Conference Summary

Seventy people gathered for the 4th Annual Restorative Justice Conference in Fresno, CA. The task of this conference was to examine the role of the church and legislation in defining and shaping the vision and practice of Restorative Justice. Representatives from twelve different states and British Columbia, Canada reported on current restorative justice programs and legislation efforts.

Ron Claassen, co-director of the Center for Peacemaking and Conflict Studies, Fresno Pacific College began by welcoming and introducing participants to the Conference. Ron also served as moderator throughout the Conference for speakers, panelists and general discussion. Dalton Reimer, co-director of the Center for Peacemaking and Conflict Studies, Fresno Pacific College opened each morning with thoughtful meditations.

Lois Barrett, Executive Secretary, Commission of Home Ministries, General Conference Mennonite Church presented a paper entitled Thinking Theologically about the Church and State" which proposed a set of models describing alternative relationships between church and state.

A panel of five, consisting of Elaine Enns, Fresno VORP and Center for Peacemaking and Conflict Studies, Fresno Pacific College; Kay Pranis, Restorative Justice Planner, State of Minnesota; Bill Preston, Restorative Justice Institute; Lisa Rea, Justice Fellowship; Rick Templeton, Justice Fellowship and John Wilmerding, Vermont Reparative Justice Program reported on current restorative justice programs and legislation, and related their comments to Lois' presentation.

Friday afternoon began with Duane Ruth-Heffelbower, Center for Peacemaking and Conflict Studies, Fresno Pacific College presenting a paper entitled Toward a Christian Theology of Church and Society as it Relates to Restorative Justice". Duane suggested that the church has at least three roles in society, 1. to witness to God's love and power, 2. to call society to peace, justice and compassion and 3. to work toward the welfare of all members of society

Both Duane and Lois called the church to be non-conformist and prophetic.

In light of Lois and Duane's theological input, the afternoon panelists, Titus Bender, Professor of Social Work, Eastern Mennonite University; Kathy Lancaster, Criminal Justice Office, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.); Pat Nolan, Justice Fellowship; Wayne Northey, Mennonite Central Committee, Canada; Dan Van Ness, Prison Fellowship International; Howard Zehr, Mennonite Central Committee Office of Criminal Justice, provided an overview of legislation and restorative justice thought.

David Augsburger, Fuller Theological Seminary, completed the day with a discussion on forgiveness.

Saturday morning began with another meditation from Dalton Reimer focusing on Genesis and the value of persons.

The participants then broke into three groups according to the colored dot on their name tag (orange, pink or green). Each group addressed the following questions;

1. What is our vision for Restorative Justice

2. What is the role of the church?

3. What is the role of legislation?

In the afternoon a panel of seven, Kathy Lancaster, Kay Pranis, Pat Nolan, Wayne Northey, Lisa Rea, Dan Van Ness and Howard Zehr reported on their groups' work. Following is each group's response to the three questions.

I. What is our vision for Restorative Justice?

Orange Group

1. Understanding that Restorative Justice is a way of life - every aspect of human interaction

2. Community based

3. Education

4. Within 5 years the vocabulary would be generally understood

5. There are no outsiders/"others"

6. More racial and cultural involvement in Restorative Justice development, leadership and clients served

7. restoration must balance the inequities of displaced groups, focusing now on racism

Pink Group

1. Keep offenders as productive members of society

2. Make Restorative Justice presumed option for all people in responding to harms

3. Create whole new understanding in the community - not just concern for healing between victim and offender

4. Reclaim and rename "justice"

5. individuals as tools of Restorative Justice in all aspects of life

6. market self-interest of Restorative Justice for all persons

7. convince all that Restorative Justice is in the self interest of all persons and only true way to bring closure/healing

8. faith/secular/government cooperation for success of Restorative Justice

8. create models that really work to bring about to reclaim broken lives and reduce violence

9. victims and offenders at the center of justice process

Green Group

1. National campaign and strategy for community planning

2. Justice from bottom up - a way of life - educational system - community up

3. more collective understanding, if not of definition, of principles and of the problem

4. an emerging vision elicited from communities beyond dominant style

5. more experimentally built models for more serious crime, culturally appropriate e.g. a physics" of what works

6. there is creativity in contained anarchy

II. What is the Role of the Church?

Orange Group

revised question to What is the Role of Faith Community/Moral Community

1. affirm and clarify and share the vision

2. sustain a focus on common human concerns

3. articulating the spiritual dimensions of Restorative Justice

4. affirm universal concern to be fully alive in relationships

5. upholding sacral nature of human relationships

6. tell the story of how to move toward relationship

7. challenge and question (members, leaders, etc.)

8. practice Restorative Justice values in internal process

9. create a safe place/foundation for public leaders to support Restorative Justice

10. reach out to other faith groups - recognize common ground

11. ministry to victims - long term

11. resist quick fixes - a different perspective on TIME - taking time

12. bring a holistic understanding to efforts

Pink Group

1. to educate people of faith for sharing of stories

2. storytelling

3. modeling Restorative Justice and practice it as a way of life. Allow for practical, immediate practice

4. build consensus within church constituency

5. let go of concept of Restorative Justice to allow its growth in the broader community

6. identify universal value - discern God's purpose

7. break through denial in communities of faith

8. Go out to society and be the light

9. lead, guide, shepherd society towards a better way of justice

10. practice Restorative Justice

11. lend credibility to the growth of Restorative Justice outside communities of faith

12. provide people power to implement Restorative Justice

13. share love and compassion of the faith group

14. sub-groups dealing with risk-taking, theory, model creation

Green Group

1. carries Long term vision

2. risk taking experiments

3. dialogue at pew level

4. ecumenical

III. What is the Role of Legislation?

Orange Group

1. enabling

2. resisting prison-industrial complex (do no further harm)

3. watch for unintended consequences

4. Platform for communicating community standards

5. monitor and critique our own legislative successes

Pink Group

1. provide minimal consensus to the larger community

2. build alternative into law

3. carry out/maintain alternatives, allow for growth

4. support projects of people of faith

5. empower/facilitate/encourage/money

6. redefine guiding philosophy of Criminal Justice system

7. Restorative Justice is broader than Criminal Justice, includes economic/ political justice

8. enable the vision of Restorative Justice to create change

9. art of compromise in shifting Criminal Justice paradigm

10. enable the vision of Restorative Justice to create change

11. speaking to legislators in terms they can hear and understand

12. know and understand opponents, articulate our position

Green Group

1. need for good models

2. need to explore what we'd like to see in legislation, dream legislation"

3. need a national congress/team to explore and evaluate

4. legislation to enable communities -reflect grassroots needs

5. need to create dialogue not just legislation

6. need to affect dialogue in crime, not just legislation

7. concern about fearmongering" by politicians re: crime

8. need for education and public networking to expand the grassroots coalition for Restorative Justice

Finally the panelists, Kathy Lancaster, Kay Pranis, Pat Nolan, Wayne Northey, Lisa Rea, Dan Van Ness and Howard Zehr were asked to caucus around a Consensus Building" exercise where they attempted to identify the emerging consensus of the group. Their summary was presented to the entire gathering for discussion. This summary is not intended to represent a complete consensus, the consensus process was not completed.

Consensus Building

I. Elements of Vision for Restorative Justice

1. community up [Restorative Justice is community based, grassroots efforts, justice from the bottom up]

2. Restorative Justice is way of life

3. has to be dialogue on boundaries and principles

4. [some/all] dialogue needs to be in an intentionally inclusive context, including race, culture, faith, gender, class, those who have not self-identified with communities of faith, etc.

5. restorative track is a presumed option in criminal justice

6. [Criminal Justice System is a Restorative Justice System]

II. Role of Communities of Faith

Inward

1. peacemaking within

2. constituency building

Outward

3. lead/guide/shepherd

4. let go

5. tell stories

6. take risks

7. create models

III. Role of legislation

1. two edged sword

2. legislation is only one option, there are other ways to get things done

3. legislation which removes roadblocks and enables community action - facilitating vs. prescriptive

4. watch unintended consequences (monitor/evaluate)

The participants were divided into groups to discuss the consensus building" report from the panelists. Following is the group discussion that resulted from the panelist's report

Group Discussion

The gap may be in role of church in including persons who have not self-identified as being interested

Include wardens, those who have gone through the process

Discussion as hypertext.

Draw on broader range of giftedness (arts etc.)

How do we continue the dialogue when we are so widely scattered

Why be hesitant to use churchly language in a discussion of church-based Restorative Justice?

Where do the particularities of faith come in while affirming other views?

A need at this stage in the process to be philosophical rather than only practical.

Looking at current methods of doing Restorative Justice as we can now and letting legislation grow out of them.

Not all church people are looking for practical solutions to social problems, but more self-interested.

Legislation will take care of itself if the stories are told.

How can things that work be replicated by legislation?

Legislation is just one category of community involvement in Restorative Justice.

This group is mostly anglo, but we need to do what we can without guilt. How can we be more inclusive in our discussions?

This conference summary, meditations and papers are available on the

world wide web at http://www.fresno.edu/pacs/docs

If you do not have access to the web and would like to receive a hard copy please contact Restorative Justice Ministries at 559-455-5843.

Return to the PACS Home Page