This Restorative Justice Life
Restorative Justice is often framed as an alternative to punishment, and but that’s only part of the story.
Dive deeper with David Ryan Barcega Castro-Harris in conversation with RJ practitioners and other justice seekers as they reflect on the things happening in the world around us to offer insight on how YOU can embody RJ philosophy, practices, and values in every aspect of your life.
This Restorative Justice Life
Honoring Ted Lewis - Listening to the Restorative Justice Movement
This episode pays tribute to the late Ted Lewis, a remarkable figure in restorative justice, whose life and work provide profound insights into this balance.
We explore how his bicultural upbringing and Mennonite roots led him into mediation and facilitation. We also reflect on Ted's legacy, balancing systemic change while addressing relational harm on the micro-level. We also explore the "Listening to the Movement" project as Ted brought together many of the RJ thought leaders to examine how RJ has evolved from a programmatic approach to a broader social paradigm.
Support for Ted's family through their GoFundMe to continue honor his impact and legacy.
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Hi, my name is David Ryan Barsega, castro, harris all five names for all the ancestors, and today, november 2nd, when this is posting, is Dia de los Muertos, all Saints Day, day of the Dead, all Souls Day, depending on your cultural background. So I'm sharing another episode from this Restorative Justice Life archives, featuring Ted Lewis. Ted was a Titan in the restorative justice community and he passed away this summer after a bottle with brain cancer. So re-airing this conversation is a small way to honor him and his legacy. As I was listening back to this conversation, I was reminded of so many things, but what struck me most were that how, even though this conversation happened a couple years ago, so much of what we talked about when it comes to political discord and working with people who don't agree or can't seem to come together, is so relevant to what's happening literally right now. But also, along with that, there are so many ways to go about doing restorative justice work, there's so many approaches, and that everyone's approach is needed so we can build a world where people are in good relationship with each other, with themselves, where those relationships are rooted in equity and trust, and even across our cultural differences, our religious backgrounds, the way that we've been socialized to think about safety and protection. Restorative justice frameworks, philosophy, values give us guidelines to give us ways to navigate all of those things.
Speaker 1:Before I turn it over to myself from the past to introduce the rest of the conversation, I want to share that Ted's family has a GoFundMe to continue to keep up with the medical expenses that they incurred over the course of his fight with cancer. So if you have the means, please give what you can. That GoFundMe will be linked in the description. I hope you enjoy and learn from this conversation with Ted. Ted, welcome to this Restorative Justice Life. Who are you?
Speaker 2:Well, foremostly, I'm a lover of Lake Superior. I live very close to the North Shore line in Duluth, Minnesota, and I love cold water and I just can't get enough of that lake. Who are you? I am someone who got introduced to restorative justice on Pine Ridge Reservation. It was back in the early 90s, through some Mennonite workers that were adapting a restorative dialogue process for the Lakota indigenous folk there, and ever since, then, I've been sort of grabbed by restorative work for my vocation. Who?
Speaker 1:are you?
Speaker 2:I am someone who comes from an overseas background. My parents were missionaries in.
Speaker 2:Portugal of all places. So when I was a boy I lived in Portugal and moved early on back to Minnesota. So I'm kind of a bicultural person and I think that fed my capacity to be a mediator, facilitator between you know, two parties. Who are you? A consultant for? The Center for Restorative Justice and Peacemaking at University of Minnesota, based here in Duluth, and that center is distinguished as being the oldest academic based center for restorative justice worldwide, started by Dr Mark Umbreit in 1994.
Speaker 1:Who are you?
Speaker 2:1994. Who are you? I have Mennonite connections. I didn't grow up in that religious tradition but in college years I was sort of won over by the peacemaking tradition, the servanthood tradition within the Mennonite world. And Mennonites were pretty instrumental, starting in Ontario and in Indiana, preceding some of the modern expressions of restorative work. So that's a big part of my own sense of rootage in terms of tradition and restorative background for me who are you?
Speaker 2:I'm a poet, an artist on the side. I'm a poet and artist on the side. I've always liked creative work. At times I find sort of a convergence of my creative activities and the restorative work is when I do trainings, workshops, presentations. I just love coming up with new metaphors and images and pictures and all of that for me is a very creative activity and a type of teaching restorative work to other people.
Speaker 1:And finally for now, who are you?
Speaker 2:I'm Ted Lewis and I love watching the planets. One of my hobbies is to track planets in the sky. Whenever I can go to the lakeside and look at the eastern horizon. I just really enjoy looking at stars and planets and their movement.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you, ted, so much for sharing just those bits about who you are. We're going to get into all the intersections of those and how they apply to this restorative justice life right after this. Thank you so much, ted, for being with us on this restorative justice life. I'm very excited to have this conversation for a couple reasons. One it's always good to talk to one of the folks who've been doing this work almost since I've been alive. But it's also really exciting to talk to you because you are one of the editors of this project that culminated in a book called Listening to the Movement. But it's a larger project overall, taking the pulse of the restorative justice movement, and you know we're going to get into all of that in just a moment, but it's always good to check in. So, to the fullest extent that you want to answer the question, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm actually kind of worn down. Just to be open and honest, I have been bearing the emotional weight of a couple challenging cases. One is restorative justice in nature, Another is more of an organizational mediation case and all spring I have had to navigate some really difficult terrain to try to build trust between parties and I'm ready for some extra self-care and a break from that hard work.
Speaker 1:I imagine part of that is engaging in the lake and nature and somehow. But what else does self-care look like for you?
Speaker 2:After a really tough case, I try to do a sauna. Anything that kind of helps me to detox is always a healthy thing. I'll create my own little happy hours at the end of the day you know day to have some chips and salsa and a drink. That's a pretty standard one for me.
Speaker 1:It's always good to think about the ways to both unwind self-soothe but also proactively make sure that we have the capacity to continue to do this work which you've been doing for decades now, work which you've been doing for decades now. The way that we often get into the origins of folks' work is asking the question like this You've been doing restorative justice work for a while, but you were probably doing it or had inklings of this work before you even knew the words. So how did this get started for you?
Speaker 2:Well, I mentioned in the who Are you that in the early 90s I got introduced to the concept through folks applying it on the Pine Ridge Reservation and prior to that I already was bending toward peacemaking both in terms of dialogue and activism, and in the 80s I kind of felt a tension between those two. Like I was close to activist groups in the Twin Cities. But at some point I came to a conclusion that activism alone doesn't necessarily build trust between people on a relationship level. So I started to explore different ways where communication and relationship building and trust building were connected to peacemaking. And then once I learned about restorative justice through some of those Mennonite connections and that really opened up a whole new horizon for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to go back to that tension between like activism and and peacemaking right, because one of the things that I think about in my journey when I for folks who listen to the podcast know that I spent a lot of time in Chicago in some of my formative years of restorative justice work and in Chicago, the model of community organizing that was built by Saul Alinsky is very antagonistic, causing harm while trying to advocate for the reduction of harm from people who exist in those power structures that are oppressing people on the margins, people of color, people who have been disenfranchised by systems and so many other ways, and using shame in order to try to get their way, win the campaigns.
Speaker 1:You know, get uh, get their way when the campaigns that can be very, very effective in making short term um wins, winning campaigns. But, like what you're talking about in the um, in the, the tension between, you know, working for uh, justice, freedom, liberation for people, uh, who are on the margins, um, and building peace at the same time. Like those, those two things can seem in opposition right now in the moment that we're having this conversation, but the conversation around the second amendment and and gun rights is all is all up on people's minds and, at the same time, the conversation around abortion rights has still been restoked and it's very easy to vilify the people who are upholding policy, that many who are more left leaning, more progressive leaning, whatever you want to say. It's very easy to vilify the people who are in opposition to us, but you know, I imagine in some of the instances that you were experiencing back in the 80s, like some of the same tensions still existed. How were you able to navigate that with this restorative lens?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're raising a lot of important things. There's several layers to this discussion, both how does activism and peacemaking work together? And then how do you deal with polarizing issues? One example that was pretty foundational for me, that kind of connects the relationship side of the equation with the systemic change side, is when my daughters were young we had a Walmart in our community and I noticed that right in the entryway, where you know this was back in the day when you could have like gladiator type arcade games right in the entryway of a Walmart and these were like gladiator fights to the death, you know and you know how, like before you put your quarters in, the visual screen would show these gladiators going at it and stabbing each other and blood splattering and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:And I had to ask myself.
Speaker 2:Do I really want my three-year-old daughter to be viewing this if we're going to come into a Walmart each time? And it just kind of opened up a thought like I don't really personally like this in a public space. And so I knew from my earlier activist years I could draw attention to that, I could pick it, I could get some folks, I could get media attention. I knew all of those strategies to try to leverage change. But I said I'm going to take a whole other angle here. I'm actually going to try to have conversations with the main manager. And so I set up times to meet with a manager and focused on communication, relationship building. Is there some common interest, some common ground, rather than leveraging a force, just assuming that I needed to leverage force to make change happen.
Speaker 2:The short outcome of this is that main manager was open to a scenario of change and then a new manager came in. But the old manager actually had connections with folks at the headquarters in Arkansas and he set things in motion for discussion at a national level to consider removing violence-oriented arcade games from their entryways. And then a second manager I got to know him, had conversations with him and he set some things in motion. Within 12 months, based on that relationship building, walmart made a national policy to pull violence-oriented arcade games from their entryways across the nation. I mean that's huge systemic change. So that was a really big moment for me to realize that building a bridge really is not just kind of warm, fuzzy, nice stuff to do. It actually can be a strategic way to bring about systemic change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And for those that are listening and thinking, yes, and we've tried, they just don't see us as human and they don't value us. I'm wholly sympathetic to that. Right At the intersections of your identity as a white man, like those conversations are taken a little bit more seriously than it might have if somebody else tried to initiate that conversations at the intersections of other identities that are often more marginalized, and even if those intersections of your identity are what they are, there's not always going to be that reciprocity from people who are going to want to build relationships. What do we do then?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great thing to bring up and certainly the last 20 years, last 10 years and even the last five years have heightened our awareness around power and privilege issues for this topic, awareness around power and privilege issues for this topic. You know, I think what it really comes down to is where can trust be built to supplement truth telling? So if we think of an X and Y graph and on one side we have truth telling and on another we have trust building, the question is how can you balance both of them, if in fact you want brave truth to have a force just like Gandhi is talking about Satyagraha truth force and connect that with the trust building element so that they're kind of like working together. Because I've noticed, if there's just truth telling without trust building, it sometimes creates a little more tension, a little more alienation. So I'm a big advocate, even if it's a matter of communities of color, trying to have difficult conversations with, with other stakeholders who are not representing or or having affinity with those communities is to strategize around.
Speaker 2:How do you build trust? The same thing with police. I did a whole speech at our lynching memorial here in Duluth about a year ago. We have the first lynching memorial in the nation here 2003, and Bryan Stevenson is totally aware of it and was our keynote speaker. I also gave a speech on building truth and trust together with police and community referencing communities of color, and we've had efforts for them to have conversations where there was a lot of truth telling and it kind of backfired because there was not enough trust building and when that happens there's greater tension for future conversations. It actually makes it harder to come back in the next time to try to have some kind of collaborative conversation. So I'm really big on the concept of how truth and trust have to fold together if you want people to coexist in the same community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're touching on what is probably the most hot button issue of this podcast and we're gonna go there in just a second. But I just want to take a pause to acknowledge that you know, when the issue of you know, the intersection of restorative justice and the criminal legal system and the intersection of restorative justice and law enforcement gets brought up by people who often listen to this podcast have an abolitionist mindset, right, fuck the police, acab, cops are picked, all those things right, with that tension in mind. It's about the person and their job. It's not about the person as an individual. And I know people who are on that side of the quote, unquote, thin blue line see those things as inseparable often, right, and there are other people on that side of the line saying like, hey, I'm here trying to do good for the community.
Speaker 1:Maybe, as a representative, I'm trying to make the change communities across the country have seen the way that, like, that system does not want to be reformed and so, to truth tell to that system that has constantly violated trust the other way, right is something that is, I'm going to say for the purposes of our conversation right now, damn near impossible to do, and I acknowledge the benefit of you know, when you bring up the X and Y axis, the vertical horizontal, I know when you bring up the x and y axis, um, the vertical horizontal, I think a lot about like the quote-unquote social discipline window, where we're talking about like expectations and challenge and limit setting and discipline with uh support and encouragement, uh, people are familiar with like the two, with more and not quadrants, neglect, uh, permissive, punitive, restorative spaces, and we do want permissive, punitive, restorative spaces and we do want to be in that space that is restorative, but like that has to be reciprocal.
Speaker 1:And so I guess my question, coming like within, like this, we can talk about it in like the specific framing of policing, if you have, I want to absolve you of like the responsibility to like have the solution for, like how do we deal with like policing in America? And but like, if you have a solution for or a way forward that you've seen work in this example, or just thinking about the way that, when trust is not reciprocated like, how do you then navigate?
Speaker 2:Maybe this is an opportunity to bend the conversation towards the listening to the movement book. There's always been kind of a tension between social justice activism and restorative justice, micro response to harm and conflict issues to say we need to bring together the warrior impulse for systemic change and the healer impulse for relational restoration, and if you only do one or the other you're really not going to have what she's calling a full-bodied approach to movement building. And so I think that's part of the tension there. In the restorative justice world it has a legacy of being a program, a service provision, an incident response, and then in more recent years it's like we got to go upstream more. We have to deal with conditions, there has to be deeper community involvement, system change, and so all of those things are converging.
Speaker 2:My fear is that, because it's sort of bogus for progressives to focus on transformational change, that there's actually a danger of compromising the legacy of that micro-relational building. And I really believe that Fania understands the need to balance the two, because if the systemic change upstages the legacy of trust building and relationship building and micro peacemaking, you know, at those small incremental levels it's just going to turn the movement into another revolutionary cause which has its own challenges around balance and power leveraging. So I really approach this issue from the standpoint that there has to be constant effort to bring that healer and warrior instinct together, rather than just letting the warrior instinct sort of define all of the work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I appreciate you bringing in, you know, that aspect to it and I want to like, maybe thread back to what you experienced at Pine Ridge, right what? Where I'm thinking about how Fania's story and you know Fania is the dream guest to get on this podcast, it's going to happen at some point but thinking about her journey as a civil rights lawyer right and then learning indigenous ways of healing and peacemaking right is where that dich, like what stood out to you from that experience? What made this be like? Oh yeah, this is the thing that I need to spend. You know, seemingly, the rest of my life doing.
Speaker 2:I would sum it up this way it's the sacredness of dyadic conversation. There's something extremely sacred when harming and harmed people become vulnerable and get to the point where they find new strengths to either share their stories of harming or being harmed. And in that vulnerability is the paradox of human connection, empathy, letting go of hard things, and that's a. You know, Mark Umbreit talks about that as a very sacred zone and it's a very human zone. It's at some level it's transcultural.
Speaker 2:When you think about the power of people connecting on those deep levels of understanding and empathy, levels of understanding and empathy and because I've witnessed that so many times at the micro level, I can never let that go. I mean, that's what really drives me vocationally is the power of bearing witness to courageous, offending and victimized people who are willing to go to those places for deeper conversation. So how I relate that to the wider systemic changes. There is a need for that systemic change, whether it's in the abolition tradition or the civil rights tradition or the Gandhian tradition. I have no trouble with the concept of disturbing the status quo to bring about change, but I never want it to be at the expense or at odds with that sacred zone of how dyadic dialogue is extremely powerful as a way for people to be able to coexist in diverse communities, and whenever I sense a little bit of eclipsing of that, I tend to be really tuned into that.
Speaker 1:Keeping in mind the confidentiality of these processes and the sacredness of these stories, are there incidents that you've been given permission to share about that really stand out, that really made this dyadic dialogue salient for you, that made it really click for you over the years? Maybe it's the first time that it really clicked, or maybe just in a really impactful time over the years of?
Speaker 2:doing. Yeah, I appreciate that invite and yeah, there are stories that actually went public in newspapers, so there's there's no breach of confidentiality. One of the standout ones for me was on 9-1-1, september 11, 2001. There was a middle-aged man who was charged with a hate crime in Eugene, oregon. I worked in Eugene for 10 years.
Speaker 2:Basically death threats to an Islamic cultural center and there were several phone calls but but it involved a verbal, uh, death threat to people in the wake of 9-1-1 and the short of it is is that the human rights commission in the city, which was pretty progressive for you know, 20 years ago, routed the case to my program because the Muslim couple did not want to look vindictive through a court-based process. They really were thankful for a community-based process and it ended up that the responsible party was acting more solo it wasn't really like acting out of a white supremacist group or anything like that, but was acting pretty solo and ended up willing to take ownership and was apologetic. So, amazingly, because of the stakeholders in the district attorney's office and the human rights commission, we were able to have prep meetings within a month from 9-1-1. And I think it was a month and a half. We had a joint meeting which involved kind of a large circle this is sort of before circles were even known as circles, but there was probably 25 people in the room Two hours of pretty difficult conversation. We actually reached an impasse and it was suggested that we take a break and come back a week later. So kind of to come full circle to what you're getting at like.
Speaker 2:Have I really witnessed the power of dyadic conversation? What basically happened is that the Muslim man, who was primarily the impacted party, kept saying why did you do this, why did you do this? He wasn't getting the kind of answers that were satisfying him. He was a scientist. He needed something deep as well as something that made sense and he kept pressing for that and the responsible party struggled with accounting for that.
Speaker 2:When we all came back a week later, something had percolated for the responsible party and he began to talk more out of his backstory and started to account for the death of a child at age one. That happened in September and he relived that traumatically every September and kind of lost his bearings and said a few other things about his worldview that helped him fit some puzzle pieces together and out of that sharing, the Muslim man finally said this is helping me, this is really helping me now. And then shift happens. That's a powerful phrase I use in all my trainings, because when people finally have enough verbal gift exchange in dyadic conversation, they feel like they can let go of of their clashing narratives and re-narrate things in a way that helps them to move forward. And when shift happens, that's when people can talk about the future and that happens at a deep, sacred, energetic level.
Speaker 2:it's not just word content, it's rebuilt trust where trust was lost.
Speaker 1:Or didn't exist.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. That can happen between police and people of color, if they're willing to be vulnerable, to talk about how violence has affected them. This has been tried in Milwaukee. You put together a group of officers with a group of reintegrating offenders, even if they're, like in Milwaukee, predominantly Black and you ask the same question to all of them how has violence affected you? You get them talking out of their stories and all of a sudden, everyone's becoming a human being. That's a huge way to dyadically open up some bridges where there's naturally some walls.
Speaker 1:I want to touch on a few things that came up for me when you were talking about the case one, the, the impact of. We came to an impasse and we took a break and came back right. Um, earlier you talked about, you know, the way that restorative justice, restorative practices have in some places that we you and I probably wouldn't like call very restorative spaces, like, have become very programmatic, like, okay, you have x amount of meetings, um, and it needs to happen in this timeframe. And if it doesn't happen, okay, we're going to reroute it to our more punitive ways of being. It's great that you had, like one, the ability to have those pre-meetings so quickly, had the ability within the program, within the context that you had to, you know, to cycle back for people who are thinking about navigating conflict and harm in restorative ways. It's not a linear thing that you can just say, like, we will resolve this in these three hours today, or, god forbid you even think about like, hey, in this half hour quote unquote circle after school, right, we're going to get us settled. It's not always like that, right, and there are things that you can do to help. I'll say, expedite and make processes more efficient with pre-work right, but like it's still not linear and it still requires the time.
Speaker 1:What I also appreciate, in which the story that you shared, is, you know, the dissatisfaction of the person who was impacted.
Speaker 1:The man who was impacted, right, people who have been harmed don't always get the answers that they're looking for, don't always get their needs met 100 percent, and we, as much as like I'm an advocate for restorative processes and I imagine you are right, like this isn't like some easy thing that like you're gonna get the results that you want every time.
Speaker 1:In this circumstance, you know there was some deeper understanding, some uh, new trust built and you know, I'm assuming people were able to move on with their lives in ways that were less, where there was less fear, right, and less uncertainty, and so thank you so much for that story. And then when you come back and talk about the way that this can impact individual relationships between police officers and community members, I definitely have seen and acknowledged the way that those stories can impact the way that an officer views somebody in the community or people in the community view individual officers and at the end of the day, it is still the officer's job to enforce the law in ways that are not necessarily conducive to still building community trust.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely a tension there between roles, agendas, paradigms and then sort of having like this unique opportunity of human connection in the midst of that wider context.
Speaker 1:Right, right, because you know those things can be, those dialogues can be harm reductive, right, those dialogues can be harm reductive, right that can, on like as you were sharing in those human to human interactions, be restorative, be transformative, help people in tension, navigate those, those micro situations and folks who are advocating for transformative justice, like changing the conditions under which harm between, specifically, police and marginalized communities both you know, communities of color, black communities, people who are disabled, people who experience mental health challenges, etc. Etc. Those systemic things still exist and it's beyond, just like the incidence of individual harm, that we need to navigate. I don't want to like linger on that too much. There are so many other things that we get to talk about. You know we talk about on this podcast.
Speaker 1:You know your journey through the work and because it's been decades, I don't want you to go like blow, blow, blow on every project that you've worked on, everything that, year by year, has been impactful for you. But you know your career in this work has led you through a lot of different spaces, from academia to the criminal legal system, in lots of, lots of different contexts, and I'm curious if there are any other stories, incidents, learnings that were really important to you leading up to where we're going to get into the genesis of the listening to the movement project in 2015 yeah I think one um one thing I was aware of because, because of how some mennonite connections really opened up things vocationally for me, I was aware that, along with Howard Zare at Eastern Mennonite University, was partnered with John Paul Lederach, who ended up getting involved with international peacemaking and went to Notre Dame.
Speaker 2:He was very active in the 80s with another man called, called Ronald Craybill, and both of them initially were developing dialogue-based models for addressing conflicts within faith communities. And there's sort of a joke, an insider joke that came up like back in those days, and the joke was you know, know, why did these two pioneers, john paul letter rock and ronald crable, leave the field of church conflict resolution to do international peacemaking?
Speaker 2:and the answer is, well, because the latter was far easier sure you know, so so they they get involved with like african transitional justice stuff and tribal, uh, working with tribal conflicts and stuff like that. But I, I was always aware, uh, since I have a, you know, a church faith background, what would it be like to take what I'm learning in the criminal realm with restorative justice and apply it to faith communities? And so at times I've done, I've done a half a dozen church mediation jobs over the years and they're very, very hard, they're thick, they're tangled, there's toxicity, there is, you know, family systems times three to four. And so that prompted me to do more of the prevention work. Because I'm watching schools, you know who originally did RJ as a discipline alternative.
Speaker 1:but and many still are trying.
Speaker 2:Trying, but most schools understand that you have to go upstream and do prevention work and community building work and supportive work. That's much wider than just reactionary, and so I started applying that to the faith communities. What does it look like to start doing workshops and prevention work to build cultures of apology and forgiveness? And so I have a big side area there in my.
Speaker 1:What all has that looked like?
Speaker 2:Well, putting up a website that's integrating restorative justice with practices for faith communities, doing some workshops, both in person and online, that integrate those traditions with skill building. The most recent exciting thing is I've partnered with a number of Black clergy from the south side of Chicago and we're having a Restorative Church gathering the Monday after the NACRJ conference.
Speaker 1:And we might as well just shout it out right now July 7th through 9th, with a pre-conference day on July 6th, the NACRJ conference is happening. It's very soon. By the time you're listening to this podcast, it might be too late for you to make travel arrangements or get a ticket, but if you are available and want to connect with so many restorative justice practitioners around the world meet Ted, meet me, meet so many others who have been featured on this podcast you can head over to NACRJorg and find all the information that you need to get there. Sufficient plug, but yeah, I imagine this work.
Speaker 1:I grew up in church. I've seen the way that church communities deal with conflict and it ends in people leaving Right. It ends in individuals leaving often, but it also looks like groups of people. Just just, there's a schism right and new denominations are started or new churches are started because of irreconcilable differences. I believe I got that pronunciation. Were there any things that so fully acknowledging that so much of this work is proactive, were there? And again thinking about you know confidentiality and things that you're able to share? Were there any stories of you know the ability to repair harm between either individuals or groups of folks in church communities and faith-based communities that are really salient for you.
Speaker 2:One short example that was a small example was I led a grieving circle for about 12 people who left a church because of dysfunction and leadership tensions and and things were just kind of breaking apart. But all all 12 of these adults moved out of this church at different stages over about a year long and then they weren't really connected. And so there was one of them really thought, you know, it'd be really nice if there could be some kind of gathering of these people who left. So I was able to prepare folks and then hold about a four hour grieving circle with a potluck afterwards, and that was really helpful for them to kind of have the equivalent of like a funeral service, have the equivalent of like a funeral service, but also to think about, you know, who are we going forward now without having to carry some of those lonesome hurts?
Speaker 1:Sometimes, when we are faced with harm, and in this circumstance right, there is not willingness for people to reconcile between aggrieved parties or parties that are in tension, right, we can still use these practices to meet folks' needs for whether belonging, needing to acknowledge the harm that happened to them, getting community support and ways forward to have that harm prevented moving forward. It might not always look like being in community with harm prevented moving forward. It might not always look like being in community with each other moving forward. I think a lot of the times uh, the I don't I don't know the exact circumstances of this, but, like this happens a lot of the times, with abuse right, where it is not healthy for either party for them to reconcile and be back together. But you know, both can move forward in a good way, not even ever having to interact with the others, if they're both getting support in a restorative way from their community members, and so you know, thank you for sharing that story.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I love your phrase going forward Because when I define what is restorative justice, people think classically oh, it's about bringing a victim offender together for face-to-face dialogue you know what ends up on Oprah's show, and I say no, it's not about that. It's about helping harming and harm people to move forward in their lives, no matter who they meet with, and explaining that many times it's not possible or appropriate for harming and harm people of the same case to come together.
Speaker 2:Once you redefine restorative work as people moving forward together in healthy, healing manners, then you start to think outside the box. Who are the other conversation partners that could help be part of their encounter moment? You know that would help them to set some things to rest or to be dignified or validated. And I'm actually going to be part of a panel in Chicago on talking about use of surrogates for sexual harm cases and we'll spotlight a case I did about five years ago of both a victimized and offending party who contacted our center. Independent from each other, wanted restorative dialogue in their own journeys and were well suited to actually be dyadic partners after a seven-month preparation. So I'm going to feature that as a way to really widen the opportunities for people to have deep restorative conversations without the possibility of them meeting with their actual case counterparts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's again.
Speaker 1:You know I appreciate that you highlighting that, the seven months that it took to even begin to prepare, like for that conversation, and like seven months happened and people aren't ready, like we don't go forward because, like we don't want to cause more harm when we, when we do that, when we do that and there's this immense sense of urgency for folks to resolve conflict and harm, but this process is too urgent to rush we a little bit more.
Speaker 1:I am thinking I just want to call back for some folks who maybe haven't listened to this podcast for a long time, back to an episode where we featured Mia Hunt of Hidden Water, nyc, talking about the way that they have done circles for people who have been impacted by childhood sexual abuse, for a little bit more of a deeper dive on that topic. You know you've done this work extensively. You know faith communities, criminal legal system, some places like, again, academia, schools, individual incidents of harm as serious as sexual violence. It led you to this place in 2015, where you know you gave your definition of restorative justice and lots of different people define restorative justice in different ways and use the framing in different ways, in different ways and use the framing in different ways. It started a series of conversations in partnership with EMU and I'm curious what was the genesis of that and how has it manifested since? What have been some key learnings for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there were three stages. Emu got some grant money and the initial stage was just bringing together some of the thought leaders in the movement. For even to ask the question is restorative justice a social movement? It's worth saying that the word movement can mean multiple things to different people, and when Howard Zare used the word movement 30 years ago, even he was thinking more in terms of like a river that has a movement and a river that gets bigger and bigger when other tributaries come into it. He wasn't thinking of it as movement in the sense of like the abolition movement, the civil rights movement. But eventually, I would say after 2010, it started.
Speaker 2:New conversations were happening around this. This is not just a program, it's not a service, it's not an intervention, that's, you know, just for isolated things. This has a whole paradigmatic opportunity to change systems on all levels and indigenous traditions. Don't think of it in any way as like a side dish. It's like the air they breathe, it's the values they live at every level, and so, by the time 2015 came around, there was a heightened sense of restorative justice as being re-understood as a true social movement with transformative elements, and then the tension is okay. If that's what it really is. What does that mean for re-understanding its beginnings? What does that mean for the classic realm of interventions? You know it raised new kinds of questions. It also raised what I call the frontier zones, and the book Listening to the Movement really comes out of the third stage of EMU's effort to try to capture what are those frontier zones that show that this is much wider than just a criminal program, you know, for addressing harmful incidents.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know of those. It's funny for me to be having this conversation with you now, already having interviewed many of the contributing authors and having read most of the book already. Right, Also acknowledging that much of the book was written two, three, four years ago. At this point, right, what were some key learnings for you, as you were hearing from all these different voices who had been practicing these ways of being and like these programs in different ways across different sectors?
Speaker 2:I would say the primary one was recognizing that communities could be re-empowered and even at some level to be independent, with defining restorative, holistic work in those communities without heavy reliance on traditional systems, traditional social work systems, traditional justice systems. And so the whole concept of hubs, you know, which we see in Oakland and Chicago and elsewhere, is an example of saying we don't need to be heavily partnered or reliant on all these traditional systems, as if we're thinking in terms of reform, we can do wholesome stuff as community-based stakeholders. And so I would say the book kind of starts to reflect some of that push off where you don't have to envision like traditional systems somehow bending and reforming and partnering. It's more like we're just going to move forward with good, wholesome stuff and we're really not that interested in waiting for judges and prosecutors and probation officers to somehow see the light.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've been attributing this quote to Miriam Kaba and she might have said it in one way. I recently heard Nils Christy talked about the idea also that, like, and we've outsourced community care to social services as well. I think that might be the piece that she's tagged on um in the conversation with uh Daniel Roge, which will air in the coming weeks, talking about the way that social work um has to change with this kind of paradigm, and conversations with um Ethan Ucker. Uh about, you know, the way that the criminal legal system is engaged in dealing with intercommunal violence. Like there are myriad ways that we as community members can deal with these things without having to engage those stakeholders.
Speaker 1:And in my understanding of restorative justice work because I came into this work really in 2014, like, just like around the time when you and many others who had been doing this work for a long time like we're starting to um center more community driven uh ways of being and doing this work. Like that has just been my orientation to all of this Um and shout out to Cheryl and Ora and Pam and Tomas and Miriam and like all the other teachers um who have been um who who helped me get to that space. Um, what has been the impact of these conversations that you've seen across um practitioners, people who have been doing this work, maybe in more system, aligned ways over the years, in response to both the conversations and the book as it's come out?
Speaker 2:Well, I think, doesn't the subtitle have both the phrase opportunities and challenges?
Speaker 1:Growth and new challenges. Growth and new challenges. Okay, growth and new challenges.
Speaker 2:I think at one point we had a working title that showed opportunities and challenges, and I think we're still in that zone where the recent growth has been amazing and wonderful, but you know that whenever there's wider, faster growth, it creates unforeseen challenges around how is all this holding together and what are the continuity elements?
Speaker 2:So, being connected to NACRJ, I'm really mindful that there are still conversations that are perennial around what are the common denominators or common roots? When there's that much community empowerment and, you could say, autonomy, which is, in my mind, a good direction because I'm a really big fan of localized power rather than local efforts having to be beholden to something beyond the local realm, it brings a new challenge. How does it all hold together? You know, in New Zealand and Canada and Belgium they have systems that sort of integrate everything together, at least at a criminal level. That creates standards, continuities, model replication. We don't quite have that in the United States because we sort of prize experimental, being experimental with new ventures. So I probably could say a little more, but I'll just summarize it by saying for every positive growth we're still seeing new challenges for holding things together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what this? This might be a retread of a question that I already asked, so the response might be similar. But what has surprised you the most? Both? I'm not thinking so much from the content, but from the impact that um you've seen of this book and this project um over the last few years?
Speaker 2:I think one thing that surprised me if I was able to sort of compare a perspective now from even 10 years ago is the growth of the circle model. 10 years ago I would have thought more in terms of, okay, there's different dialogue models and they all kind of have their strengths and limits and here's how they kind of balance with each other, and I primarily train and use conference model more than circle model. But I have seen an assumption that the circle model is the dominant model for restorative dialogue work because it's so versatile and it covers all prevention and intervention and can adapt in all sorts of community ways. The surprising thing for me is that I don't see enough conversation around strengths and limits of models and I've done a little bit of workshop work on this very topic because if restorative practitioners are not aware of strengths and limits of the model they use and they kind of make the assumption that this model is people, the only way people get what I call model loyalty, if that's primarily how they're trained and and their avenue of learning.
Speaker 2:Restorative work is based on a model that that eventually creates new challenges around the the growth and spread.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think, speaking to circles really specifically over the last two years and speaking about pandemic times, although we have done things on Zoom that are circle-like, none of those things are actually circles in my view, and so you are having to employ a conferencing model or conferencing methodology practice, because you're not in that physical space with people and like there are other nuances as well. But I think, speaking from my training perspective, what we do at Amplify RJ, it is much more about teaching people the underlying framework of those restorative questions and holding space for people in whatever way that manifests. Right, Because there is a script for a circle that you can do, there is a script for a or an outline for a conferencing thing that you can do. But if that is not what is best conducive to your situation like that's probably not what you should do, whether that is culturally right, People are not going to be culturally responsive or receptive to a circle, or you know, or the conferencing model. You have to be adaptable and thank you so much for highlighting that.
Speaker 1:You know these conversations can happen in multiple ways. These dialogues can happen in multiple ways. One right way of doing things. There are multiple ways of doing even circle work, even restorative work. It doesn't just have to be that circle model, which was the model that I was brought up in, right, but there are definitely different ways to navigate conflict navigate harm, build, maintain, repair relationships. Yeah, Thank you. Thank you so much for that pair relationships.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for that. Yeah, let me add one more piece to the same topic.
Speaker 2:I'm really thankful that people are finding their they're trusting their own intuitions to do what I call blended models. And the last time I did a workshop on circle conference strengths and limits, I found I was getting people to just talk out of their experiences. Most of the participants were already comfortable with blending aspects from both models that they kind of drew from, and I think that's a wonderful thing. I do that too when I'm working with larger groups. I'll do opening and closing go-arounds, but in the middle I'll facilitate a little more like a conference, which for me is actually less scripted in the way I do. Facilitation and ultimately the strength that conferencing has over circling is the realm of response. That's the dyadic magic. You know when people can can respond either by echoing what they've heard or responding from the heart back and and if circles set up that traditional, you know, go around, speak your truth, your truth, speak your thoughts, speak your perspective.
Speaker 1:And wait for the talking piece to come around.
Speaker 2:It can really mute the power of direct response, and so if it's a peacemaking circle, at least you know more narrowly without a dimension of response between the most harming and harm people present, they can get muted out, so that those are some pieces I'm really mindful of from the kind of work that I do.
Speaker 1:I know that there is a attention for me and this is something that I've had to navigate as someone who grew up in this work with circle being the thing Right. Also preserving like excuse me, I'll say the sanctity of circle process Right and that's not always possible in the spaces that you're in and being okay with blending that to serve the needs of the people that you are, that you're in dialogue with, that you are helping to navigate their conflict and harm is important. It doesn't have to be like this pure. This is the only way that things can be.
Speaker 2:We've covered a lot and I want to make sure that we get to all the questions that everyone answers when they come on the podcast. But before we do, is there anything else that you want to shout out about the book? Well, it's going to be 40% off at Chicago. We hope to have copies for sale there and we'll also have flyers, I think, for anyone who's listening now. It's a great book that gives the foundation of indigenous principles. There are strong themes of addressing race relations all through the book.
Speaker 1:It gives some of those frontier zones where restorative justice is applied to brand new areas, such as earth care and environmental justice which is an episode that we already ran featuring, uh, valerie serrell, just because it was earth day and we wanted to run with it ahead. So you can already go back and listen to that episode and then go read the chapter in the book. But, um, yes, covering so many aspects, so many frontiers, so many horizons. I interrupted you.
Speaker 2:Is there anything else? That's fine. It's just a great book to sort of benchmark both growth and challenges of this time we're in right now.
Speaker 1:Beautiful, All right. So the questions that everyone answers when they come on the podcast, without knowing it. You've already answered one of them when you gave your definition of restorative justice, so I'm not going to ask you that again. But what I am going to ask you is, as you've been doing this work, what's been an oh shit moment, a mistake or something that you would do differently now? Or you're looking back and like how could I do that and what did you learn from it?
Speaker 2:no-transcript to address unintended consequences, meaning that when things don't go well, when process choices were poorly formed, that you go to parties with humility and still try to dignify your relationship and communication with them and I have had to do that now and then over the years. It's really hard to admit like I could have made a much better process choice. But one that really stands out for me in several cases is that when I've gotten involved with shuttled communications where it's not appropriate for parties to come together either too soon but they're wanting to communicate things either by writing or by giving permission Uh, I, I have found myself in this in some really difficult gray areas about representing the words of one party to another.
Speaker 1:Projecting your perspective onto their words.
Speaker 2:Some of that comes through the telephone game. But even in shuttling a written piece, I'm aware of the limits of that because there's not that energetic dimension you get, you know, like when an animal is near you and you're reading each other. You don't get that from just a written piece. And there have been times where some shuttle communications led to some unintentional consequences, maybe even some re-victimization, and each time I catch myself around wow, there really are limits to a process where you're helping people to be empowered to say and hear what they really need to say and hear.
Speaker 1:When you encounter those things, you know. You talked about the need to acknowledge the unintended consequences of your actions. Consequences of your actions. How do you best prevent that going forward? Because, like shuttle communications, like is, continues to be a part of practice when we are dealing with people who are not at a place where they can be in the same space together. How do you prevent that harm from happening to the best of your?
Speaker 2:ability. I think the most practical way and I'm even kicking myself for not doing this better in something that was about a month ago is that first, you're never facilitating heavy duty things alone. You're always partnered up with a team of co-facilitators two, three, four of you and then, practically, if you have an intuition that you're entering a sensitive zone of shuttle communications, that you're really pre-briefing with your facilitator team around. Are we really doing the best we can here? Are we aware of some risks? Could we set some better boundaries? Could we lower some expectations and just talk that through? Because without that talking through it's easy to kind of do things, just because you're eager for the process to move forward. So taking the time to pre-brief is probably the best option.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you for that learning. This one is challenging in a different way. You get to sit in circle with four people, dead or alive. Who are they and what is the one question you ask that circle?
Speaker 2:Well, the person that came to my mind, uh, is actually a friend of mine who lives on pine ridge. Um, he's a lakota man who comes from the red cloud clan. He's been a friend of mine since the very year that I first was introduced to restorative work. We used to do furniture restoration work together in a shop and we got to know each other and we still keep in touch. I'd love to be in a circle with him and his wife and maybe a couple other people they might choose to talk about the impacts of the pandemic, on the reservation.
Speaker 1:As you've been sharing. You've dropped so many gems. What is one thing? Maybe it's a mantra, maybe it's an affirmation maybe it's a key learning that you want to make sure everyone listening to the podcast knows.
Speaker 2:I think I'd like to just reframe the protest line no justice, no peace.
Speaker 2:I've thought a lot about what that means in our society and I actually have a whole article on it that tries to come at it from a restorative perspective.
Speaker 2:But one of the things that has been meaningful to me that kind of pulls us back into themes throughout our whole podcast here is that how you define justice is really vital in that phrase, because if you are thinking in terms of traditional justice as necessary to bring about peace, as necessary to bring about peace, you are basically operating in a contestual paradigm, a framework where there tends to be win-lose in a court context and we're frustrated if someone gets acquitted, and so our concept of justice on that phrase in my mind generally leans toward a traditional understanding of justice, as you know bringing truth and then bringing a punitive outcome. If you redefine justice in a restorative manner, it actually builds a different way of thinking about the peace that comes after, and I would really suggest that if we understand that phrase as deep relationship building with respect and responsibility those three Rs that are so vital to any kind of justice process that that is gonna build a more lasting peace on any level. So that's kind of what I'd like to leave folks to chew over.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sitting in deep reflection with that um, for for a couple reasons. One, because the line that follows up no justice, no peace in a lot of the protests that I've been at is no racist police, right and um that like that can be um and, like you know, we're coming back to that, that which is very present where we're at, and that's both no racist individuals who are fulfilling that role. But what does it look like to transform that institution or transform the conditions under which that institution of policing has to exist? And what you're talking about is the definition of peace and the definition of justice. No-transcript.
Speaker 2:How and where can people support you and your work in the ways that you want to be supported Financially? I mean a big part of my work, I feel like, is pro bono and then, of course, a lot of my training in workshop work. You know, I do try to make a living by it, but I'm not salaried with my center and I feel a calling to this work. So I tend to say yes to things where I should probably be a little more measured if it's going to demand a lot of my time without any pay. So people can just support in any way they're led to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean so, like part of that looks like book sales, but like that's not like a big chunk of it, like is there a specific place that people should go? Is it the center's site where it's make a donation, or is it somewhere else?
Speaker 2:I, I see yeah, our uh university of minnesota duluth site has a place for donation, and that money would support the amount of pro bono frontier work we're doing with things like sexual assault or or community building or pulling regional folks together for learning. We don't have a budget for most of this stuff, and so that would be wonderful.
Speaker 1:Present day. David, here I'm going to switch up the ask from Ted at the end of that episode to remind you that, if you appreciated this conversation, if you and if you have the financial means, please support his family, as they're uh still paying off the medical expenses from his battle with cancer. Uh link to the GoFundMe is in the description. We'll be back with another episode of this restorative justice life very, very soon. Um, until then, take care and be safe.
