 I'd like to give each member of the panel an opportunity to introduce yourself and share with the group what restorative justice means to you and what it looks like within the work that you do in our community. So, Matt. So, my name is Matt Failloyan. I am the restorative coordinator at Clark Middle School. I've been in that role for the past two school years. This is my third school year in that role. Before that, I was a science teacher at Clark Middle School for about six years. So, I've been in education for about ten years. When I think about restorative justice, what it means to me, and I think about the youth that I work with, the six through eighth graders that I work with, restorative justice means to me like a change, something to stop the wheel from moving that's been like crushing populations and people in different populations in so many different ways. So, it's a start for a new change. That's what restorative justice means to me. It's amazing to experience that each day at Clark Middle School with students because we can say this can stop with you guys. You guys can be that generation. There's one line from a restorative justice worker in California where she talks about calling for people to be healers. And I always saw that as incredibly powerful, especially when we're talking about our youth. We're asking for our youth to be healers. We've had an environment, a history of so much pain and suffering. And for the first time, I feel like in a school system in the U.S., we're trying to get students to understand their role within this community with really implementing positive change and healing wrongs and making things right and then showing them the power within that they have. So, that's what restorative justice means to me. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Danny Malick. I'm the executive director at the Georgia Conflict Center here in Athens. Our mission is to advance restorative practices in the community, in the schools, in the criminal legal system. So really glad to be with everybody here this evening. For me, yeah, I like what Matt said and really, particularly around healing, I think building on that restorative justice is a justice that heals. So if we think, I think our concept of justice has been formed so much by this Eurocentric view of criminal justice that really is most focused on punishment or just deserts, paying back somebody for harm that they may have caused, where restorative justice is rooted in relationships and it's rooted in certain values and principles, values like respect. And so I appreciate you laid that out at the beginning. Whenever we do a restorative process, when Matt does it at Clark Miller, we first start with values. How do we want to be together? And then you can see when we ask that question, it's a consensual process. We're going to decide together how we're going to be. And then principles like inclusion, participation, collaboration, democracy, democratic process. If we sit in circle, not one of us has control of the outcome of that circle. Together, we're going to decide how to go forward. So I think restorative justice is a way of being. It's also a social movement that is happening around the world, rooted in both religious concepts of justice, but also indigenous ways of being from indigenous communities all over the world. I'll leave it at that for now. Thank you. Hi, my name is Amber Robinson. I'm the deputy chief of the juvenile division at the DA's office. I've been doing juvenile work for probably over 15 years now as a juvenile prosecutor and restorative justice has a long history in the juvenile world. I think one of the most important things to me about restorative justice is it gives the victim more of a voice. Of course, we always contact victims and ask them, what do you want to see happen with the case? We keep them up to date, have a lot of conversation with them, but this way they have a direct participation and a direct say in how that's going to be resolved and what exactly would make them feel more whole out of the situation. And the other side to that I think is so important in dealing with teenagers. That's that age where you're still developing empathy and you don't put faces maybe to harm that you've done in the community, like break into somebody's house. That's just a house. You don't really think of that, oh, that's my neighbor, Sarah down the street and I see her every day. So it gives more of a face. So maybe in the future, they can think these are real people, real harm is coming to the community. So that's what I like about restorative justice. Good evening. I'm David Sweatt. And I served as a Superior Court judge in Western Circuit Athens, Clark and Oconee counties from 2002 until I took senior status in 2017 and have served as a senior judge and still handle cases. And I do a lot of work around mental health advocacy, which I think is very important in as we address issues arising in particular the criminal justice system. I have seen restorative justice more from afar in Superior Courts. As I was serving, we did not yet develop. I think the, you know, I'm looking forward to the discussion because I think that, you know, what is the capacity of our criminal justice system to incorporate restorative justice techniques, the encounter, the accountability and maybe transformation in connection with an individual. But the encounter piece, often in cases that are, is not what happens. We have an encounter in the courtroom. Someone has been injured or they have lost a loved one, you know, tragic things. And the encounter there is not necessarily intended to be restorative. It's intended to allow the individual to kind of have a voice. But it misses the piece of any connection to the individual who is committed to offense and whether and how we can incorporate that in implementation of our adult criminal justice system I think is, you know, I'm hopeful. I mean, we've incorporated other new things beginning to focus on the underlying reasons that people become involved in the criminal justice system and trying to address those. But so I'm kind of a way an observer. I want to hear more about this because I don't feel as though I know enough and I'd like to know more. And I'm hopeful from what I have, you know, read and studied that it's promising and inappropriate places could be applied to have, you know, better outcomes for everyone involved. All right. Thank you guys. So our next question and judge, what I think you make a great point there. But we want to talk about what this group sees as the greatest hurdle in implementing restorative justice systems. And I'm also interested tonight to hear how we balance restorative justice and accountability as well. So I'll speak for my role in the school. I feel like the hardest thing, the biggest hurdle to restore the practices, restore the justice being implemented in schools are the school policies, the district policies on discipline that's based in a long history of, you know, going back to 90, zero tolerance and just not a lot of openness. So not a lot of opportunity to deal with a particular situation and all that comes with that particular situation. And so it's hard to navigate that, but I feel like, you know, over the course of my time, my five years working with restorative practices, we started at Clark Middle School with our contract with GCC, with Georgia Conflict Center, and they were able to teach our staff on restorative practices, what it looks like to be a restorative school, how to implement restorative practices, and because that we have that buying from that administration from the beginning. And so that helped, but definitely there was a lot of outside from the district, a pushback, and so it was hard to deal with a lot of that. And I think through that, you know, we saw some administrative changes that was pushed by the district, mostly because of our, I think, our commitment to restore the practices. And so it was tough to deal with, but I feel like in general, we have still a strong, supportive administrative team at Clark Middle School, so that helps, but it still is a daily pushback we're seeing from the district on restorative practices. And it's hard to deal with that because we're a restorative district. We're a restorative district, they say. But there's not a lot of resources put into that. There's not a lot of support put into that from the top down. So, yeah. I would say, you know, one thing that we talk a lot about when we are doing training or in restorative work is it's about culture change. And so that to me is a big reason why it's challenging, because, for instance, the culture in our schools, the culture in our criminal legal system, this has been created over generations, right? And so to work to change even pieces of those is not going to happen overnight. And we're a culture that demands overnight outcomes, solutions. And we want that measured in the same measurements that we've been measuring the punitive system. And so we talk as well about if we're going to create a new way of being together, whether it's in a criminal legal context or in the schools, can we imagine what that might look like? And can we develop new metrics for what restorative justice might look like in the criminal legal system? I mean, still, we can look at recidivism. We can look at public safety measurements and things like that. But one of the biggest challenges is culture. It's about culture change. Another is we are our systems and structures are so ingrained. I mean, we have the data that shows that what it costs for a young person to go through a restorative process as a diversion from the juvenile justice system is between $5,000, around $5,000 to go through entirely through a restorative justice process versus incarceration, probation and parole, well over $100,000 for a year for a young person. So we're talking about $5,000 versus $100,000. But you can't just divert that money into where we've already invested. We've invested in personnel in the Department of Juvenile Justice in the residential facilities, in probation, in parole. So we've got a lot of money, a lot of interest, a lot of vested interest in the way things are. So any of you know that go around and try to do some changing in the system, there's a lot of pushback, as Matt said. And even though we know the way things are are causing harm, particularly for certain aspects of our community, our neighbors, changing it, though. And that's where you're going to start hearing people raise, raise voices. I think for our office, when working with restorative justice, the biggest hurdle I think is we need to do more community education and outreach. I do emphasize a lot, you know, the benefits to the victims themselves that, you know, you get to say and a lot of the things that are going to happen in the regular legal process can happen in restorative justice. You know, they can do community service and other things like that, which is normally what they would get. It's just I try to stretch, you know, a better way for, you know, a victim to get involved and make a difference. But we do have such a busy life. So sometimes that's hard when you're asking people to take, you know, time out of their day after they've already been a victim, you know, to come and be part of this process. So I think maybe just more outreach and getting more buy-in from the community that so people would want to take that time out and do that. Well, I think the implementation of restorative justice in our the adult and I'll speak to our adult criminal justice system, particularly, is our laws are just not they don't incorporate that. It's not part of what we start out thinking when we have a have a case that there's, you know, an issue that has arisen and someone has been a victim, whether or not it's a property crime. And or, you know, some kind of personal violence crime. And if we think about what is, you know, we focus on the individual who committed the offense and we incorporate, if we as we can, the individual who has experienced the harm. But if the goal is to try and bring about some connection where the victim can feel as though they have been that the participate in a process where the the individual who committed the offense is held accountable and has opportunity to make repairs of whatever it is, I think of the cases where individuals, I particularly think of a man who has had had a great stamp collection. I mean, the albums of stamps and the person who was drug seeking came in and and, you know, stole all the stamp albums, took them down pond them for two hundred dollars and went and got got substance drugs. And when, you know, those people came together in court, the man's life had been sort of taken from him. And the it was what he had done in his and it was invested in it. And the individual who had committed the offense had had very little investment in what, you know, what it what had occurred. And in fact, that individual probably was still, you know, at a point in their life where they were going to continue to be a substance user if there was not some other intervention. And so how what is the repair? How does the repair come into play so that that the victim who has experienced the criminal act is going to to be made whole? And, you know, money is part of that. But I think in restorative justice, we're looking for something else, which is a reconciliation and maybe even change for the for the offender. But as is Matt said, I mean, and Danny, the culture is just not we're not there in terms of a culture that is going to support restorative justice at this point. And legally, it's not, you know, we might have to find a way to put it into the code. Because if you look at the criminal procedures, there isn't really a there's not a code section that talks about restorative justice. And so how do we start to come up with a common vision of what that about what restorative justice is and how it can be applied in, you know, the courtroom? I mean, we think about the volume of cases. You know, there's there's always a push to push through cases and we've got to resolve them. But there's not necessarily the energy in trying to to to rebuild that that restorative justice, I think, seeks. And I've just got some I think we're going to have a long way to go. And I think we're going to have to to change probably a lot of attitudes along the way. So you you took my my next question from me. So and you answered it. So good, good work. So so what, you know, I'm a civil engineer, right? So so hard facts, tangible things. What does restorative justice look like in a very tangible sense? Can you can you give me an example or the group an example of what that really looks like for an individual? I'll start with the clerk middle of you. The process looks like, you know, someone, the student or a teacher or administrator or myself, and I restore the request form. So it's a form that goes to me. The restorative team were able to see it. We're able to pre-conference with the people who are involved in the in the dispute or the conflict. And then from there, we plan the the circle process. We communicate what happens in the circle with all interested parties. So if it happened in a teacher's classroom, but the teacher wasn't a part of it, we're going to email it to that teacher, the administrator. So everyone's on the same page or understand everyone understands the process, the agreements that the people in the circle came to at the end of the circle. So this is what we're going to do is the next steps. And then we've changed it. We used to do 30 days, but just with middle schoolers, I think 30 days is a long time. So we're doing 15 days now. So we're checking in 15 days after they had that restorative circle just to see how things are going, see if there's any changes that need to be made, if they need to come back together, if they're willing to come back together. So that's what that process looks like. And then what we do is we use what we've done throughout the school year. We analyze that. We analyze that and what's been great is we wouldn't have known to do that without having support from Georgia Conflict Center because they were able to walk us through. What does it look like to have a restorative school? Truly not just a school that like had circles, but truly structurally was it look like to have a restorative school? And through that, we've been able to see that we do need some sort of data. We do need some sort of way of proving that this is effective. And so we've been able to have quarterly, mid-year and end of year. Just, I guess, we'd call them just a summation of everything that's happened that school year. We go over like the changes we've seen, the data, how it's looking. I mean, one of the big things we focused on and we saw a big huge issue and was in disproportionality of data. So the amount of African-American Black students are being referred, suspended. We're seeing it's just crazy numbers. And so we were able to just understand that and see if that's having any type of impact. So we're able to see this data is proving that this is effective. We're able to look at referral data. And in particular, what we're looking at are things that are subjective. So when we're talking about referrals, teachers can write referrals for lots of different things. And then there's the base things. There's like a kid brought a cigarette to school, a kid fought. There's no other way of going about that. But when we're looking at the subjective things, the things like this kid was disrespectful, this kid was disruptive. We talk about that. We look at that data and we say, these are subjective things. This is down to a breakdown communication between the adult in that room and the student or students. How can we understand that breakdown? I think it's through restorative practices, understanding where students come from, understanding that there needs to be healing and conflict and truly an understanding of each individual in that role. And so that's how it looks like at a school. Hopefully that broke it down, but yeah. Thank you. I'll talk a little bit and maybe Amber can talk more about. So we Georgia Conflict Center has a formal partnership with the district attorney's office, D.A. Gonzalez and I, well, D.A. Gonzalez convened a working group of systems partners for about a year and a half. Folks from the Department of Juvenile Justice, Judges, Public Defender's Office, others from the community. And out of that came a formal partnership where now the D.A.'s office can and really Amber, as the juvenile assistant district attorney can choose after speaking with the victim, can choose to make a referral to the Georgia Conflict Center. And what that means is that case is being diverted from the traditional channels of prosecution. So first, I'll let Amber talk more about what happens before we get the referral. But once we get the referral, similar to what Matt just described, but it probably, we take a good bit more time than Matt is able to. By the way, Matt facilitated about 500 of these restorative circles last year. And that's what the data from Clark Central shows. So yeah. Matt and others, including students, Matt and others and students, lots of folks involved, but over 500 restorative circles at Clark Middle School, that's culture change there. So in the juvenile justice system here, when we get a referral, our next step is also we're going to reach out to the victim first. This is a victim-centered process. We want to get a sense from them, their experience. What do they feel like they need out of this process? What was the impact on them? What would they like to see happen in a restorative process? So kind of going through similar questions that we will eventually address in a restorative process. And we call it a restorative conference in the criminal legal sense. And so reach out to the victim. We also speak to the person that caused the harm and meet with them to understand as well what happened. Understand are they really ready to take responsibility for the harm that they caused and what do they think they could possibly do to make things better? And so that that process could go back and forth meeting individually. Also, are there to the victim? Is there somebody you would like to invite to be a part of this process? Could be a family member, somebody your pastor, somebody from the community. And so if they have some folks they would like to be involved, we need to speak to them, go through the same process to prepare them for the restorative process, same on the other side with the person that caused harm. We have an additional partnership, which I'm very excited about with juvenile offender advocate that is an organization here in town that works specifically with young folks who are going through the criminal legal system. And so we are, for half the cases that we've taken so far, we've partnered the youth with an advocate, essentially a mentor, somebody that's going to accompany them. And we've included them in the restorative process because they're going to keep working with that young person well beyond the restorative process. So a lot of preparation, like Matt said, really the key to this working well is the preparation. Are there any red flags? Are there needs for resources? I heard Judge Swepe mentioned mental health. When we're hearing those things, we at Georgia Conflict Center are not prepared, but we need to be prepared to connect with providers, mental health providers, substance abuse providers. Is there a housing need? Is there other needs that may have contributed to this situation from happening? So I really appreciate when Judge Swepe mentioned or maybe it was you, Amber, getting to the root, these restorative processes, if they're going to go, well, we're going to get to the root of why this happened. And we're going to work on addressing that in a strengths based way as much as possible. We really want to when when I'm doing a restorative process, I almost always start by asking the others in the circle if they know each other. So often in schools, what strength do you see in Matt? You know, if Matt's your teacher, what strength do you see in him as a teacher and Matt, what strength do you see in the student? Because we want the outcome, the agreements to be rooted in our strengths. And so if it seems appropriate to move forward with the restorative process, then we would organize a time to come together. It would be a facilitated discussion that everybody has agreed to. They know what we're going to be talking about. And me as the facilitator would already have a pretty good idea of what folks would like to see happen out of this. We we talk through what happened. We talk about the impact on people. People speak for themselves about how they've been impacted. And then we work together on a on a plan to make things better. We call it a restorative plan that's documented. That plan is documented. Everybody signs off on it. And then the last responsibility of the facilitator, whether this is in school or in the criminal legal context, is to follow up and make sure that people are doing what they committed to doing in the criminal legal context. If that doesn't happen, if somebody violates the agreement or commits to doing some sort of community service and they don't do it and, you know, I might work with them to get them back on track. But if it doesn't happen, then we can refer the we will refer the case back to the district attorney's office to decide how to proceed, whether that's prosecution or some other mechanism. But all that that happens in the restorative realm is 100 percent confidential. We don't we don't pass any of that information on to the DA's office just to protect due process and things like that. So I'll just leave that. So I'm at the very beginning of the process. So cases come into my office. I reveal them first, you know, if there is a victim, then there's a process I go through to look at the the history of the offender. Some offenders are just not going to be right for the process because maybe they're already on probation. I already know they don't have a lot of family support and things like that that are going to help them get through the process, because I think that's a big part of it. You have to have your parents, the parents on board because they're going to go through this process with the minor as they go through it. So then if the person looks like a good candidate, the next thing we do is call the victim, explain restorative justice to them, ask them what they would like to see done with the case and if they would be interested in having us pursue that. And if they're on board with the restorative justice program, then all this happens prior to any case being formally charged. So then I will reach out to the parent of the minor and have a meeting with the parent and the child and explain the process to them and see, you know, do you want to take responsibility or do you want to trial because they don't want anybody, you know, who says, oh, no, I didn't do this. Then you have to go through the formal process because it's all about taking responsibility. And once we establish that they're ready to do that, we have a contract that we go over that just kind of goes over what's expected during the process, what kind of behaviors are, you know, allowed and not allowed in the process and how the case might come back to us in confidentiality and all that. And then we send it over to Mr. Danny Malick and he takes it from there. Well, I'm afraid I don't have any concrete examples of restorative justice being employed. You know, and I think in some ways we may do it in small ways. We may do it in small ways when we create an environment in the courtroom where the victim can speak to the offender and can, you know, hopefully communicate in a way the harm that they've caused. And sometimes, you know, the individual will experience some, you know, will express some concern or would recognize the harm that they've caused. But I think, you know, I can't really, other than, you know, trying in and I think of the difficult cases where there's been a loss of life and you have a family that's there and they've lost a loved one. And, you know, what can be said there by the the to try and create or restore relations? It's that's a hard one. And, you know, some of the knowledge about restorative justice was from 60 minutes. I mean, they've done some shows on it. And it looked like in those kind of cases, it takes years. It's not something that is done like in the space of a short time, it may take years. And you can understand that when there's been someone who's experienced a tremendous loss as a result of, you know, of individual's conduct. I'm encouraged to hear that we're talking about implementation of this in schools, because I think that the earlier that children can understand the effects that their behaviors may have on others and to take account for that, it may help us, you know, down further downstream, because a lot of times by the time someone gets into a superior courtroom, there's they may have been through the juvenile justice system. They and they may have all of the things that make contributed to criminality, as Danny was talking about, whether it's homelessness, whether it's mental behavioral health disorders or substance abuse disorders. And those are things that, you know, you kind of have to address those things before someone is going to be in a position to accept responsibility and create some sort of transformation or some sort of connection to someone whom they have injured. So I'm, you know, I think it's I think there's promise in that, but I think we're going to see it go slowly. But I'm very glad to see that we're starting because I think we we can know that there are a lot of children in our schools who are going to wind up in our criminal justice system and if the more we can do at that level to to prevent their their journey, the better our our Athens will be. Awesome. Thank you, guys. So I'm going to start on the other end of the table this time, if that's OK. So, you know, if we look down the road, 10, 20, 30 years down the road, how do we how do we measure the results of restorative justice? And Judge Swett or Amber. Well, I think for us, the way we would measure the results is a decrease in recidivism because I want to see that if I send a minor to the restorative justice program, that's the last we see of them. They go to the program and that flips something, you know, in their mind that like, nope, I want to go away from this and in their, you know, a law by distance and from that point point on. So I mean, that's that's the only way I can think of how we would measure that. I think that question would be best posed to folks who have not experienced this community as just or equitable members of the Athens Clark County community that would feel that they've experienced injustice, both in schools and in the in the criminal legal system. And so I think, yeah, certainly recidivism, but also how how how well are we doing with rooting these ways of if it's a way of being, if it's a culture, how are we doing with introducing it and sharing it in communities so that communities feel that they have a tool to solve problems together rather than having to go to the police. We can we we've got a conflict. We can we can work this out. So so communities empowered to solve their own problems. I think our willingness to address historical harm at a community level in this community, you know, working in the schools so often when, say, some students get into a fight or something, parents come in and they're like, oh, my God, that's where I.S.S. was when I was here 30 years ago. And for them, they tell they tell you about their experience in the school and it wasn't good. And and so here it is the next generation is is having some challenges. So recognizing the historical harm in the community, are we are we ready to are we open to creating space where those who have been harmed can name that and and can be part of deciding how do we address that moving forward? If we're going to talk about restorative justice, that that's a foundation that I think has to be part of it. I think kind of echoing what you said, Danny. But going, I guess, more particular is for me, the biggest thing that I want to see is equitable outcomes for our students. We don't have equitable outcomes for our students right now in Clark County. Throughout the nation, but especially Clark County and that being behavioral or academic. And so we're looking at equitable outcomes. We're looking at the same the same responses for negative behaviors in the classroom, which we're not seeing. We're not seeing the same responses from teachers. And I think that goes deep with with training with staff, which is goes into what everybody's been talking about. Restorative justice takes time and through that time. I mean, we don't have teacher training programs for school first first for students who are learning to be teachers in college. There aren't a lot of programs that really talk about restorative justice. They really talk about social emotional support for students and understanding students where they come from. There's not a lot of that. And so when we think about that, we think about that it has to start way back, way back as it go foundationally back. And it's going to take time. But yeah, I think overall, it's the equitable outcomes for students. The amount of time students are in OSS, ISS, not because, you know, I can look at the student. I can I can know the demographic of a student is black. The student's going to have a lot more chance of being an OSS, ISS. That's just facts, the stats. And so in 20 years time, if I know restorative has been successful, is when we have those equitable outcomes for all our students. You know, on a community basis, I think one of not just individual restorative justice, one of the things that we are going to have to struggle with is the all of the injustice that was done in pursuit of the war on drugs. And if we look at what I think we now hopefully understand more about the underlying reasons, but if we compare our response to the opioid crisis and recognition that the individuals were experiencing a physiological condition and we look at our response to the crack epidemic. I mean, there was this vastly different, vastly different. And I think there, you know, there's a lot, you know, you mentioned mistrust in the community, I can understand. I think there's a lot of things got done and a lot of people lived in fear and may still live in fear because of some of the things that were done in pursuit of what was, you know, really an assault on a lot of people's rights as they were, if we had chosen to deal with it differently, we might have had some different outcomes. But that's sort of a community kind of thing. I mean, what is it that is that will restore the connections and relationships amongst people, particularly where they have been, you know, destroyed in ways that were where there was vast racial disparity in the outcomes. Thank you, guys. I would I'd like to give the audience an opportunity to ask questions. So yes, ma'am. Mention, are there any examples you guys are using using those restorative justice practices from indigenous populations? Yeah, so and I don't know if you want to talk about it. So the thing that we haven't talked about a lot is we've been talking about it in a restorative justice in a responsive way. But what we emphasize in schools and what Matt I think really also at Clark Middle, for instance, is using these same practices to build community. And so in the schools, we teach the circle process and we use the talking piece. This process was was taught by indigenous communities in in the US and in in Canada, but also the Maori community in New Zealand. Actually, the New Zealand was the first country to you talked about codifying into law in 1989, they codified restorative restorative justice practices into law in the juvenile system in New Zealand. And part of that was because the Maori people said we, you know, at that time, they were about 20 percent of the population, but they were almost 80 percent of the prison population. And you may see some parallels to our country. The Maori people said this Western justice system is not serving our families or our communities. And there was a whole movement that led to the the law being passed in 1989. So now all juvenile cases are done in circle using culturally practices that that the people that are participating bring from their own cultures. So we do we use the circle process in schools. We are working to train folks in the community to use that in the communities and in Athens as well, really to focus first on the proactive building community, creating space for dialogue, for democratic decision making. Because then this is what we say in schools. Then when we have a problem, well, let's circle up. Let's we have this process. We have this practice that we use here and then it doesn't feel so punitive. It doesn't feel foreign even because this is what we do at Clark Middle at every in advisement they circle up, same at Clark Central. And I'll just point out we're just mentioning a few schools in Clark County because there's only a few schools in Clark County that are doing anything with restorative justice. I know this isn't really like on the question topic, but it is so important to me and my work that that starts in the schools because I can be responsive to things that happen. But the prison, the school to prison pipeline is a very real thing. And if we can start changing that in the school setting and dealing with those things in the school, I want to see my cases drop. And then I think when we start with young people and we start in the schools, then that's where we're going to really see our community change because we're starting with them. So I just the work you guys do is so important. And hopefully I'm really hoping you said looking to the future that my caseload just drops off because we have this going on in the schools. All right. Any other questions? Yes, sir. Well, you know, I think even those of us who are not acquainted with this yet, that restorative justice is really new to our system. It's not traditional. There are challenges. So when I'm remodern and you heard bits and snatches, this change implies involvement on the part of the courts, law enforcement, schools, the district attorney's offices, and probably other agencies. So my question is, what is the status currently the state legislature? What is the status of the dialogue with and among these various concerned parties about restorative justice? And it's a two part question. The other question is, in that multi conversation, what is being used to sell the idea that restorative justice is a bizarre and a positive and even a necessary new element in dealing with conflict resolution? So I understand the question, so I'd like to take it. My answer would be short for the juvenile side, because our juvenile system is kind of built around this kind of idea. When they redid the juvenile statutes in Georgia, it became more child centered, a child centered focus. What can we do to help this child to turn them away from the system that they're in and, you know, get them help so they're not repeat offenders? And so restorative justice is well received by the courts in Clark County. They're supportive of it, and, you know, we have it in our office. So I think the the question more would be on an adult level or in the schools, because we're, you know, the only. I guess hurdle is I have to sell it to victims and, you know, the public in general to get a buy in there. But, you know, we're ready and we keep trying. So one one thing that's encouraging, and this is in the last within the end of July, the National Judicial College, which is a training resource for state court judges like myself around the country, had what I think was its first restorative justice conference. And so, you know, there at least is maybe the beginning of a dialogue of how restorative justice can become incorporated into our justice system. But I think it's a beginning. And I don't think that there is, you know, nationally, there are tribal courts where that is more used and maybe there and certainly there are efforts around to try and create restorative justice. But I was encouraged that it was becoming more a subject matter which the Judicial College thought should be, you know, should be a part of a discussion in how we can create and begin a discussion of implementing restorative justice as appropriate. It's been a long day. So I want to make sure I understand the second part of question. The second part of question was how do we sell it in general? Restore the practices. The second part of the question is in order to make a change, you've got to demonstrate something that the current system isn't working. But the new approach presents new potential for a better outcome. You have to sell why this approach should be something that people should buy into and support. And when I say people, I mean people like state legislators. I mean, we all know there is a tension across this country and in this state between people who have radically different approaches to criminal justice. We see that in the legislature. We see that among different district attorney officers. My suspicion, my conjecture is that this is another element of friction, this kind of radically new and different approach to dealing with common. And I guess I can't really speak on a bigger scale other than at my school. But what we do to sell it amongst teachers, staff, administrators is that what you said, what we've been doing for hundreds of years in the American school systems isn't working. It's not working. And we can see that through the data. We can see that through academic behavioral outcomes. So we try to say the punitive ways we've dealt with things has led to this. And so what can we go back to? That's incredibly human that works to have effective working positive classrooms. That's what we have to sell it to the teachers, because teachers want effective, positive working classrooms where they're able to have relationships with students and those students are able to do the work for them and everything's positive and cheery and everybody's high five and then all that. And that happens, that has happened in our schools, right? We we have we've had those experience with our teachers. We know that. So point to that and understanding that thinking about it from a structural point of view is radical. But really thinking about it from an individual point of view, it's not radical. It's it's it's community as humans being humans. And for some reason, when we step into, I know, when we step into a court, when we step into the classroom, things change. Things get a little bit more tight and we don't see those students, those 20 students as individuals. It's how can I survive? How can I get that standard taught? How can I do all those other things? And we're trying to say that foundationally, if you adhere to restorative practices, then all those things will fall in line. So that's how we try to sell it. We go at the same time. I've got a couple of questions. That's similar to the second question that we had, and it's about how your allies, it's wonderful, the culture, the idea that you're using kindness, compassion and cultural sensitivity to transform a system that's broken. But but how do you have your allies help you convince the society that seems much more mental, anger and hatred now than kindness and compassion? As far as for youth in the community, restorative justice has been around for a very long time. I've been in juvenile justice for over 15 years. And when I first started in the field, we had some restorative practices going on in different jurisdictions. And there's a lot of research out there that just it says it works and says it's a victim. Victims are happier, recidivism is down. They they have studies for each community that have put those practices together to build on. So that's just where I would have to, you know, I just got to show them the numbers and say, this works, we've seen it in different communities that have tried it and it worked. So I mean, I think that's always the best way is scientific process, I guess. Yeah, I would just emphasize, going back to your question, we do need more empirical research. I think there is a good bit of there's emerging more research and evidence. And if you go to Georgia Conflict Center's website, you can see we have a lot of the the latest research that's out there on there. But we need more empirical evidence about this, particularly in schools. A lot of what we see in schools is they're evaluating culture change or impact on the system after one or two years of implementation. And that that's just not enough time. We're looking at changing things that are broken in our schools that have been that way for, as Matt said, up to hundreds of years. And so if you have the expectation that that's going to change in that short amount of time and and some of what we want to measure is is more qualitative as well. So let's make sure that we're getting feedback from students, from families about their experience. And Mr. Priest, right? Your question. Can you say it again? Well, actually, it's really this is really the same question, but it's about how do you utilize your allies to convince people who are most fortunate in anger, injury, then kindness and compassion? But this is I like the idea of part and I come from a professional artifacts and evidence based thing. So I like that idea. Are there other ways that you couldn't recruit allies to help you sell this overall concept? So in my experience of doing this for, you know, 15 years or so in the community and school, the best way is to invite people into restorative processes. And so I think it's our responsibility, Georgia Convict Center to be doing this more in the community, training folks. We're working with the neighborhood leaders now to train all the neighborhood leaders. In my experience, when I worked in schools, the best way to build buy-in was to invite folks. Oh, you're having a challenge with that student. Why don't we sit together in a restorative process? And, you know, I think some of the biggest impediment there it would be the ego, because, for instance, in the school, if you're asking an adult to sit in a restorative process with a student, well, but I'm the adult, you know, I shouldn't have to. So then it's probably not going to work. But if you can invite folks and they're willing to. And so I think with that anger and rage, like you come and sit in a restorative process, it kind of it has the potential to melt because of how the process is facilitated, the values and the principles of the process. And I'll just echo that. I mean, that's we are restorative culture leadership team for Clark Middle School met during the summer, the plan for this upcoming this current school year. And that was one of the big things we wanted to focus on was having more parents, families coming in and experiencing restorative circles because there is a positive impact. A lot of times parents will come into a situation. I get I have kids, they got into a fight, got hurt, something happened to them. I will come in with my hands like this. But by the end, everyone's shaking hands. And we've had really, really, really contentious circles with family members coming in, threatening to sue or whatever. And I can't think of a time that people haven't left feeling positive and shaking hands and hugging and just positivity. So I think actually experiencing the circles. I have a question. One of the challenges that I think is most frightening in Athens is that we have individuals who are connected to each other through gang. We call it gang relationships. I'm not sure that's the right term. And there is there seems to be a lot of intergroup violence that is in people that are not involved or getting injured. And I don't know how you do that. I've certainly, you know, there are places around the country where there has been intervention in into gang situations. I have one of and I wonder, you know, is there something that we could do here that that might try to reconcile some of this so we don't have the kind of just street violence that, you know, is so dangerous? Yeah, I think you're right. There are other models that that we can look to around the country. One of them is how to how do we empower folks that have been through either gangs or through the been incarcerated and find ways to plug them back in to helping the community and mentoring those young folks. In my line of work, they call those folks credible messengers. I would not be one. I have not served time. I'm not I wasn't formally I've worked with lots of youth and gangs. But how do we in Athens find ways to employ, pay, pay fairly and justly folks that have been through those systems to help mentor others. And that's one aspect. The other aspect is is the violence intervention. How do we help interrupt when something happens? How do we help, you know, interrupt? And there are models of that as well that I think we could learn from. That answer your question. Yeah, OK, third row back. I think you had a question. You're thinking that not all schools in Park County were in the restorative justice model. And so I'm wondering, are you repairing your data with those schools that are not in the restorative justice process? We're not consistently looking at that data. But that's something that we definitely should start doing. Thanks for bringing that up. Yeah. I don't know if the board would go to the district. I don't know if the district would allow that. It's definitely readily available. And that's like my will is already turned. And I'm thinking about looking at that. And we I mean, we know just anecdotally that certain students are less successful at other middle schools. And then they come to us and we're able to figure out something, work out something for them. So but yeah, that's yeah, definitely. I'll just say that the work at Clark Middle and at Clark Central were both pilots that were started by the school district. And so I think your question would be a great one for the school district. What have they learned from these pilots? What are they choosing to do with the money they've invested over the last five years in these pilots? Because I'm not sure it's real clear to the community what the next steps are, or is the district going to be doing more restorative work, or they decided they don't want to. But I think it's really important to to be able to make that comparison. So this is a small district. We should be able to have a sense in comparison at Clark Middle versus some of the other schools. What what changes have we seen with the restorative work? And I think you should share it is in PTA. And that would be one way to get this out to the people in the community. I'm glad you mentioned that. We actually are. We have September CMS PTA meeting. We're operating circles. And so that should be a good experience for parents to actually experience the circles sidebar. I want to shout out Ms. Larson, I'm going to call you out because her granddaughter was one of our peace leaders. So there's a group of eighth grade students. We had 16 eighth grade students who were actually trained and restored the practices and led to restore the circles. And if you could just see the work that like her granddaughter and like all the other students did. I mean, they me and the other restorative coordinator at the time, Ms. Flitt, we would have to go back to drawing work. We're like, man, they're they're doing the right. They're taking the time. They're really asking great questions, leading great circles, planning it out. And just that's the power of restore the practices in the future for restorative practices so that you guys see less because we're having we're training up 14 year olds who are leaders who are able to have restored the circles and mentor 11 year olds and want a positive, peaceful outcome from conflict, which is incredibly powerful. I compare myself to being 14 years old. I wouldn't have the capacity to do that. But those kids definitely definitely do. And it's amazing to see. But again, that takes time because I know, for instance, I know that some people want to replicate that program at their schools, which is cool, which is great. But how do we do that without adult support without adults who are actually trained to restore the practices? That's the key. I couldn't have done that six years ago with that group of students. But because I was trained in the restorative practices, they have adults who support them in engaging in restorative practices. Those students can learn and be supported. So that's key. Awesome. So I'd like to take one more question. I have two words real short. Okay. In the medical school, the circles of that also found that, what's that there? Yeah, we try to keep it confidential. We want to make it a safe space for students, but there also are youths, so we want to make sure that, if I'm going to share this information with their parent guardian, then I'll let them know that it's out and open. If I'm going to share information with teachers, it's with a purpose. We want to still support you guys. You guys are still 12 or 13 years old. So maybe you do need that support from Mr. Smith in your math class, because you have that issue with that student in that class. So I'm going to email him your agreements that you came out to. For the most part, they are confidential. And that was, again, another powerful thing and a maturity shown from that group of students who led circles. Those students did not talk about it. We checked. We knew they did not talk about it. They checked each other. They make sure that what happened in the circle stays in the circle. That's our big thing that the kids know. And so, and I think that speaks to the power of the circle. If you know all the information, you're going to be sure that, of course, you're not going to buy in. So that was key. Thank you. The other question I had was kind of the bigger thing from the district. I think there's a lot of things going on with the start of justice outside of the third conference. Would you comment a little bit on that scope? I do know that, what I do know is that, like two years ago the district went with another company that engages in restorative practices, trains in restorative practices. And then this past school year we, different people who might have stakes in it were trained in some of these through a quick session. And through that quick session, the idea was that we would take that information, that three or four hours of information and then train other adults within our building. There's no directive on how or when and again, restorative practices takes time to be restoratively trained. Through GCC it took eight to 10 sessions, hour long sessions, a long process. So, and that's where I know we're at right now. But as far as we are again, quote unquote a restorative district, but I don't see a lot of like structures put in to really support that. Yep. So, before we leave tonight, what we'd like to know is what each of you see as the path forward in restorative justice from your perspective? I think the path forward and again, I'm gonna stick strictly, I'm gonna stick strictly to Athens-Court County as honesty. We gotta start having a lot of honest conversations. This community is an incredible community, but it's a community where there hasn't been a lot of honesty amongst different demographics, different groups, different incomes. There hasn't been a lot of honesty. And once we can start to have those honest conversations, I think then we can see some progress. And that's what the powerful thing about it is about restorative practices and doing it from middle school up is that these are our future community leaders. These are the people who are gonna be running things in our community. And so when we can go in and have conversations about racial inequality, when we can talk about Linnentown, when we can talk about just violence, we can talk about just deep things that again, as a 13, 14 year old, I wasn't having those conversations. Teachers weren't supporting us with having those conversations and now we are. And so I just think there's a lot of power in this group of students. Gen Z, they're just, they're special, they're different. And I'm not sure if it's the internet or what, TikTok or what, just I think exposure to different cultures. Again, there's negativity with that, but there's a lot of positivity with that. And I feel like this youth is incredibly open, incredibly accepting of others. And I hear them have honest conversations. And so I think we can like model what we do off them. I would say we need to, one, celebrate where it's happening. I wanna celebrate the work of math, but also if you see Dr. Gorham, the principal at Clark Middle, thank her for her commitment. She didn't necessarily have to, when she started just two years ago, keep that going and she has. Thank Dr. Huff at Clark Central. They've been mad and these folks have been leaders of this work and it's not easy to stick your neck out and do something different. I also wanna celebrate lots of work that's happening in this community that we don't even call restorative. I see Sheriff John Q there and a lot of work that they're doing to prepare folks that are coming back to the community after a time of incarceration. In my mind is restorative work, helping folks come back in a better way than when they went into there. So celebrating the work that's about healing, that's about building community. We don't have to use the language, but that's what restorative work is, building respect, building a space of dialogue and celebrating other leaders. I know D.A. Gonzalez from day one promoted restorative justice and that has been a big challenge for D.A. Gonzalez. So we need to celebrate where it's happening, support it and have a long-term perspective. It doesn't happen overnight. One thing that I have learned in my many years working in the juvenile system is a lot of problems start at home with communication between parents and teenagers. And I hadn't really, before we started the program here, thought about sending parents and kids to the restorative justice program, but it makes a lot of sense. I have a lot of experience with accountability courts and one of, I think the most beneficial thing I've seen out of those is at the end, the ones who are successful, they and their parents talk about how much better they communicate at home and how their relationship has improved through the process. And I've started looking at the restorative justice process as a place where all the things they can meet, they can communicate, they can figure out a plan of how to get along better in the future. And I think we can cut off a lot of issues for future criminal behavior if we can send some of those issues over to the restorative program and get parents and kids talking. So that's, I'm looking to the future, I'm looking at more of those cases and sending those over and hoping that's gonna have a really positive impact. Well, I think we're, particularly the adult criminal justice system, it's gonna take a while. I would say this in 2001, we didn't know what accountability courts were. People weren't employing the type of more skillful responses to the reasons that people came into contact with the criminal justice system. And so it took a while and early on, there was a lot of resistance to that. Judges that felt like they were being social workers and put in a role that was not judicial. But I think that those who participated realized that they could use their authority as a judicial figure to move people on a path toward wellness. And I think similarly, in the civil context, there was 25 years ago, mediation was a new concept where people would sit in the room with a skilled or a neutral person, skilled, neutral person and try and resolve their differences, whether it was a dispute in a family law matter or some other civil dispute. And now that's become a routine part of our civil justice system. And we know that it resolves matters. So I think that this is gonna be a long process and starting by recognizing that it exists because I'm not sure that if you were to talk to how many legislators have even heard of restorative justice. And I think there's a lot of education. And I think if we're going to, I think employing it in the juvenile setting is most crucial, I think maybe we can begin to learn how to employ it with adult vendors, but it's gonna take a while. And I'm encouraged here what the sheriff, and I know what the sheriff is doing to try and create the potential for people to return and have more skills. But I think the process, if we value restorative justice, and I think that's a question that as a community we may have to answer is how are we gonna value this and put resources to it? Because as I understand it takes time and people have to be patient with it. It's not, I mean I can send it to somebody and have their case finished in 30 minutes. But if you're gonna try and resolve something through the restorative means it's gonna take a lot more time and that may be something that we have to get support for and create a vision of what it can do to improve Athens and our larger community. Anything else the panel would like to say before we, Okay, all right, awesome. Well, definitely absolutely appreciate your empathy and care for our community and for participating tonight and for everything that you do. Thank you very much.