Crime is a Wound ! Justice should be Healing !

RESTORATIVE JUSTICE : Project to bring offenders together with victims and the community to repair the harm
(mesha Monge-Irizarry, Idriss telley Foundation)

Restorative Justice? End of punitive justice? What an exciting concept! First time I heard about it was at the closure of Cammerin Boyd memorial and protest by SF City Hall on 5-5-05, when a conservatively dressed young man, who remained on the outskirts of the event, approached me inquiring about the next steps in Justice4CammerinBoyd campaign.

We meet in Nicholas Rosenberg (Restorative Justice Organizer) sunbathed loft in SF downtown Mission. Adopted by a Jewish family, and of South Asian descent, the young attorney still puzzles me by his seemingly guarded, conservative composure... Then we share... Nicholas' young wife, his inspiring soul mate, suddenly passed away from an aneurysm hardly a few months ago. Grief and memories bond us instantly. I mistakenly misinterpreted his blunted affect, stemming from pain...which he transcends admirably through progressive action and countless hours of organizing the launching of Restorative Justice!

This is an exciting new way of thinking about crime and criminal justice, through an expended role for victims, expansive community involvement, and most importantly, requirement that offenders take responsibility!

As crime hurts victims, communities and ultimately offenders, controlling crime should be mainly done by the community and its members. The current criminal justice system has practically no impact on crime level since it only responds AFTER crime occurs! The Restoration concept is also a great rehabilitative tool for offenders, through giving them an opportunity to reverse steam, from crime (which often requires skill and creativity...) to community healing. A dialogue is driven to bring the community, the victim (or their representation) and the offender to generate a response to crime, and a powerful recidivism prevention tool.

Nicholas Rosenberg ambitious partnership goal involves the active participation of the following city officials, groups and individuals: Sheriff's DPT, DA, Adult Probation, Board of Supervisors, Business Community, Community Court Volunteers, Community-based organizations, Ex-Offenders, Human Services, Mayor's Office, PD, Pretrial Diversion, Public Defender's Office, Public Health, SF residents, Superior Court, TAP and Victims of crime.

In this ideal but attainable world, from lowest to highest intensity: a panel of victims tells their stories to offenders; Community Court (victim/offender group) use Restorative Justice principles; this group brings the discussion in prison to stop the violence; face to face meetings in the community between victims, their families and offenders; Victim/Offender mediation in offered in property crimes and minor assaults; finally a dialogue is opened, in maximum security prison, face to face meeting between victim or survivor and offenders in severe violence cases.

By now Rosenberg becomes quite animated :" We are the bridge between the Sheriff 's DPT &the community! Michael Hennessy of the Sheriff Department is very motivated, this is exciting ! You know, Hennessy is responsible for letting female inmates access "our Bodies, Ourselves" manual, he took it on as monitoring their conditions in confinement and as a First Amendment issue. The Board of Supervisors can motion a possible legislation ! There are 160,000 prisoners in the California correctional system, 33 State prisons. SF Public Defender Jeff Adachi's idea of a "Youth Council" empowers communities. We just got to get people engaged and excited in public safety! We want a Community Court in SF District 6, it's an evolutionary process. We are thinking "Mentor Program" visiting the jail, as a hook up for job, housing... Community Court will come down to nonprofit organizations to do peer education with inmates, who will in turn engage in offender to offender dialogue. This is ground for a Statewide reform!".

For the second time, I ask Nicholas:" What are the road blocks?'' (obviously roadblock is not in Rosenberg's vocabulary)
"Hmmm...Inertia"
"What is your position on the Death Penalty?
" Well,I do not support it because it is punitive: retributive justice just doesn't work!"
A pause, a covert smile: "Asking the police to prevent crime is asking the mortician to deliver babies ! Wrong entity !"
"Nicholas, tell us something from the heart?"
"I love SF, the Tenderloin, 6th street... My wife was legally blind, and she felt safer in the TL than in the Marina, the TL is a little town you know, info spreads... We don't have to give out to developers, and community building is free! Renewal dialogs in the jail, Community Court with assault and battery offenders &victims, Yes! Instantly ! After 6 years of talking to victims, prisoners, legal services, I get it!... now we got to get other people involved. Bevan Dufty on the Board of Supervisors loves the idea. We are working on a year and a half projection...Mayor Newsom is opposed to the concept of a Restorative Justice Task Force, but open to the creation of a working group".

"Do you need a city budget?"
Again, that smile...:"SF has a 5 Million Budget.... Forget City Budget! It would chip away at our freedom!".

So much for misleading conservative body language, Mr. Rosenberg, hats off !

After a surprisingly strong and spontaneous bear hug from visionary Rosenberg, on my way to Idriss Stelley Foundation, it is my turn to flash back and smile in the bus, watching Downtown Mission rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, so foreign to my old Mission stumping ground...

Almost 4 decades ago, while a young communist worker in Ivory Coast's poverty stricken village of Sinfra, I was customarily mobilized, at any day or night hour, for the ancestral impromptu "Palabre", where all village residents gather in the chief's house, to now hash it out with Ousmane and his 6 angried wives, because he neglected the turn of his oldest companion at his bedside tonight... 12 yr. Celine, exhausted by his demands, beat up her frail brother again... Diallo stole 3 coffee plants from his neighbor who caught him in the act...The clinic white doctor disrespected nurse Yoro and called him an animal name... You see there is no police department in Sinfra. We reluctantly drag ourselves to the Palabre, day in, day out, mediate, resolve, drink a glass of palm wine to seal the agreement, gently nudge the antagonists, ask them to give us a longer break, and give them a hug, until next time. No one gets killed, no one goes to jail, Restorative Justice has worked outside of AmeriKKKa since the world is world ! NIcholas, we're game !

For more information on Restorative Justice, please log onto
http://www.sfrestorativejustice.org, or write to nicholas_rosenberg [at] yahoo.com