended up applying to my masters in South Florida in conflict resolution and I had some expectation of, hmm, maybe this is going to be a lot like restorative justice. It was nothing. It was not about how the restorative justice class. It was nothing about restorative justice. It was all about a very Western conflict resolution focused ways of dealing with conflict from all different types of levels of businesses or war zones, things like that.
Cindy:But restorative justice never came up. So I felt a little let down by that, although I developed some really excellent skills around mediation and facilitation and met a lot of cool people. But it wasn't until I joined Dream Defenders after my master's program that I really was introduced to restorative justice and actually got trained. So that was kind of like my arc. But thinking about learning restorative justice really taught me that the harms that I experienced as a child, or the harms that happened in my childhood, is what I really needed. That and I wanted. That gave me really a passion of wanting to do more and hold space for others in a way that I didn't have space held for me. And throughout my life I feel like there's so many, so many instances throughout my life where I can think about. You know, if I had this offering available to me or that was accessible to me, of repairing relationship, repairing harm, I think it it would have afforded me a certain level of healing from those harms that I experienced.
Cindy:I don't feel like I had access to or had answers to when you thought about choosing prison abolition as the most radical thing.
David:It sounds like you didn't have like these ideas in mind. I'm curious what that transformation like. How would you articulate that transformation that you underwent by doing that work, by engaging with the critiques?
Cindy:yeah. So I mean, the first thing I did was read our prisons obsolete by Angela Davis and at the time I think I was studying a lot of like I was. I was also reading like from Swannone, I was also reading more about and learning more about the Black Panther movement in a context that I feel like I had it before. And growing up in Trinidad and then, you know, living in Florida for part of my life as well, I don't think I was exposed to those types of histories, those types of theories, and I think the more that I studied, the more I resonated with my life and my experiences really resonated and I found a place of my path and I don't know how to articulate it other than you know. I really found my path and continued to carve my way through yeah, even in those moments of challenge from your classmates.
David:But, like you know, I imagine some of the critiques were like but we need prisons and we need police to keep us safe, right, what was it about the things that you experienced as a child and like, coming to this new knowledge that like helped you navigate those at that time? Right, I'm sure you could articulate it better now than you did then. What was it in that moment that like helped you navigate all those things?
Cindy:I think at the time I was just like I was more so understanding or trying to explain that prison shouldn't and police shouldn't be the foundation of how we deal with harm and conflict.
Cindy:And I also think at the time, you know, I maybe I was less drawn on my experience, but more so on like the injustice felt really like the injustice and the mass, the harms of mass incarceration felt really resonating in terms of like I never saw, I know I didn't grow up seeing or interacting with police or I didn't even know where the jail was or prison prisons were, but it doesn't mean that it didn't exist or harms didn't exist. We figured out ways of like dealing with harm in my community, yeah, and we figured out how to do things. So it made a lot of sense to me when Angela Davis was saying you know, prisons don't disappear social problems, they disappear people, and so that I think really resonated with me and I was trying to articulate it at the time, but maybe not in the best way, but just thinking of like we don't need mass incarceration, we need to find like incarceration isn't the answer to all of our problems in society.
David:So I think that was the way I was navigating it back then and I still believe that obviously I've built a lot of my knowledge since then yeah, when you said that we had other ways of navigating conflict and harm in your community, what did that look like?
Cindy:yeah, so I think about it a lot. I think about stories of I grew up in a small village in Trinidad. My grandmother was. I hear stories that my my parents or my aunts would tell me of like my grandma picking up as many kids as of her kids as possible to like escape from my grandfather's use of alcohol and alcohol abuse that was causing conflict and harm to my grandmother. And so I just think about you know, where did she go to find safety right in that time? She's like I'm picking up as many of my kids as possible and I'm going to find safety in my neighbors or my family members, but just knowing that safety happened right, or there's some sort of motivation to find safety and to be safe. And I also think about you know, kind of like the repair part.
Cindy:My mom recently told me that my grandma would make my grandpa pay her to like do his laundry and cook for him and the domestic work that she was doing. And I was like, wow, my grandma was like such a feminist in the fact that you know I'm not here to tolerate your abuse or your alcoholism or whatever it is that was harm, the harms that you're creating for me. I'm not here to tolerate it. Like we, we have to figure out a way to live together, and that way that we live together is we live in separate rooms in the house and you're gonna pay me, and so just those like really creative things that my own family did. I grew up not necessarily knowing the full picture, but I knew that my grandparents lived in separate rooms. But, yeah, some of those ways that we are innovative, I think comes from like our generations, of our families, like figuring out how, how are we gonna navigate this, because harm is just so pervasive and we want to figure it out right, when we're speaking specifically about domestic violence, right and abuse.
David:Police are terrible at addressing those harms. Right, and you know, I don't know what the circumstances on Trinidad would have been for your grandma reporting that to the police. You know however many years ago, however many decades ago that was, but the outcomes probably have looked like because of patriarchy, right, it would have looked like go home to your husband or something like that. Right, and figuring out other ways to get safety you talked about, like through neighbors, through setting boundaries for yourself, like is really important. That looks different in every context.
David:Right, and one of the things that I like to talk about a lot when we're talking about restorative justice is like these values of interconnection and the ways that we are forced to our communities when our communities, before late-stage global capitalism and as a result of imperialism and colonization and all these things, have caused us to outsource conflict resolution. Right, that might be Miriam Kaba that I'm paraphrasing at this moment. Right, outsource our conflict resolution to the state, to police, to the justice, to the criminal legal system and a lot of community care, to social service agencies with often can be beneficial and meet needs, but sometimes they're also operating at the will of the state or operating at the will of funders, who may or may not have resources, and so what are the ways that we can build in community to make sure that we're meeting those needs? I know that's part of the work that dream defenders is doing. Tell us how you got to dream defenders and tell us about the work that you're continuing to keep alive now yeah.
Cindy:So I got to dream defenders after working at a nonprofit. That was like I was being really overworked. I wasn't like I would just go home. I mean, I would just go to work. I would come home, I would just lay in my bed feeling like debilitated just by the non-profit, nonprofit industrial complex. Like you know, you feel like you're working but it's never enough and you can never like you can never meet the needs of everyone. So it it's. It was really debilitating. At some point I was just like, fuck it, I'm gonna quit. I was also not being compensated for like with full-time benefits, even though they had me working full-time hours. So that was the whole thing. So I was like fuck it, I left and I just quit, with no plan. I was just like I know, I can, like I can do tutoring because I was doing it a little bit on the side for just some extra cash. So I was like I could just pick up more clients until I figure it out.
Cindy:And then I saw dream defenders had a fellowship and I was like, yes, I'm gonna apply. And the fellowship was around. It was an organizer position getting amendment for past, which is the right restoration amendment that we had back in 2018, voting rights for folks who are formerly incarcerated, getting their rights back to vote, was a part of the campaign that we were working on at the time and I was brought on during that time to work on that campaign and also talk to community members about the freedom papers, which the freedom papers is our vision for our North Star, of how we view the world, and it consists of seven freedoms, and we talked to people about what it would be like to have live in a world without police at prisons, where we're free from war and destruction or we're free from poverty we have. We live in a democratic societies, things like that. So, organizing, getting to know folks in the community around me, talking to people about getting rights restored for formerly incarcerated folks that was the work I was doing in 2018 and then from there I was really I met with a lot of it.
Cindy:I met a lot of incredible folks, went to training that Miriam Kaba came down to Miami to do a training with us. I also met Adajare, who is a TJ practitioner and therapist in South Florida, and I met Ruth, who we spoke about a little bit earlier. She had created the cards, trained me in circle keeping and I also met Stas and Lee from Spring Up who are incredible, incredible folks and that was kind of like my network of folks that really mentored me, trained me up. I did a fellowship with Spring Up around consent. It was a consent fellowship and through there that was kind of like my development path into transitioning into the transformative justice coordinator over at Dream Defenders.
David:Yeah, you know you covered a lot there, and I'm sure there are plenty of lessons to pull out from each of those stops. What I want to start with is thinking about the nature of community organizing around a ballot initiative, but also, at the same time, sharing your vision for the world. As much as you're eliciting, hey, we need you to go vote for this thing, because people in our community need their rights. It goes beyond that, and so I'm curious what your experience was like. Sharing that freedom papers, setting a vision at the same time. Hey, go vote. Hey, go vote With people in Florida, right South Florida. We're talking about an environment where these ideas aren't in public consciousness all that often. What was your experience? Having those kind of conversations?
Cindy:Yeah, I think South Florida is so unique because we have huge immigrant populations, folks from all over the world, the Caribbean in particular, and we have pockets of really deep rooted racist whiteness. So South Florida is so unique. A really great part of that time was a lot of organizations were really excited about this ballot initiative and it was a really energizing time in organizing in South Florida. So I think today the organizing landscape is very different in Florida. At the time we were actually also excited about getting Andrew Gillum into office as well. So I think it was a time where I remember having like a freedom brunch at my house and just inviting folks over and we talked about the freedom papers. We folks signed up, signed pledges to pledge that they're voting yes on this amendment, and we were also just in community together sharing food, breaking bread. So for me, when I look back, it was like an energizing, a really energizing time. That is so different, I think now in the political landscape that is so different and so much harder now.
David:Yeah.
Cindy:And it maybe was back then and there were so many different organizations that were already on board by the time I came in that we were really. There was so much foundation that was laid before I even came in. I mean years and years of folks organizing around getting this amendment, even on the ballot, to be passed. I feel like I came in at the tail end, so it was a lot of folks doing organizing for a long time around this issue, and so it was helpful to be in community with folks who have been doing it longer to kind of show me the ropes, and it wasn't a conversation, it was folks who are already having that conversation.
David:So the people that I interacted with whether it's on college campuses or community events, folks who are more receptive and more familiar already- yeah, I think it's important, like electoral politics have their place and have their importance, like we can't deny the benefits and the harm that can come from all that and the real world impacts. I should say just overall, and when you're telling people like hey, vote for this because it's giving people the right back, that's an easy action that people can take. But when you're thinking about setting this vision for a more liberated, democratic society where people and communities have what they need, what did that look like and what has that looked like?
Cindy:Yeah, well, we started doing freedom sessions so we would ask folks to come in and kind of it's in a way of like storytelling. So we would come together and we would ask folks about their own experiences related to police, in prisons, and then we would talk about relate those experiences to the larger vision of our freedom papers. And so it's endless storytelling, asking the right questions, where we're bringing people into the work through these conversations that we're having, whether it's a brunch or we've called them freedom sessions, which are kind of like house meetings, and so that's some of the ways that people are like yes, I do want to vote on this thing because I believe for X, y, z, whatever reason that they give, and do you want to come to talk more about the vision that we have for the state of Florida, because this isn't the end, like we have a bigger vision here that we want to work towards. So people were excited to meet other folks that were thinking about this larger vision and thinking about these larger ideas.
David:Yeah, when I think about doing organizing right, community work through a restorative lens, it's an invitation, right, it's not saying like this is the way that things are going to be, because I say so and I have all this experience as a restorative justice practitioner right, Both in a community setting, in an organization, in a school, whatever it is. But this opportunity to allow people to share their stories, highlight their needs and highlight the ways that restorative or transformative justice can be a better way forward is so important, right, Folks can check out the Dream Defenders website where we have these freedom papers freedom to be, freedom from war, violence, environmental destruction, freedom of movement, free flourishing, democracy, freedom of mind, freedom from poverty, freedom from police and prisons. Who disagrees with this? Right, there are people, I'm sure.
David:But when you invite people to tell their stories and when you tell people your stories, it's so much more likely that they'll at least start to build a relationship and engage in conversation with you, rather than say like these are the things that you need to believe. This is what we're working towards. Get on board. Right, it's slower initially, right, you know the work of those freedom brunches and sharing the vision of the freedom papers is important to shaping some of the work that you all have been doing. I know you're, you know, running in many ways the healing and justice center. How did that come about?
Cindy:Yeah, so in 2015, I wasn't here at the time, but in 2015, dream Defenders did a deep community listening project around the state, asking folks like what keeps our community safe? And so, or what is it that people are noticing in their communities? What are the biggest issues? Just questions around what do we need in our community to really be safe? And so most people and we were going around telling people we need to abolish prisons and police as well, and people were like, yeah, police and prisons are bad, but what do we have instead?
Cindy:Like what are our other options? So the Healing and Justice Center really came about with as a response of years after of building out well this is what we wanna offer to community.
Cindy:If we're going around saying that we're abolishing police and prisons and our vision is to get rid of police and prisons. We have to be able to offer something and it's not the answer. But it's a part of imagining. It's a part of like showing up, like we can create a thing that can serve our community's needs and people, in many different ways, can create a thing to serve community needs. And we also need organizing too. But it's really an example of us of building really slowly and really intentionally building out alternative programs that people can access, that is not connected to the police and that is not connected to prisons, with the intention of decarceration, with the intention of healing, and that is community-based, a program that's community-based.
David:Yeah, to your point right. We don't live in a society where the police will go away tomorrow.
Cindy:Right.
David:Right, and if they did, what would be in place? People would probably most likely create things that replicated or were similar to police right, because we haven't been socialized to think about what those alternative structures look like. People need this vision. For those who are listening, go with me as I say this to police's credit right, the job of policing now is so multifaceted Police are being asked to respond to all different kinds of things, right, almost none of what police do is about preventing or stopping crimes, so let's put that out there. But when people are asking for what is your one solution to abolishing the police? Right, there is no one solution, because the police aren't being asked to do so many things in the context of our society and so giving abolitionists the space to dream.
David:As Miriam Kup says, it's gonna take a million little experiments, right, to figure out what works in your community. Probably around principles of transformative justice. Probably around principles of restorative justice, right, identifying impact, harm and meeting the needs, transforming the conditions under which harm is happening. Those are probably important, but the specific manifestation of that is gonna look different in every situation. That's beautiful in theory. What are the practical things that y'all have put in place? What are the programs and communities that you're building to allow people to imagine a world without police.
Cindy:Yeah, so firstly, we have a mobile crisis unit that goes out to respond to folks who are having mental health emergencies and they don't wanna call the police or can't call the police or call 911. In Florida we have what's called the Baker Act system, so we're trying to respond to folks to avoid folks from having to be forced to be hospitalized or having to be forced to be incarcerated. So our mobile crisis unit is one thing that we offer. It's 1-866-SAFE-MIA. It can call a number and we have a medic, crisis interventionist on the team, and then they also like rotate schedules, so a medic and a crisis interventionist will come out to support you, who are deeply trained in being able to respond to de-escalation, to identify mental health disorders and also health concerns that could present as mental health disorders. So, yeah, and they'll come out and support a crisis that you're in and if you meet criteria, we could also refer you to any other services that we offer or any other services that we know are available.
David:Right, and the reason people would call this instead of calling police. Who like maybe you maybe not show up with somebody who is trauma informed, maybe or maybe not showing up with, like somebody who can provide social services? Right, like why would somebody do this? Obviously to, like, avoid confrontation with police. But like, what are the other reasons? Like people are wanting to use services like this.
Cindy:Yeah, I mean I had a conversation recently with a mom who was struggling with their teenager and didn't know, just really was having a hard time navigating the healthcare system, knew that their child had some sort of mental health disorder but was like misdiagnosed, but found themselves in episodes of crisis of like I don't know what to do and the symptoms or the way that their child was showing up was like they were afraid that they were gonna harm themselves and so would call us. So that's just like an example of someone that is like I'm in crisis and I don't know what to do. I really don't know what to do.
David:Yeah, you know some people might think like well, why don't you all just partner with your local police department and like go along for the ride to be supportive there? What's your response there?
Cindy:No, we don't wanna be a partner with the police. We wanna build trust in community and we know that police and the community that we work in we aim to serve there is not trust and we know that police is not the answer. Right, we wanna work towards. A part of the values of the Healing and Justice Center is working towards a world where prisons and police don't exist anymore. So it'll be counterproductive for us to work alongside police if we're trying to eradicate police. Right, we want the money to come out of the police budgets. We want money to come out of prison budgets and we want it to go to community-based organizations that are really in tune and knowledgeable and like we're able to build trust in a way that we're not sending people, we're not ending up in a position where we're allowing people to get sent to prison or allowing people to get harmed by police.
David:I imagine this is some of the energy that you're carrying right, Even though it might reduce harm in any given instances, to align your community, to align your services, to align what you do to an institution rooted in catching slaves, right Routed in protecting property over people, rooted in the subjugation and torture of black people, of people of the global majority in general. Right Is counterproductive right and shout out to those of you who are working within those systems, whether police specifically, or in some way shape or form, like agents of the criminal legal system as it exists, Like I understand the need for the harm reductive work that you're doing and appreciate your efforts in doing that.
David:And even within the context of your job, like you're still upholding so many of these oppressive systems. What has been the struggles and the rose and thorn of this project? Right, because it's not like incredibly resource rich. Right, financially right. There are lots of different calls that you handle, that you respond to that like you're not fully equipped to handle and address those needs, but like there's also been some beautiful moments too. What are some roses and thorns?
Cindy:Yeah. So I think some of the roses have been being able to really support folks who have been impacted by gun violence and just build with folks and be able to offer something right. I think a lot of folks see sometimes there's like a hesitancy of like organizations that come in because it's like what are you all offering and what do you want from me? So just being able to build trust really organically and work with folks in community. So we also have a peacemaker team of folks who do violence intervention work. That's our boots on the ground, canvassers, and we also have a free clinic. We also have therapy services. So being able to really offer a lot of different services for community. We have youth programming as well. We have a healing educator who is trained in somatics, who is able to offer somatic practices for us as those on the frontline staff and for our community folks as well. So I forgot what the question was. But being able to, oh, rosenthorn. So the roses have been really being able to see the impact that we're able to make, to work alongside folks who have such deep love for their community, who really are committed to change, who really are committed to a different world and creating a different world and being a part of creating a different world. My rose is also being able to hold circle for our staff. We do like core release circles and the very last circle that we did was like a releasing circle, which was really really incredible, because a lot of the work that we do is trauma and heavy and we're discussing violence. We're meeting with people who are experiencing violence. We ourselves might be experiencing violence. So just thinking about how heavy it is being able to hold space for staff, to hold RJ circles for folks, has been big rose. I would say.
Cindy:It gets thorny at times, at times not having we work in a collaboration, so we're working with four different organizations, so each organization having their own culture, and we're all trying to come together and work out the kinks. That's been a little bit thorny sometimes where our expectations maybe aren't clear of each organization. It took some time for us to figure out, you know, role, clarity and commitments how committed we are to the work which we all are committed just in different capacities through different organizational demands, and so some of the other thorns have been burned out for sure, which we are. We have a care committee in the works trying to avoid the burnout. It's hard when we lose people. When there's another shooting, it's hard, sometimes feeling like you're climbing an uphill battle, because we know that we can provide services but if we don't organize to create structural changes, the circumstances that allow for harm to occur is not going to change. So while we're providing the services, we also have to have like deep organizing strategy, which I think our capacity is like. We can't do both.
Cindy:We need like more folks to help on the organizing side of it and strengthen our organizing muscle. So yeah, those have been some of the thorns.
David:Yeah, you know what is true about everybody who's doing restorative justice work, or restorative justice, adjacent work or like really community based work, is that that balance of giving your all versus you know, knowing your boundaries and your capacity is real, because you know we all have different commitments in our personal lives outside of you know the thing that we're paid to do professionally, to like uphold this work, to like provide these services to communities. And there are people in your life, right, you talked about like all the intersections of your identity as a parent, as a partner, as as a community member, as a family member, right, like all of those places like deserve, like the wonderful aspects of you, of you that like you give to your team, to your community every day, and making sure that people are able to balance. That is so tough, right, and so you know, when you share your practices at the beginning of like, what does it mean for me to like center myself coming into this space so I can provide that to my community? It's important for us to think about how we can like be there for the people who will like be there with us, no matter what job we have, right, in the context of community, and you know that's a never-ending balance that I think all people who are doing this type of care work have to navigate for yourselves right. Having the capacity to provide care internally for your team is beautiful and amazing.
David:I'm glad that you're being able to not only provide that circle space but you talked about like the somatic practice is and the healing space that, like an organization is. Dedicating resources for your team to stay afloat, if not like thrive in the context of the work is so important. I'm curious maybe thornwise, maybe community, maybe rosewise, I don't know what. How have you navigated community pushback to some of your work right? Because as much as people do call for these services, there are people in community who are like why would? Why would we do this?
Cindy:the police are what we need yeah, I haven't personally had that experience where I haven't personally had the pushback on why we exist or why we need to you know, exist.
Cindy:I think definitely there's pushback on whether we need police or not. I think even within our own coalition. I'll share that one of our coalition members does training for police cadets, for new police cadets. So our our abolitionist values don't necessarily align in that way. They see and they view their work in a very different way, but we're still able to come together to create a project that is rooted in abolitionist values and some of the like pros of that is dream defenders. As an organization, we don't necessarily have to interact with police. If, like you know, police show up at one of our events, it could be this other organization yeah that can like take a lead on that.
Cindy:So, as we're doing this work where we can't like pretend that police and prisons don't exist, they definitely exist and they're very present in our communities and the communities that we're trying to serve.
Cindy:So we've actually had, like you know, police are like what is it that y'all do? Yes, like you all need to be a part of the community as well, but they don't get the like we don't want y'all to exist. So I think we are yeah, we haven't had much pushback from community around us replacing police and prisons. I think we want to introduce and we need to do more work around introducing us as, like, the alternative right and this is what's possible, and we need more investment in projects like this as of now, there's only one mobile crisis team and y'all are limited by human capacity and drive time and response time through.
David:You know your, your processes. What are your plans to continue to grow the services that y'all offer?
Cindy:yeah, I definitely think we have plans to grow the services like right now, we operate on six days a week. Eventually, we want to scale up to 24-7 and at the same time, I think it's a call to. It's a call to like decision-makers. I think that we want more.
Cindy:This doesn't have to be the only thing, right this isn't, instead of police and prisons, like this is the only thing that exists. I think it's just a call for other organizations. It's a call for other decision-makers, our politicians, to really put money into creating alternatives and investing into real safety and do you and defunding, like police and prisons. We need to be taking money away from police and prisons, like we've tried to do that for so long and then it doesn't work. And so what? I think, yes, we want to grow and I want other organizations, people, to build on the ideas that they have of ways that we can be safe in our communities.
David:Yeah, yeah, absolutely right. It's not about growing the like dream defenders brand of like crisis intervention or alternatives to 911 right, like there are ways that each unique community can respond to. You know your community's needs. What are conversations that you've been involved with like adjacent communities that have been like interested in looking to grow that work? And then I guess what comes with as like how can people who are interested get in touch?
Cindy:yeah, I'm definitely connected in a lot of cool abolitionist like spaces, like interrupting criminalization, for example. They have created like cohorts and just spaces for folks who are working on building alternatives to meet across different. Yeah, they've brought groups who are working on ways that of creating safety and building out responses to violence and harm and mental health crises to come together and work together. So that's an amazing. Interrupting criminalization has created amazing connections for us. We also are connected to community violence intervention programs. It's called like CVI. It's a growing field and there's different levels of like interaction with police, right. So some CVI programs are they work alongside police. Some CVI programs work are like housed in police stations, so like they go out with the police, but some CVI programs are working without police and really connecting into community-based violence prevention, intervention and response programs. So it's been really exciting like connecting with folks all across the country who are doing different types of work and we've been really privileged to get trained by some groups.
David:Yeah, it's been exciting yeah, and if you know so people can check out those resources. But if they want to learn more about the work of dream defenders, and specifically through the Healing and Justice Center, how can they get in touch?
Cindy:yeah, well, we have dream defenders on Instagram and we have the Healing and Justice Center on Insta, and if you're in South Florida and you are experiencing a mental health crisis, you can feel free to call 1-866-MIA what are the balance of South Florida?
Cindy:it's mostly in Liberty City, yeah, and we also have our website and dream defendersorg. You can find a tab called the Healing and Justice Center, yeah, and you can find out more there. You can feel free to email me if you want to directly get in touch. If you're trying to build out a thing where you're at, you can definitely directly get in touch with me. I'm Cindy at dreamdefendersorg and I'd be happy to talk more.
David:Beautiful and you know to tie this back to this whole series that we're doing, you're gonna be a part of the Restorative Justice Conference in October, so if you want to learn more about that, the resources from the Florida Restorative Justice Association for JAW are also down below. Now it's come to the questions that everybody answers when they come on this podcast. You can choose either restorative or transformative justice, or maybe both, but, in your own words, to find those terms.
Cindy:Yeah, so I love to do like a little graphic, but I'll try to help you imagine it the way that I understand best.
Cindy:Restorative justice is about repairing.
Cindy:Repairing harm, and we think about, like our community, in like this linear line there's a harm that happens in our community that like disrupts our community, and then the criminal legal system comes in and maybe take someone away from our community, which then further disrupts our community.
Cindy:And so, when we think about restorative justice, we think about restoring, making sure that repair happens, making sure that whoever is obligated to meet the needs that were created by this harm are fulfilling that obligation. And so, in order for healing to happen and in order for repair to happen, what the things that make repair possible can restore our community so that we can continue on. So that's how I think about restorative justice. And then, when I think of transformative justice, I think about yes, we need the restorative part, we need to be able to make repair, we need need to be accountable to the harms that we cause, and we also need to look at the system that created the possibility of this harm and we need to radically shift the system that allowed for this harm to happen in the first place. So we think about things like organizing, we think about things like unlearning patriarchy, we think about things like reading and learning and developing new skills and just new ways of being in relation, in right relationship with each other.
David:Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you for that. Like it can be so expansive, right. Like, responding to, like, individual acts of conflict and harm is an important part of doing this work. But like, how are we building and strengthening both the relationships and the conditions under like which we're in relationship? To be as equitable as possible is the goal of all this work. You've been doing this work for a while. What has been an oh shit moment and what have you learned from it? And you can take this two ways.
David:It could be like oh shit, I messed up and this is what I learned. Or it'd be like oh shit, I did that and it was awesome.
Cindy:Oh, that's a good question. I think I have to think about that one a little bit. I'm thinking, I feel like I've had so many, but it's not like coming to me.
David:I've had so many like aha moments I would say, ah, okay.
Cindy:So I think that I've been. I was the transformative justice coordinator for five years and a lot of. I think there was a expectation that I would just like fix things or I would come in and like repair, and I think there was an expectation of like, that is like set up to fail, where it's like one person and I think it's also unique to like professionalize the work.
Cindy:And so when you're professionalizing the work, you're like oh, we have a RJ practitioner or a TJ practitioner for there to be. It's like an isolating like thing of like one person holding all processes, or one person managing like the policy, or one person just trying to like manage all the harm and conflict that's like happening in community and I think I learned even for myself. I had to like learn to not gatekeep Like I need to, I need to hold this or like I need to to fix this. So I've had a lot of learning of like no, we actually need us in community to be in practice together around these values. We need us in community to be training our skills. We need to be identifying like holders of space. We need to be identifying support people. We need to be identifying folks that can encourage others to be accountable, really like doing deep work around identifying like collectively, what are our skills, what are our practices, what are we good at? How can we best show up for each other? So, really, more of like a community like approach.
Cindy:And obviously like transformative justice and restorative justice is like being committed to community, is like a huge part of it. But I think early on I got kind of page and hold a little bit into like being the one person that can like fix all things and that was a big learning lesson around like being a spaceholder versus like a fixer, or like just allowing different and calling the right people when I need to call the right people in.
David:Yeah, I mean, I think, like the idea of the professionalization of restorative justice work is a longer conversation than we have time for right now. But the idea of, like this, just living with one person is often why this work fails. I'm thinking specifically in schools, but within organizations as well. Because, like, if one person is just like the holder of one, all the knowledge of all the systems, of all the policies, like if they leave or if something ever happens to them, like organizationally, like who's going to pick up the slack? Right, if you don't have someone, you're kind of screwed. But also, right, you and your all of your knowledge, wisdom and experience, like there are things that you don't know? Right, and there were things that, like, would be beneficial for other people's perspective to be brought in. Right, you can't be the person who holds all these processes, both, just as like human capacity, but like you're not the right person to be in all of those spaces, to be facilitating all these processes, right, and so how can we, yes, both train and give people skills, but you know, if orgs or schools are working with Amplify IJ, like? The question is always like, yes, I have these frameworks and these practices that you can apply. But, like, how are you actually going to do it? Who's going to do it? Who has the time and capacity within the construct of their job duties? Right, because now we're talking about a labor issue, right? Speaking to you, like your conversation earlier about, like, burnout from the nonprofit industrial complex, how are we making sure that people have the capacity to do these things within the context of their day?
David:It's a time thing and, you know, for organizations that are doing community driven work, where there are very urgent needs that need to be met, sometimes the work might be the thing that takes priority, justifiably. But if that continues to happen repeatedly, over and over and not giving people space to address these issues that are happening internally, build their own capacity to make space for these processes and the development, like you're not going to go very far. You know the proverb if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together. Is cliche, maybe at this point, but so so, so true. Thanks for that reflection. I didn't know that I was going to release that for me. Another question that everybody answers and you know, take your time with this one too. You get to sit in circle with four people, living or dead? Who are they and what is the one question you ask the circle?
Cindy:Oh, my gosh, rihanna, for sure, okay.
David:One.
Cindy:Um four people my grandma, Two. I'm going to say Rachel, who's our director of the healing and justice center, because I love her so much and I feel like we're so spiritually connected. Um, and maybe Ruth, the person who trained me.
David:Yeah.
Cindy:We'd sit together. She always brings like a lot of knowledge. Okay, and the question what is?
David:the question you would ask the circle.
Cindy:I would ask maybe there's like a lesson there for me. I would ask, like what did you? What do you wish you knew sooner? What's something you wish you knew sooner?
David:Sneaky, sneaky. Now I turn that question back to you. What's something you wish you knew sooner?
Cindy:I wish I knew, like the co, all the cool people that I know now.
David:I feel like people.
Cindy:I was diagnosed with PTSD and I struggled so much with that diagnosis I really really struggled a lot and now I'm really grateful of um not having that diagnosis anymore and also feeling really strong in like my ability to navigate mental health any mental health challenges. And I feel like now I know a lot of cool people, like the somatic practitioner, a male who works at our healing and justice center, and acupuncturist that like has done work on a few dream defenders, Just different people that have offered like so many modalities of healing that I really like wish I knew all these cool people that I, you know, had access to that earlier on in my life when I was struggling so hard and you know, but I'm okay now and I know all these cool people now, so it's okay.
David:Yeah, yeah, I love that answer. Not like what, but who and with who comes like all this extra, extra knowledge. It's brilliant. Um, you know we've shared before the ways that you can get in touch with dream defenders and the healing and justice center, both on the website and Instagram. Those will be linked below. Are there any other ways that people can support you and your work in the ways that you want to be supported?
Cindy:Um, no, just email. Just email me if you want to talk more about any of these things that we talked about. If you, I'm always interested in talking with folks around RJ and TJ and connecting and just building these important connections so that we feel less isolated in the work. And yeah, I just love making connections. So that's all.
David:Beautiful. Well, thank you so much, cindy, for your time, your stories, your wisdom, uh, here on this restorative justice life. For those of you listening, we'll be back next week highlighting um another person living this restorative justice life, but until then, take care.
