In addition to earning certification in mental health first aid and first aid/CPR, the CAs — sometimes along with ministry and pastoral assistants, who were also preparing for the school year — attended numerous training sessions. A sampling of topics included diversity and identity, led by professors and , sex and relationships led by Professor , power and systems led by Professor , and restorative justice practices and conflict styles led by , restorative justice coordinator for Mennonite Central Committee.

A series of meals prepared and hosted by the president’s cabinet and various other departments and faculty reinforced the sense of community and showed that EMU is “an institution that cares deeply,” said Scott Eyre, lead residence director. [Meet the .]

“Our faculty and staff care for our students and make it easy to enter into conversations and to learn from them, and to invite them into spaces and places. There are a lot of fingerprints on what we do in ,” he said.

‘All based on care’

As imperative and useful as the skills she learned in the days of training will be, Abigail Shelly, a sophomore social work major from Collinsville, Mississippi, was most inspired by something less tangible. “I think through seeing the different residence directors and people leading, seeing how much care they put into this before we’ve gotten here, has made me feel like I’m better equipped to reflect that on the people who are going to be hall residents,” she said. 

All CAs are strongly encouraged to connect intentionally with each pair of roommates early in the first semester, an idea Eyre picked up several years ago from a CA whose hallway “flourished.” That’s just one way CAs will help their diverse hallway communities function in a healthy way, which isn’t an easy task, said Eyre. Hall members can include Mennonites and non-Mennonites, people with different racial and political backgrounds, people with various experiences of what “community” means, and more.

“How do you invite people into a space where all that can translate? How can you help them care, and know and want to be with each other?” Eyre said.

Such attempts also help students make better choices, said Eyre, because “when you know the people you live with in a residence hall, they can come into your decision-making.”

Shelly says that the big picture of care encompasses even the interactions between residence life staff and students who may break rules.

“It’s all based on care. When I heard it last year, I thought, ‘OK, it’s a Christian university, they need to say that’ — but seeing that in action and in conversation? I’d say the sessions have been great, but it’s more about seeing how the RDs care for each other, and then in turn care for us, and then how that will trickle down to the residents, as well. Their cups are completely overflowing,” Shelly said.

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For all their work, Eyre said that CAs might not see the return on the investments they make in people even though those returns may well be very real. “Somewhere down the line, five, ten years from now, people who came here as 18-year-olds to live in this community and maybe don’t quite get it now, or are not really interested in it, all of a sudden they might find themselves married, having kids, working a job, whatever it is. Some of these deposits that these CAs made in their lives early on, right now, they might look back and say, ‘That experience is really helping me right now.’ Maybe the CA will never know, and the residence director will never know, and a professor will never know.”

But sometimes they will know. Eyre can remember — from when he was a CA over a decade ago — people whose words and actions showed that they didn’t like being at EMU. “But some of those people work here now,” he said. “A lot of those people give to the school. EMU changes lives even if you don’t want your life changed while you’re here.”

Shelly, who decorated her hallway with lights and artwork to “set the tone and make it a homey place,” says seeing her freshman year CA bring students with different backgrounds together into a community with “thick and foundational” relationships inspired her to become a CA.

Elizabeth Eutsler, a biology major from Waynesboro, Virginia, also credits her freshman year CA with getting her interested in the role. That CA encouraged her to apply for the job, Eutsler said, even though “I didn’t have the confidence to think that I could do it.” Now she’s a senior and entering her third year as a CA: “It was intimidating, but I was like, ‘I’m going to do this,’ and I did it.”

Eutsler said she gets excited about meeting new people and incoming first-year students, but this year it was something else that made her recommit to the program. “I realized that I had such a great support system in residence life that I couldn’t not come back. It’s such a great community to be in, and it’s just really made me feel at home as a person, and so I decided to stay, because I knew I couldn’t miss out on that aspect of my life. They’ve been great.”

The event — which includes speakers and interactive arts-based opportunities for reflection, learning and healing — is Saturday, March 19, from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in EMU’s Suter Science Center. It is free and open to the public as well as the campus community.

“Sexual violence doesn’t just impact individuals,” Stauffer says. “It is a breach of relationship. How can we rebuild community in the face of violence? If we can build toward a healthier definition of community, I think we’ll all feel safer and provide an environment for profound healing.”

Stauffer’s project, titled “,” began in 2012 with research among domestic abuse survivors from within communities of homeless women, undocumented Latinas and Mennonite women from Old Order or conservative church communities. Stauffer employed a strengths-based approach, with particular focus on the resilient ways in which women survive in spite of gaps in societal support networks. Her project employed strategies that empowered study participants, integrating storytelling interviews with circle processes and healing arts workshops.

Last spring, MA in biomedicine students were integrated into the project with a about adverse childhood experience. Most of the students are future health care providers, and the experience asked them to reflect on the symptomatic and diagnostic implications of personal narratives as they participated in storytelling, communication activities and playback theater events with co-facilitators, some of whom were domestic abuse survivors.

Stauffer and the planning committee have included some of these same components in the symposium, she says. “This is an interdisciplinary event with planning, support and participation coming from various groups and departments across campus,” she added, the representation of which is important to the idea of both community response and support.

Plenary presenters include , assistant professor of restorative justice and peacebuilding at EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, and University of Notre Dame doctoral researcher Sheila McCarthy. Turner will speak on “Healing in Community” and McCarthy on “Sexual Violence through the Lens of Moral Injury.” , an EMU graduate whose published writing has explored her identity as a survivor of sexual abuse, will share her poetry. Inside Out, a campus theater group which has also participated in other parts of Stauffer’s multidisciplinary project, will host a session on the innovative and healing art of playback theater.

“To me, this type of witness moves our peace stance from the rubric of a privatized individual journey to a much more collective awareness of the church’s role in embodying the challenge to ‘speak truth’ to abuses of power,” Stauffer says. “It invites us as a community of faith to higher levels of transparency, truth and grace for all parties involved.”

Afternoon breakout sessions in two 90-minute blocks options provide attendees with a variety of options, including:

• “How to Appropriately Respond to Disclosures,” by Mike and Lavonne Yoder of in Milton, Pa.;
• “Body Work and Response Mechanisms of Memory Storage and Release,” by , director of EMU’s (STAR) program;
• “Arts Approaches to Trauma Recovery,” with Janine Aberg;
• “International Perspectives on Sexual Violence,” by Diana Tovar Rojas and Myriam Aziz of EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding;
• ”Unpacking Consent, Unhealthy Relationships and Sexual Assault,” by Chris Ehrhardt and Laurel Winsor of James Madison University’s (CARE) program;
• “Safe Church Protocols of Prevention,” by Ross Erb and Jackie Hieber of , which provides sexual assault crisis services and other programs in Harrisonburg;
• “Circles of Support and Accountability (COSA),” by Sarah King and Daniel Foxvog;
• “Restorative Justice Dialogues in Crimes of Severe Violence,” by , restorative justice coordinator for Mennonite Central Committee;
• “LGBTQ Perspectives on Sexual Violence,” by , assistant professor of education at EMU;
• “I Am Your Broken Place: The Grief of Sexual Violence,” by , director of at EMU.

Stauffer says the project has involved “many hands coming together.” Members of the faculty and staff planning committee include Mansfield, the STAR director; Comer, director of counseling services; Roger Foster, co-founder of playback theater troupe; , history professor and department chair; Teresa Haase, director of the graduate program in counseling; and , professor of social work. The student-led has also helped to advise and support the symposium, and students are being encouraged to attend.

“Having students as an integral part of what we’re doing is key,” Stauffer says. “The investment and energy that students bring adds huge value to the whole process.”

A final educative component, designed for EMU faculty and staff and focusing on institutional dynamics, is being planned for this coming fall.

The “Silent Violence” project has been funded by a JustPax Fund grant since 2014. focuses on individuals and organizations working for effective change through innovative approaches to societal challenges relating to gender, environmental and/or economic justice. The fund is administered by through the Everence affiliate, Mennonite Foundation. Due to that support, the event is free and open to the public. No pre-registration is required.

“We sought to bring together a cross-section of restorative justice practitioners, theorists and innovators,” said , co-director of the Zehr Institute and the project’s leader. “Some of the invitees were world-recognized in the restorative justice field, but others were invited to ensure that diverse and often-unheard voices would be represented.”

One-third of the 36 participants were from populations that are under threat socially and economically in their regions of the world. The genders were equally represented. One person was under age 21, though two other young adults had been expected to attend.

Conversing about RJ’s ‘revolutionary intent’

The idea behind the unusual mixture of invitees was to foster provocative conversation about the possibilities for restorative justice (RJ), particularly for addressing structural injustices, said Stauffer.

In the prospectus for the three-year project submitted to the funder, , the organizers wrote: “On the social margins, there is growing research and experimentation with RJ as a tool for addressing structural harms and injustices. This project will explore and document these emerging practices in order to recapture the revolutionary intent of RJ.”

The organizers called attention in their prospectus to what they viewed as the danger of RJ settling into a “social service practice” centering on “repair at the micro-interpersonal level.” Instead, they wished to highlight the ways that RJ can “provide a coherent framework for transforming macro-social structures that cause harm.”

Aware that many of the 36 attendees at the first consultation would not have prior relationships with each other, the organizers devoted about half of the five days to exercises and facilitated conversations designed to establish trust and a common basis for exploring future possibilities. Senior graduate students at EMU’s served as facilitators for the process.

Tough questions

First, the attendees prepared a history line of RJ, then they explored identity, power and privilege in the field. On the third day, they embarked on a discussion of best practices.

“We accepted the challenge of bringing together a highly diverse group, especially given that many of the participants are international leaders in the field, [being] accomplished researchers, authors, practitioners and facilitators in their own right,” Stauffer said.

“The challenge was heightened because the group grew beyond the original envisioned size of 20 to 25,” he added. “We needed to go well beyond 25 to have a true cross-section of voices, but it was difficult to develop coherence among three dozen people with strong opinions, especially in only five days.”

Yet the participants were largely positive in their final evaluations, he said, indicating that they had not regretted investing a workweek in wrestling with each other over tough questions, such as the extent to which RJ should be viewed as a social movement, as opposed to simply a set of restorative practices.

Stauffer did not pretend to be neutral on this last point. In his opening remarks to the group, he referred to the U.S. penal reform movement having been “co-opted.” In contrast, he said he hopes RJ continues to grow into a social movement in North America, with the aim of “transforming deep structural conflicts and injustices.” Toward this end, North Americans have much to learn from their international brothers and sisters about “large-scale applications” of RJ, he said.

Agreement on RJ’s core values

For a social movement to be successful, Stauffer told the group, it requires political opportunity, resource mobilization, a framing message, and critical mass (or a “tipping point”).

On the last day, in a final small-group presentation, a participant observed that the 36 attendees had largely agreed during the week on RJ’s core values, but not necessarily on how to practice restorative justice.

This first consultation will be followed next year by a public conference attended by up to 120 people. Next time, Stauffer said, his organizing team will work to create a conference format that moves participants more quickly into discussions on the future of the field, with a view of moving into a research and writing phase in the final year of the project.

Participants in the consultation

The 36 participants were:

1. Aaron Lyons, Fraser Region Community, Justice Initiatives, Canada
2. Ali Gohar, Just Peace Initiatives, Pakistan
3. Barb Toews, University of Washington Tacoma / Designing Justice+Designing Spaces, USA
4. , Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, EMU
5. Brenda E. Morrison, Centre for Restorative Justice, Simon Fraser University, USA
6. Carl Stauffer, Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, EMU
7. Carolyn Boyes-Watson, Center for Restorative Justice, Suffolk University, USA
8. Catherine Bargen, Restorative Justice Coordinator Crime Prevention and Victim Services Division, Government of British Columbia, Canada
9. Dan Van Ness, Center for Justice and Reconciliation, Prison Fellowship International, USA

10. , Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, EMU and Atlanta (Ga.) consultant, USA
11. Fania Davis, executive director of Restorative Justice for Oakland (Calif.) Youth, USA
12. Cameron Simmons, youth worker with Restorative Justice for Oakland (Calif.) Youth, USA
13. Gerry Johnstone, University of Hull, UK
14. , Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, EMU
15. Jeanette Martinez, Circle of Justice LLC, New Mexico, USA
16. Jennifer Graville , Community Conferencing Program, KBF Center for Conflict Resolution (Md.), USA
17. Jodie-Ann (Jodie) Geddes, Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, EMU
18. Josh Bacon, James Madison University (Va.), USA
19. , ��ݮ����
20. Katia Ornelas, Independent Consultant, Mexico
21. , (STAR), EMU
22. Kay Pranis, Circle Trainer, USA
23. Kim Workman, Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies, Victoria, University of Wellington, New Zealand
24. Linda Kligman, Vice President for Advancement, International Institute for Restorative Practices, USA
25. Lorenn Walker, Hawai’i Friends of Restorative Justice, USA
26. Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz, Mennonite Central Committee, USA
27. Mark Umbreit, Center for Restorative Justice & Peacemaking, University of Minnesota, School of Social Work, USA
28. Matthew Hartman, Clackamas County Juvenile Department, Restorative Justice Coalition of Oregon, NW Justice Forum, USA
29. Mulanda Jimmy Juma, Africa Peacebuilding Institute, St. Augustine College of South Africa
30. Najla El Mangoush, Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, EMU
31. Robert Yazzie, Chief Justice Emeritus of the Navajo Nation, USA
32. Seth Lennon Weiner, Porticus, New York, USA
33. sujatha baliga, Impact Justice, USA
34. Susan Sharpe, Advisor on Restorative Justice, Center for Social Concerns, University of Notre Dame, USA
35. Theo Gavrielides, The IARS International Institute and the Restorative Justice for All Institute, UK
36. , Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR), EMU

The facilitators were led by project manager , and included CJP graduate students Janine Aberg, South Africa; Michael McAndrew, USA; Jordan Michelson, USA; Mikhala Lantz-Simmons, USA; and Ahmed Tarik, Iraq.

Putting victims and offenders together would seemingly spark conflict: “I have a real strong reaction to asking your victim to forgive,” one angry woman tells a group of incarcerated men, “because I think you have no right on the face of this earth to ever ask the person you’ve harmed to forgive you.”

But the opportunity also recognizes the desires of the offender to be restored to the community: “I don’t want my legacy to be just a murderer,” says one inmate. “I do have something to contribute.”

��ݮ���� Lancaster’s joins the (CCP) to host a June 9 showing of the film at 7 p.m. at the Zoetropolis Art House and Theatre in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Small group discussions and a panel presentation of restorative justice (RJ) experts, including Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz, will follow the film. Amstutz is RJ coordinator for and author of “The Little Book of Restorative Discipline for Schools.”

“This film is an excellent introduction to the principles of restorative justice, which started with victim-offender conferencing in prisons and correctional institutions several decades ago, and have been adapted and practiced in a growing number of school districts across the United States,” said , assistant director of the . “We are pleased at the opportunity to join CCP in discussing this film and restorative justice practices with teachers and other community stakeholders.”

CCP Executive Director Christopher Fitz commented that the film contributes to “a deeper understanding of the complex challenges involved with both victims and offenders of violent crime. I hope it also inspires people to consider how they could be part of potentially healing responses to deep wounds in our community.”

Both EMU and CCP employ and educate practitioners of restorative justice. CCP works to build a culture of peace in the Lancaster area through a variety of strategies, some of which can be viewed in the documentary. The organization facilitates victim-offender conferencing, youth-parent communication courses, peacemaking circles to address conflict, and accountability circles for former offenders.

In 2014, EMU became the housed within a graduate education program. One semester later, in January 2015, the program was started at EMU Lancaster.

“Restorative justice in the classroom looks at a holistic approach which includes not only the rules that have been broken, but the relationships that have been harmed and the underlying causes for misbehavior that may be linked to academic failures,” said Assistant Professor of Education , who led the development of the program at EMU. “It also looks at ways to create a safe classroom climate where students can own and understand their own needs and ask for the academic, emotional or social help that they need.”

The concept is being practiced with success in , , and in other districts across the country. In January 2014, the practices were endorsed by the U.S. Department of Education in a report, .

The restorative justice in education (RJE) coursework has been developed in conjunction with EMU’s , the academic home of the renowned pioneer in the field of restorative justice, . (Zehr, in fact, reviews “Concrete Steel & Paint” as “a great discussion tool for college classes, community groups and others interested in issues of justice, conflict resolution and socially engaged art.”)

The education department also offers a 15-hour graduate certificate in RJE for students who have already earned a master’s degree or are not currently pursuing a master’s degree.

The goal is to make the RJE programs broadly accessible, according to Rutt. Courses are offered in a variety of formats, including online, blended, and on-site with weekends or week-long intensive summer courses.

Many names were tossed at the night of May 23, as his writing career and restorative justice work were humorously honored with a “roast” at ��ݮ����. While most retiring professors of �ܱ���’s stature and worldwide celebrity are feted with a more standard banquet, a roast more suited both the man and his varied work.

More than 300 attendees agreed, traveling from around the world to honor �ܱ���’s influence as a reformer, teacher, a mentor, and visionary; to mark his retirement as a full-time faculty member; and to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the publication of �ܱ���’s groundbreaking work, .

The evening also provided an opportunity to support the ongoing work of the , of which Zehr will remain a co-director with friend and colleague . A silent auction of global artifacts, artwork, locally crafted food and libations, and books, along with other donations, also raised about $15,000, not including pledges, for the continued work of the Zehr Institute.

After dinner…

Among comedians, a “roast” is a gathering at which a guest of honor is subjected to both praise and good-natured jokes at their expense. Stauffer, dressed in a suit and tie, emceed the evening’s festivities with , a longtime colleague since �ܱ���’s arrival at the in 1996. Jantzi came more appropriately appareled to the podium in the requested “Howard Zehr-styled formal wear:” boots, tan khakis, a tan shirt, a camera slung about his neck and a Indiana Jones-looking hat.

When queried by Stauffer about his neckwear, Jantzi looked at his floral tie and retorted: “This is a tie that’s as ugly as sin. I tried to get one as ugly as Howard would wear, but this is the best I could do.”

First on the program was a panel of alumni roasters, all of whom remarked in some capacity on their strong and shared personal friendship with Zehr, his sense of humor, and quiet way of inspiring confidence and empowerment. Among them was , MA ‘08, now restorative justice coordinator at the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General in Vancouver, Canada, who spoke of becoming �ܱ���’s student one day and shortly after, accepting an invitation to co-present with Zehr at a conference.

“Howard sees something in you before you see it in yourself and he nurtures it until it comes to fruition,” said , MA ‘99, a 14-year veteran of working federal capital cases who is herself a pioneer of an approach called defense-oriented victim outreach.

The youngest member of the panel, MA ‘13, spoke of the in her native Mexico, between Zehr – in Tamaulipas to present the keynote address at the First National Conference of Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanisms – and poet and victims advocate Javier Sicilia, “two men who share similar bodies and souls.”

MA ‘04, contextualized Zehr with a reference to Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point,” which describes three types of “change makers.” “Howard for me is the consummate connector,” said Malec, citing Zehr’s skills in networking between practitioners and connecting his colleagues and students with exciting opportunities.

MA ‘09, took the microphone in “protest” to argue that the breadth and sheer vivacity of Zehr’s creative contributions in a variety of fields do not render him “the grandfather of restorative justice,” as he’s sometimes referred to, but rather “the Lady Gaga of restorative justice!”

, MA ‘06, a founding member of the nonprofit Latino Initiative on Restorative Justice, spoke movingly of �ܱ���’s influence on her personal journey from her native Ecuador and her current work as an educator and training of restorative justice in many Latin American countries.

, which focused on the aging body, took the brunt of several spirited jokes from , MA ‘00. Toews is a former student who has written and co-edited .

Guest Roasters

A panel of guest roasters included nine distinguished colleagues, some of whom wrote or provided video greetings: RJ practitioner honored �ܱ���’s influence in New Zealand, criminologist John Braithwaite sent congratulations from Australia, and �ܱ���’s longtime friend, Bruce Bainbridge, did the same from the State Correction Institution Graterford, where he is serving a life sentence.

, currently co-director of Mennonite Central Committee‘s Office on Justice and Peacebuilding, proclaimed that she had “30 years of stories” to fit into the next three minutes, speeding through Zehr’s powers of suggestion, his fast pace of speech, and his commitment to well-made coffee.

Actor, director, and playwright Ingrid DeSanctis remembered ,” based on Zehr’s book which received a standing ovation from 500 inmates at Graterford Prison in Pennsylvania.

, a mediator and consultant with a history of teaching in Center for Justice and Peacebuilding programs, proclaimed that he and Zehr shared something that nobody else in the room did: both are alumni of Morehouse College, a historically black college in Atlanta, which boasts graduates such as Martin Luther King Jr.

“You carry the mystique of a Morehouse man well,” said Hooker, adding that the “Morehouse man” is “well-read, well-traveled, well-spoken, well-balanced and…” He stopped. “You’ve got to work on well-dressed,” he concluded, to laughter from the crowd.

Kim Workman, director of the New Zealand-based organization Rethinking Crime and Punishment, not only told humorous stories, but played the keyboard and sang an original ditty he called “Ode to Howard.”

The Zehr bobble-head

As the evening drew to a close, �ܱ���’s family joined in the fun. His wife, Ruby, recalled one of their first dates in college, when Howard invited her to the snack shop to share a Coke because he did not have enough money for two. She was followed by Howard’s brother, Ed Zehr, who reminisced about Howard’s boyhood skills tinkering with electronics and gadgets.

When Zehr assumed the stage after 9 p.m., he was met with a standing ovation. Cracking jokes, he recounted the early days of restorative justice work with Canadian colleague David Worth, announcing their next 50-year plan for the field – expansion to a social movement.

At the end of the night, , director of the and mastermind behind the festivities, presented the honoree with a custom Howard Zehr bobble-head doll.

“Ruby says my memorial service is taken care of, so she won’t need to have one when I die,” Zehr reflected afterwards. “I got off pretty easy overall!”

The policy has to do with how people working with MCC talk about their host countries when they go overseas. They are to refrain from comments that would offend or jeopardize their local partners and hurt the dignity of the people. MCC also urges its workers to respect the local culture and to refuse to reinforce stereotypes.

“I agree with the intent of the policy,” said Stauffer, a major from Lebanon, Pennsylvania, “but sometimes I think MCC goes too far.”

For two months during the summer of 2013, Stauffer was an intern with MCC in Honduras, which has the highest murder rate in the world. The American media portrays it as a violent country of drug traffickers that sends its children fleeing to the United States.

In Honduras, Stauffer wrote in his blog about the different ways he had noticed violence in that country. He mentioned the dilapidated housing in Honduras, writing that “poverty like this is not unrelated to violent crime.” He also wrote about his direct experiences with violence in the country.

Before posting his blog, Stauffer had MCC staff in Honduras review it. They asked him to remove the references to the houses and the violence. “I understood about the housing because it violated dignity. But I didn’t like that they wanted to censor what I said about violence, because I was trying to relate my experiences with violence in order to break down the dominant narrative of violence,” he said.

A few months later, back on campus, Stauffer signed up for the annual C. Henry Smith Oratorical Contest for students at Mennonite colleges in the United States and Canada. The student was to apply the Christian peace position to a contemporary concern in 1,500 words or less, speaking for 8-10 minutes.

Stauffer decided to write and speak about the dangers of avoiding difficult discussions about violence, inspired by his experience in Honduras. He also drew on a TED talk that has been reference frequently by MCC workers. It was by in which she decried the dominant cultural narratives.

In Honduras, MCC wanted to fight the dominant narrative that the country was a violent place. “But in this case, where I couldn’t even talk about violence, MCC had similarly adopted a single story to compensate against the dominant narrative,” Stauffer said.

Stauffer’s speech, titled “,” won first place at EMU last March. He received $250. The two runners up for EMU were senior major Chris Yoder and senior major Jordan Luther. The other contestants were first-year student Sara Caitlin Neubert and junior Chris Parks.

“I am grateful for students like Seth who not only are willing to serve with MCC but are also then able to begin to process that experience in an academic setting,” said , an EMU professor who currently chairs the MCC U.S. board. She and her husband also served previously with MCC in Central America.

Stauffer’s winning speech at EMU was videotaped and sent to three judges who work in peace and justice ministries at MCC U.S. and MCC Canada – Sue Eagle, Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz and Ewuare Osayande.

The winners were announced in late August. In addition to Stauffer in second place were Abby Deaton of Goshen College in first place and Mary Schrag of Bluffton University in third place. Stauffer received a $225 cash prize and a $200 scholarship to a peace conference or seminar.

Stauffer plans to graduate from EMU in spring 2015. After a “gap year” of work and study in Harrisonburg, he hopes to enroll in law school.

The exhibit complements a major meeting of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on Sept. 20, where UN officials will focus on rights and needs of children of incarcerated parents for the first time in history.

Zehr is a professor in the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at ��ݮ����.

“Despite affecting millions of children worldwide—over 2 million children in the USA alone are believed to have parents in prison— this is the first time that this neglected issue has been discussed substantively anywhere in the UN system,” said a statement issued by “NGO Group for the CRC.”

Rachel Brett of the Quaker United Nations Office added: “This is an issue where no one country or region is a clear world leader.”

�ܱ���’s photo-portraits originally appeared in a book issued early in 2011 entitled “What Will Happen To Me?” Co-authored by Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz ’81, the book was “intended to alleviate the sense of shame and isolation felt by the children of prisoners and to support their resiliency,” said Zehr.

“What Will Happen To Me?,” is available through or any major online retailer.

Alexander hopes restorative justice can help that boy, his family, the young gunmen, and the entire community – all of whom become, in restorative terms, “stakeholders” in setting things right.

She’s one of four community leaders from Memphis taking a class at EMU’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute on “Restorative Justice: the Promise, the Challenge.” Their classmates have worked in trauma healing on several continents.

(L. to r.): Michael O’Neal, Howard Zehr, Frank Black, Johnnie Hatten, Brenda Alexander and Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz enjoy some interaction between their SPI class on Restorative Justice. Photo by Jim Bishop

The Memphis activists have been seeking a more effective approach than traditional criminal justice.

While advocating in court for abused children, Frank Black became convinced “The court system is making the mother the victim, or the child the victim, so the court system becomes the offender.”

‘Peace being broken’ in schools

In a school where Johnnie Hatten taught for five previous years, she says, “You’ve got peace being broken every day, among the kids and among the administrative staff.”

As a father, the disproportionate numbers of African Americans in jail worries Michael O’Neal. He and his three colleagues from Memphis’s black community perceive both internal and external causes.

When employed as a pre-trial release counselor, Alexander – whose husband is now minister of a church considering a restorative program – saw a succession of young black men “processed through the system.” Absence of rehabilitation, and frequent imprisonment for nonviolent crimes, made her job “very depressing.” Police often took white youth home when they had gotten in trouble, but locked up blacks in similar circumstances.

Hatten suspects a holdover from slavery both in such disparities and in offenders’ self-destructive behavior.

Repeat offenders sending a message

She sees repeat offenders sending a defiant message to the correction system: “You didn’t ‘correct’ me.” While working in a juvenile facility, she observed residents blaming their trouble on circumstances beyond their control – saying, for example, “If he hadn’t been home, I wouldn’t have shot him.”

Rather than a lenient approach, she adds, “Restorative justice is about taking responsibility.”

The Memphis group cites Jean Handley, of the conflict-resolution team, Turning Point Partners, for her restorative work in Memphis, including with Alexander’s family. Handley, who located there from New Orleans after Katrina destroyed her home, has participated in other workshops organized by EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, which operates SPI.

While criminal justice focuses on punishing the wrongdoer, restorative justice asks “Who has been hurt?” and seeks ways to “heal and put things as right as possible,” wrote class co-facilitator Howard Zehr – a founder of the movement – in his “Little Book of Restorative Justice.”

Perhaps the best-known aspect of restorative justice involves stakeholders – victim, offender, community – gathering to heal and move on from a harmful event, though Zehr notes that is only one aspect.

Hatten recently conducted practice “circles” – exercises in dialogue among youth, seven to 17. Yet she describes the core of restorative justice as deeper: When a hungry person steals, “I must be able to say, ‘Come work for me and earn your food.'”

Co-facilitator Stutzman Amstutz of MCC

In one class session, co-facilitator Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz, who works with the Mennonite Central Committee, showed a “20/20” documentary segment in which a family confronts a troubled teenager, Jesse. He’s served time for badly vandalizing their home two years earlier. Meeting through a facilitator, the family express pain and anger. Jesse apologizes.

Stutzman Amstutz divided the class into three groups to look at that conversation from the perspectives of victim, offender and facilitator.

Some found the anger vented excessive. Alexander, assigned to the victims’ group, said, “I could identify with the victims in every way, except that there was one point where I asked, how long is this kid going to go through this?”

Additional open-ended questions emerged:

Where were Jesse’s accomplices, and his family? Why did the facilitator mostly remain quiet? Why did Jesse wear a t-shirt sporting the message, “BOSS”? (As “armor”?) Why, O’Neal, wondered, hadn’t the facilitator advised him on clothing?

A student from Uganda said the vandalism reminded him of a massacre in which killers scrawled victims’ names on walls in blood. Yet a woman from another part of the world criticized the newscast for conveying “the sacredness of property.”

Was Jesse truly contrite? Stutzman Amstutz responded by questioning whether that was necessary to the process. She recalled occasions when she, as facilitator, had to restrict angry language, and times when victims of theft said, “I never thought you’d pay this back, so thank you.”

“Americans don’t really know how to apologize to each other,” Zehr commented.

Without family or community support, one student reflected, “There could be many Jesses coming up.”

Alexander, however, expressed relief that after meeting Jesse, a child in the victims’ family stopped considering him “a monster.” Restorative justice, she noted, “shines” on all stakeholders.

Chris Edwards is a free-lance writer from Harrisonburg.

A former Virginia prisoner studied with peacebuilders from around the world in a May course, “Restorative Justice: The Promise, the Challenge.” In a June course, “Looking Through Both Lenses: Restorative Justice Through the Eyes of Victims and Offenders,” that student told his experiences to learners who also heard a rape survivor

In a one-of-a-kind art opening, international viewers gathered in a small gallery at EMU to mull over a group of portraits.

The exhibit listed no names for the men of varying ages and ethnicities depicted, though initials frequently served as titles. Artist Allyson Holtz said she had kept backgrounds simple because of having to work fast. Ditto for clothing, which, in fact, was the same for each: a prison uniform.

What stood out were the faces