The inventory just didn’t add up.

So, he called the Harrisonburg Police Department. An investigation led to one of his employees — his younger brother. The 18-year-old was stealing phones and submitting them to a machine in the mall that pays cash for electronic devices.

Murphy, who had a run-in with the law when he was 18, found himself in a tough situation. Murphy had to decide whether to press charges against his little brother, knowing what that might mean for the future.

“I’m branded with a felony for the rest of my life,” said Murphy, a football player who also ran track, and spent a year in jail after robbing a man during his senior year at Harrisonburg High School. “If I let that happen to my brother, he would have been a felon. I didn’t want him to go through what I did.”

A different approach

So Murphy turned to restorative justice — a in March 2015 as an alternative to the traditional criminal justice system. Instead of merely looking at punishing an offender, restorative justice focuses on the needs of the victims, offenders and the community at large to resolve a crime.

With the guidance of a mediator, offender and victim discuss the effects of the harm done by the crime and come up with resolution. , associate professor of development and justice studies for the at ��ݮ����, said some restorative practices can be traced back to ancient practices but contemporary practices started to pop up in the 1970s.

The professor points to a 1974 case in Elmira, Ontario, where a probation officer came across two young adults who vandalized 22 homes. The officer was fed up with the system. Typically, the offenders would have been issued a fine, moved on and likely reoffended. With the help of a Mennonite prison worker, a different kind of punishment was proposed.

The probation officer “had a very simple idea,” Stauffer said. “Take these guys and knock on each door of these 22 houses and make them face the persons they harmed, and explain … that they’re sorry and that they were willing to make restitution. “It was so successful that it took hold and began to grow exponentially.”

In the late 1970s, — known as the grandfather of restorative justice in the United States — began experimenting with restorative justice in Indiana. In 1996, Zehr began teaching at EMU.

Combined with the Mennonite belief system that centers on peace and nonviolence, restorative justice resonated with many in the Harrisonburg area. Stauffer would later work beside Zehr teaching restorative justice practices. He said a shift toward restorative justice should lower recidivism rates — the percentage of people who reoffend after leaving jail — and reduce the cost of prosecuting offenders and jailing inmates.

“There’s a good portion of the system that isn’t working anymore,” said Stauffer. “It’s in fact not yielding the intended outcomes that we want from it. … The pillars of our current system say this is … to deter people from doing crime, so we show how punitive we can be.”

Catching on

in Harrisonburg launched its restorative justice program in 1999. Sue Praill, who graduated from EMU in 2010 with a master’s in conflict transformation, was frustrated with the lack of cases that were being referred to the center. Praill, Fairfield’s director of restorative justice, approached administrators about implementing a program about two years ago.

, who know oversees HPD’s program, was receptive.

“I heard about restorative justice, but didn’t know a lot about it,” Boshart said. He was one of the first to , an experience he says opened his eyes to an entire new way of thinking.

“It gives the victim a voice,” said Boshart, adding that the approach will be used on selective cases only. “Restorative justice isn’t the answer to every case, but it’s a tool. If the victim doesn’t want to do it, we don’t go there.”

HPD set up a steering committee and review team to establish guidelines and review cases to be handled through restorative justice. To go through the process, the responding officer to a crime refers the case for the committee to review. Cases can range widely from shoplifting and larceny or assaults.

For the case to be considered, it has to might three pieces of criteria: The victim has to agree to participate, the offender must agree and the offender has to admit to the crime. Boshart stressed offenders who are recommended for the program are not getting a free pass. Many have to be pay restitution, perform community service and, in some cases, face up to other problems that are going on their lives.

“A lot of them say it would have been easier to go to court and pay the fine,” Boshart said.

Praill is excited to see cases being resolved through restorative justice. “It was like the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle,” she said. “When people come face-to-face and have a conversation, amazing things can happen. Sometimes all victims want to hear is ‘I’m sorry.'”

With restorative justice, she said, the hope is people don’t reoffend. “We’re hoping, over time, we can break that cycle,” Praill said.

Leading the way

Restorative justice is already being used in Harrisonburg City Schools and at James Madison University. , director of the Office of Student Accountability and Restorative Practices at JMU, implemented the approach about five years ago after taking Zehr’s course at EMU. “I was blown away by what it is and what it does,” Bacon said. “So I started taking more courses.”

Not everyone thought it would work at JMU. “I remember most people I told in the beginning said no way are college students going to be able to talk to each other like that,” he said. “They text each other. They don’t even like being in the same room as each other. But we set up the rules, we set up the guidelines and it has blown me away about how they treat each other.”

This year, Bacon used restorative justice practices in cases against students who were caught stealing bricks from the Quad, an annual tradition that’s led to about 1,000 having been stolen this year.

Regardless of the type of case, Bacon said, restorative justice teaches life lessons.

“They will learn how to deal with conflict for the rest of their lives in a different way,” he said. “They can sit down and talk to people withrespect.”

‘There’s always a what if’

Bacon acted as mediator for Murphy and his brother’s case. During the meeting, the younger brother expressed a lot of pain, Bacon said. His mother died and his stepfather left when he graduated high school. He was struggling to survive financially and emotionally.

“All these deeper issues came out that wouldn’t have during the criminal justice system,” Bacon said. “If you hear his story, it’s just heartbreaking.”

Murphy hopes restorative justice practices continue to expand in law enforcement. “So many young kids don’t have options,” he said. “It’s straight to jail.”

He was pleased to give his brother an option.

“Restorative justice gave him a second chance,” Murphy said. “I could have been ruthless and said, ‘You’re going to learn your lesson.'”

As are result of the alternative approach, the younger brother had to repay or work off the debt, meet with a mentor and develop a life plan, which included attending Blue Ridge Community College.

Murphy struggled as young adult after his felony conviction. He found it hard to find jobs so he started his own business from the ground up. He recently closed the kiosk in the Valley Mall and opened a Boost Mobile store in Waynesboro last month.

Although he’s found a measure of success, he questions what his life would be like if restorative justice had been an option for him. “I’m happy where I am, but there’s always a what-if,” Murphy said.

Published with permission from the Daily News-Record, March 4, 2016.

“Our goal for this learning tour was to expose the delegation to many different applications of restorative justice in the local area beyond the criminal justice system,” said professor , who hosted the delegation as co-director of the . “Many in the delegation later said they were truly impressed with the potential for restorative justice to impact the whole of society.”

The delegation’s visit was sponsored by with support from the United States Agency of International Development. The foundation is engaged in a long-term project to introduce and integrate restorative justice practices into the Nepali criminal justice system through training of judges, prosecutors, lawyers and law enforcement officials, said program officer Ramkanta Tiwari, who escorted the group.

The foundation also wants to establish the academy as a resource center for restorative justice in Nepal and in the larger South Asia region, Tiwari added.

Well-placed to effect change

Officials from the academy included Keshari Raj Pandit, NJA’s executive director; Bimal Poudel, registrar; and Rajan Kumar, program manager, as well as The Honorable Rajendra Kharel, judge of District Court of Lalitpur and The Honorable Devendra Gopal Shrestha, justice of the Supreme Court of Nepal.

On the first full day at EMU, the group attended a seminar with Stauffer, and were joined for a discussion by , who is co-director with Stauffer of the Zehr Institute of Restorative Justice. Zehr, who had visited Nepal years ago to speak about restorative justice, remarked that at that time, there was “little knowledge and only marginal interest.”

He found the delegation’s interest to be “inspiring,” he said. “They are strategically placed to encourage the implementation of restorative justice not only in Nepal but in the entire region … It is exciting to see this level of interest and commitment now.”

Truth and reconciliation discussed

Stauffer was one of the reasons the delegation visited EMU; he had visited Nepal in 2014 with San Francisco-based expert to present and participate at an Asian Foundation-hosted roundtable with judicial representatives from Nepal, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh: this reciprocal visit was his chance to share in the hospitality and learning.

One aspect of Stauffer’s past professional experience – his 16 years working with transitional justice in Africa, including the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission – was of particular interest to the delegation.

After a decade of conflict between pro-democracy and Maoist supporters, Nepal has begun a peace process that included a transitional justice bill to bring accountability for historic harms. The government also established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Commission on Inquiry into Disappearances, which seeks to utilize restorative justice practices on behalf of victims and affected community members.

During an introductory circle process with Stauffer, several of the men related how learning about restorative justice had enriched and enlivened their professional engagement. Their goals, they related to Stauffer, were to learn more about how the principles could relate to their specific interests, such as juvenile justice, but also to the criminal justice system as a whole.

“There is not much room for dialogue in our system,” said Poudel. “We would like to know more about how to include that.”

‘RJ’ has broad applications

On the final day, the delegation met with various collaborators of Harrisonburg’s community restorative justice initiative at their various worksites. These practitioners included , of the Harrisonburg Police Department; Sue Praill, director of restorative justice at the ; and Josh Bacon, associate dean of students/student accountability and restorative practices at James Madison University.

A last tour stop was the , where program director Richi Yowell talked about how the therapeutic transitional home for formerly incarcerated men assists in easing the re-integration process back into society.

The delegation was especially interested to learn more about how government agencies collaborate with non-state entities, Tiwari said. Also of interest was the public perception of the restorative justice process, how referrals were made, and what role the facilitators took in the process, he added.

Interest was shown from both parties in the possibility of hosting Nepali judicial officials at EMU for further training in restorative justice practices.

Tiwari expressed appreciation at the hospitality shown to the group and called the “unmatched opportunity” to meet with experts such as Stauffer and Zehr a “professional and personal milestone.”

“There can be no better place than EMU, especially the , when it comes to [learning about] restorative justice,” he said.

After visits to Richmond, Baltimore and Washington D.C., the group spent several days in San Francisco before returning home.

Editor’s Note: The International Justice Resource Center provides an of the Nepali constitutional process.  To learn more about transition justice processes in Nepal and countries around the world, visit . Read more about the peace dialogues in this article about Sujan Rai, who came to EMU’s 2015 to build her skills and network with other international peacebuilders.

The conference is hosted by the (PJSA), dedicated to bringing together academics, K-12 teachers, and grassroots activists to explore alternatives to violence and share visions and strategies for peacebuilding, social justice and social change.

“PJSA is an important bi-national alliance for peacebuilding research, scholarship, training and activism,” says , executive director of ���ѱ�’s . “It is a great honor that so many CJP and EMU faculty, staff and graduates will be featured in prominent conference roles this year, and allows a rare opportunity to highlight our distinctive contributions to the peacebuilding field.”

Those “distinctive contributions” include both conceptual and practical dimensions to the fields of , , , peace and justice studies pedagogy and the pedagogy of practice within the field, experiential education, reflective pedagogy and the arts and peacebuilding.

Catherine Barnes offers keynote address

Dr. Catherine Barnes, affiliate professor at CJP, will share from more than 30 years of experience working with deliberative dialogue processes in places as varied as the UN General Assembly Hall to village gathering places. Her address is titled “Engaging together: exploring deliberative dialogue as a path towards systemic transformation.”

“Deliberative dialogue” is a process that can empower participants to foster collaborative relationships and perceive the underlying mental models that maintain the status quo with the goal of fostering new approaches to complex challenges.

For the past seven years, Barnes has been working in support of transitional processes in Burma/Myanmar. She has worked and lived in more than 30 countries as a teacher, trainer, researcher, policy advocate and consultant with the focus of helping civil society activists, diplomats and politicians, and armed groups to build their capacities for preventing violence and using conflict as an opportunity for addressing the underlying causes giving rise to grievance. Barnes has worked with numerous peacebuilding and human rights organizations, including Conciliation Resources and Minority Rights Group International.

Focusing on education

���ѱ�’s on peace and justice guides its educators, many of whom are sharing their pedagogical practices and discussing ways to educate future peacebuilders in the “educator’s strand,” designed for personal and professional development of K-12 teachers, undergraduate and community educators. Themes include pedagogy, curriculum development, building a culture of peace in your classroom or school, alternative education programs, and restorative practices.

On the undergraduate level, professor , who leads the in the department of applied social sciences, leads a roundtable discussion for faculty and administrators of peace and justice studies programs.

, the with CJP’s , joins professor and graduate students in a session on mentoring student peacebuilders and the importance of those mentors being experienced practitioners themselves.

Restorative practices are highlighted by professors and in a “relational justice” workshop on how mindful teachers can prepare and prime “their best selves” in preparation for inviting students into models of restorative justice. Mullet also joins , professor of education at Bridgewater College, for a workshop on relational literacy in multicultural K-12 classrooms.

Cheree Hammond, professor of counseling, leads educators in a workshop on contemplative pedagogies and the cultivation of a just and peaceful self.

Restorative justice, trauma healing, playback theater featured

The conference offers an opportunity to highlight ���ѱ�’s unique peacebuilding initiatives. The brings together practitioners from EMU and JMU, as well as local law enforcement. Collaborators in the initiative will speak: , co-director of the; education professor ; Harrisonburg Police Department lieutenant Kurt Boshart; , restorative justice coordinator at the ; and , director of JMU’s Office of Student Accountability and Restorative Practices.

Another definitive CJP program, (Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience), will be introduced in a workshop by professor and program director .

troupe co-founders and lead a workshop on playback theater as qualitative research. Vogel is a professor of theater; Foster instructs in the applied social sciences department and with CJP. The applied theater method invites dialogue and healing through community-building, as audience members share stories and watch as they are “played back” on the stage. Among other settings, Inside Out has performed on campus with college students returning from cross-culturals, among international peacebuilders and in workshops for and research about trauma and sexual abuse survivors.

, professor of applied social sciences, speaks about social capital networks as forms of resistance among battered undocumented Latinas, sharing just one strand of a .

, assistant professor of restorative justice and peacebuilding, leads a discussion on the film “Vision is Our Power,” a film about black youth ending violence in all its forms. The documentary was created by four young filmmakers participating in a multi-year arts and leadership Vision to Peace Project led by Turner; the film debuted in 2008 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

And more…

, professor of English, presents on life narratives and identity issues in the Balkans with his wife Daria, a CJP graduate who teaches in the counseling department at JMU. The two lived and taught in the Balkans.

, professor of philosophy and theology, explores the recent work in philosophy and science on theory of emotion.

, a new faculty member coming to EMU next semester after concluding his PhD research at American University, participates several panels, with a diversity of topics including transnational solidarity and police brutality and racism in the contested areas of Palestine and Ferguson, Missouri. Seidel is a board member of PJSA.

Among the alumni presenting: Vesna Hart, Sue Praill and Tom Brenneman join a panel discussion on justice and the nature of human nature. Ted Swartz presents the satire with Tim Ruebke and JMU professor of theater Ingrid DeSanctis.

View the . Registration fees will be covered for attendees from the Shenandoah Valley who are affiliated with or sponsored by Bridgewater College, James Madison University, ��ݮ����, or Mary Baldwin College. For more information, click .

“I can’t imagine a better first case,” said , the facilitator who led the meeting between the two men. “This person could have been charged with a felony.”

Instead , the offender and his employer were able to speak frankly about their needs, agree on a restitution plan and reconcile the matter in a mutually beneficial way outside of the criminal justice system.

The new program, the first of its kind in Virginia and more than two years in the creation, was announced at a press conference today [March 19, 2015] in Harrisonburg. Emphasizing the collaborative partnership, HPD Chief Stephen Monticelli stood alongside members of the steering committee, including representatives of local law practices and the Commonwealth’s attorney, the , and restorative justice practitioners from ��ݮ���� (EMU) and James Madison University (JMU).

Among those endorsing the program and expressing support were Marsha Garst, Rockingham County Commonwealth’s attorney, EMU president Loren Swartendruber and JMU president Jonathan Alger.

Garst, who spoke of her reputation for being “hard” on crime, said that restorative justice should not be misinterpreted as being “soft on crime.” The victim-offender meeting is a difficult and emotionally challenging task for both parties, she added, but the process offers the offender the possibility of moving back into a positive role in our community.

“We kind of get to the point where we believe that the criminal justice system is the only thing that’s going to work,” said HPD Lt. Kurt Boshart, a 26-year veteran of the force who led the initiative from within his department. “It’s exciting to see where this program could go. I can foresee it catching on pretty quickly.”

Backed by veteran officer

The idea began several years ago, when Sue Praill with the Fairfield Center first proposed it to the HPD. Praill directs restorative justice services at the Harrisonburg nonprofit, which has been offering them in the community for nearly 20 years.

Eventually, a broader advisory group began meeting with Boshart to plan the program in more detail. In addition to Praill, the group included Fairfield Center Executive Director Tim Ruebke and Bacon – an associate dean of students at James Madison University who has overseen wide implementation of restorative justice practices on that campus. Also participating have been , co-director of the at ���ѱ�’s (from which Praill and Ruebke hold master’s degrees, and where Bacon has also taken graduate-level coursework) as well as defense attorneys, a representative from local prosecutor’s office and other community representatives

“It’s been exciting to have partners from the police department who are so committed to [the program],” said Praill.

More effective, affordable possibility

While change can be a slow process within the protocol-bound world of law enforcement, Boshart said reaction to the new program within the HPD has been generally positive. So far, five officers have taken a restorative justice training. By this summer, he hopes that most or all of the department’s 94 sworn officers will be trained to identify specific crimes or conflicts that might be best handled through a restorative approach that focuses on victims’ needs and holds offenders accountable to meeting them.

One of the larger challenges facing the new program is communicating the fact that restorative justice emphasizes offender accountability, and isn’t simply a get-off-easy approach to criminal justice. Boshart said that as people learn more about restorative justice concepts, they understand how it can offer police more effective and affordable ways of dealing with some crimes than the traditional criminal justice system.

“For us to turn our head from that is a disservice to our community,” he said.

While the program remains a work in progress, its broad parameters have been established by the advisory group. After police officers refer cases, a committee from the advisory group will screen them to ensure they’re appropriate for the program. Depending on a case’s specifics, facilitation would be handled either by the Fairfield Center or staff from Bacon’s office at James Madison University.

One of the main benefits of restorative justice is the way in which it humanizes both victim and offender, giving each a better understanding of how and why one hurt the other. Praill points out that under the new HPD program, officers who refer cases for restorative justice will participate in the group conference and benefit from this humanizing process as well.

“Nobody calls the police and says, ‘Hey, we’re having a great time,’” said Boshart.

Improved relationships for all

Instead, officers generally show up when things have gone wrong and often interact with people during their not-finest moments. By being a part of the restorative justice conference, he hopes officers will be able to see these same people in better light. At the same time, people whose interactions with law enforcement are often negative will have new opportunity to develop better relationships with police officers.

For now, these conferences will be led on a volunteer basis by trained facilitators like Bacon, Praill or others from EMU. If the caseload grows beyond volunteers’ capacities, the program may need to find new sources of funding. At this point, however, all involved are concentrating on laying the foundation for a successful, sustainable program.

“Part of the idea is to go slowly enough that the program is organic to this area, and so that there’s confidence in the community that this is a good program,” said Ruebke.

As that happens, and as the caseload grows, figuring out funding “can be a good problem to have later,” added Boshart.

Off to good start

Later will come later; for now, the new program is off to a remarkable start. During the conference for the first case, the offender told the employer he’d stolen from about the desperate circumstances in his life that had encouraged him to steal.

The employer, in turn, talked about how he’d once found himself in a very similar situation. After he committed a similar crime, though, there wasn’t this sort of alternative. He was convicted of a felony, served time in jail, and after getting his life back in order, didn’t want his employee going down the same path. They agreed on a plan for restitution. The employee was paired with a mentor. The employer volunteered to become a mentor for someone else in the community.

“This process allowed for the victim and the perpetrator to come together and tell their stories, said Bacon. “None of this it would have happened if it just went through the normal criminal process. I was just blown away … It’s why I love doing restorative justice.” In his opening remarks at the press conference, Bacon credited EMU’s – who is known internationally as the “grandfather of restorative justice” (and who will be honored at a ) – for mentoring Bacon when he took courses at EMU and began implementing restorative justice practices at JMU.

Ever since, mediation has remained a central focus of the organization. Executive director Tim Ruebke ’92, MA ’99 (), estimates that more than 10,000 cases have been mediated at the Fairfield Center. Thousands of people have been trained to do mediation, seeding conflict-handling skills far and wide in the community.

“Our mission is to help people interact and listen more effectively … so that what they’re facing can be transformed in a positive way,” says Ruebke.

From the very beginning, the center has had close ties to EMU. Some of the founding board members – including Barry Hart, MDiv ’78, Kathryn Fairfield ’70, and David Kreider ’76, MA ’78 (), MA ’09 (conflict transformation) – first got their heads together after a 1981 conference at EMU on alternatives to incarceration. They were further inspired the following year when Ron Kraybill, then the director of the Mennonite Conciliation Service and later a professor at ���ѱ�’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding from 1995 to 2005, gave a lecture on mediation in Staunton.

When the center opened in 1982, it was the first mediation-focused program in the state. Hart was the center’s first official director; Sue Hess Yoder ’72 and Margaret Jantzi Foth, class of ’54, also were directors in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Numerous students and alumni have worked, interned or volunteered for the center.

During its first two decades, the Fairfield Center trained and supported many of the other mediation centers that now exist in Virginia. It also began a long-running peer mediator program in local schools and was instrumental – particularly through the work of founding board member and local attorney Larry Hoover – in the establishment of a dispute resolution office at the Supreme Court of Virginia. Hoover’s work also led to the addition of mediation principles to the state bar’s official code of conduct manual.

To keep up with evolving needs in and around Harrisonburg, and to maintain its financial viability (as worthwhile as they are, mediations alone don’t generate enough revenue to sustain a thriving organization), the Fairfield Center now offers services in five areas: conflict resolution, restorative justice, training, civic engagement and business services.

Over the past five years, the Fairfield Center has pursued its civic engagement mission by sponsoring about 20 community dialogues around issues like sustainability, intercultural and interfaith relations, and local economies. In the spring of 2013, it sponsored a dialogue on guns and security and hosted a community conversation on mental health. Intended to promote thoughtful, productive discussion among people with differing views on the issues, the recent dialogues have been hosted in partnership with the Kettering Foundation and James Madison University’s Institute for Constructive Advocacy and Dialogue.

“We see our role in the community as being a place to reclaim good public ways to talk with your neighbors and to create better community,” says Ruebke. “Wherever we can increase listening and improve how people interact with one another around issues, problems and conflicts, we see us having a role.”

Another ongoing initiative, led by Sue Praill, MA ’10 (conflict transformation), the center’s director of restorative justice, is the development of a restorative justice partnership with the Harrisonburg Police Department. She hopes this will eventually result in local police referring certain types of crimes – perhaps vandalism or minor theft – for resolution through a restorative justice process rather than through the legal system.

“We have a very dynamic task force in place, and we’re working on getting things started,” says Praill, who has had productive discussions about the idea with the city’s police chief.

She also leads a “victim sensitization” program at the Harrisonburg Men’s Diversion Center, a state corrections facility. Many of the men who participate tell Praill after they complete the program, taught in six two-hour sessions, that they have a new understanding of the ways that crimes, even minor ones, hurt victims.

Shannon Sneary ’93 oversees Fairfield’s training services. These include sessions for people pursuing state certification as mediators (overseen by the very division of the Supreme Court that the center had a role in creating) and other programs designed for organizations and businesses to improve their communications and effectiveness.

One of Sneary’s current goals is to expand its Spanish-language training program, in the hope of eventually offering more mediation services conducted entirely in Spanish. The Fairfield Center now has one bilingual certified mediator, giving it some ability to mediate for Spanish-speaking clients.

That growing need for Spanish mediation is a reflection of changing demographics in Harrisonburg, now one of the most diverse cities in the state with more than 14% of its residents born in other countries.

International festival

Since 2010, the Fairfield Center has also served as the institutional home of the Harrisonburg International Festival, first held in 1997. The festival’s co-chair is David Kreider, one of the founders of the Fairfield Center who is again sitting on its board. The 16th annual festival, in the fall of 2013, was the largest ever, with nearly 9,000 people attending.

Kreider notes that the influx of refugees to Harrisonburg has often brought people from opposing sides of conflicts elsewhere in the world. And while the festival’s primary intention is simply to celebrate the different traditions represented in Harrisonburg, the practices of dialogue, conflict resolution and restorative justice espoused by the Fairfield Center have been important along the way in improving how these different communities coexist in their new home.

“While it has been difficult, it has also been very rewarding to feel we have had a part in helping understanding, connection, and healing to begin to happen,” Kreider says – illustrating one of the ways in which the Fairfield Center’s original mission is being applied today in Harrisonburg, to situations the organization’s founders wouldn’t have anticipated more than 30 years ago.

— Andrew Jenner ’04