 May all beings be safe from harm. May all beings enjoy happiness. May all beings dwell in an open heart. Thank you all for coming and for your concern about a more compassionate justice system. This discussion is focused on moving from a system of punishment and disconnection to one of compassion and connection. And a big question is what is justice? There are many, many ways to answer that question, of course. One way is looking at some statistics as to what our justice system in this country and especially in Vermont looks like. The US has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's prison population. We have the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world with over 2.4 million people currently behind bars. Poor people and people of color are incarcerated at vastly disproportionate rates. Getting down to Vermont, 1% of Vermont's population is black. 10% of our incarcerated population is black. One out of 14 black men in Vermont is in prison. One of the worst rates in the country. In 2016, there were about 1,750 people incarcerated in the state system, plus about 8,000 on probation. The average cost for inmate for a year in Vermont, one inmate for one year, is $32,224. I multiplied this several times on my calculator because I couldn't believe the number. But the cost per year for incarcerating people in Vermont is almost $11 million. We will explore tonight some more constructive ways that that money might be used. Vermont is only one of four states that sends inmates to out-of-state prisons. But there is some good news about Vermont. Vermont is the only state with community justice centers in every county. And you'll hear more about that from Derek who's with the Department of Corrections. You will hear more about that from Megan who works with the Community Justice Center in Burlington and a lot more from Yvonne Berg, who is the director of the Montpelier Community Justice Center. Most community justice centers have some form of reparative panels and many have cossas or circles of support for released prisoners, which you may also hear about. What is justice? Cornell West said, never forget that justice is what love looks like in public. Buddhist teacher David Lloyd said, Buddhist justice grows out of a compassion for everyone involved when someone hurts another. And Buddhist teacher Tith Nhat Hanh said, when another person makes you suffer, it is because he or she suffers deeply in himself and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment. He needs help. Happiness and safety are not an individual matter. His happiness and safety are crucial for your happiness and safety. What is justice? We have six people up here who are each working to promote justice as they understand it and based on their experiences. I will introduce each of them and ask them to say a few words about their work with justice. Derek Mia Dovner is community and restorative justice executive for the Vermont Department of Corrections. And in this capacity, he is responsible for the statewide community justice centers and transitional housing program grants that the DOC awards and married. So, you're on. That's what you do. Thank you. Can folks hear me? Can folks hear me without it? Yeah. I'll just go without if that's OK. But if you're not hearing me, let me know. Let me just quickly say it's an honor to be here this evening, to be with my co-palests in being responsive to the community's interest. I think that at the heart of a more just world and community is dialogue, just this simple but transformational act of engaging and participating in a sharing of perspectives and creating the space for all of those perspectives to be equally privileged and valued and have them permeate one another's perspectives. So it's in that spirit that I'm very happy to be here. I will give a very brief summary of what I do for the Department of Corrections. And in some ways, it's defined actually, you may be happy to know, in the Vermont statutes. So we actually have a statute. So these are the laws that govern our state. In this case, it's entitled 28, not to be too wonky about this. But I think this is important. This is about your democracy, right? And we actually have laws that entitle you to many things, one of which is actually restorative justice. So I'm just going to read a tiny bit of a way of explaining what I do. And I'll do this hopefully in about 36 more seconds. The state policy. It is the policy of this state that principles of restorative justice be included in shaping how the criminal justice system responds to persons charged with or convicted of criminal offenses. The policy goal is a community response to a person's wrongdoing at its earliest onset and a type and intensity of sanction tailored to each instance of wrongdoing. Policy objectives are to, one, resolve conflicts and disputes by means of a non-adversarial community process. Two, repair damage caused by criminal acts to communities in which they occur and to address wrongs inflicted on individual victims. And three, to reduce the risk of an offender committing a more serious crime in the future. That would require a more intensive and more costly sanction, such as incarceration. So this is a lovely and really pioneering piece of legislation. How does this happen? One way is that the Department of Corrections invests in a set of community partnerships called community justice centers where local folks, such as my colleagues Yvonne and Megan, convene citizens and the people most directly impacted. So the state devolves or gives to the community the resources for them to catalyze the capacity for dialogue in the wake of conflict and crime. And I sit on the correction side responsible for the grants that fund these justice centers and the activities they're in. So essentially, I have the privilege and pleasure of giving out all of our taxpayer dollars to support but also ensure the processes and the procedures that happen through our justice centers. And it's an honor. And I look forward to your feedback over time as to how we can do it better. Thank you, Derek. We have next Tony Moncy, who is a developmental psychologist, a mutual awakening teacher, and founder of the Ark of Advocacy. She can explain that. Her personal and professional lives collided inside a courtroom, igniting her passion for ending relational violence. She herself was a rhythm of abuse. Thank you. Such a contrast from Derek to me. So yes, I am an adult developmental psychologist. So I work with people who don't have diagnoses, but who in fact would like to grow and develop and to expand their consciousness and be able to take more perspectives and essentially probably to empower the people, all of us, to be able to participate in the circles where we can actually be within, within, for one another in the ways that we handle our differences and we move into our shared community. And with the Ark of Advocacy work I'm doing, I work with advocates and within groups, but really supporting people who are right now, the main focus has been with victim advocates, providing support, supervision, and continuing education in ways to help ignite really what it takes to have evolutionary relationships, is what we need if we wanna all get along and we wanna end relational crimes and probably most crimes is the way to really be in and for ourselves and with one another in ways that we have relationships that work or that evolve us rather than devolve us. And so the work that I've been doing is around kind of activating the principles that really allow that to take place so that we can live in communities that work for all of us. And you'll hear a bit more about that when I share my story. Thank you, Tony. And the next, we have Maiden Lumen, who was incarcerated in Vermont as a first-time non-violent offenders. She was the primary caregiver for her daughter, who was 18 months old at the time. She works as Offender Reentry Program Assistant at the Burlington Community Justice Center. Can you tell us a little bit about your work? So I do work with the Offender Reentry Program and the Restorative Justice Program. Basically, I spend the money there, it gives us. So, but really promoting restorative justice and Offender Reentry in more of an aspect of building healthy relationships. I feel like that is vital in successfully transitioning from incarceration into back into society and becoming productive in society. And I think I have a unique perspective. I do need a side note, though, that although I do work for the Community Justice Center in the city of Burlington, I am here as a private citizen. So my thoughts and my views are mine and not that of the city. So, but I have a lot of support from the city and that's another relationship that I have built and something I think we'll talk more about later. Thank you, Lady. And next we have Anne Green, who was formerly incarcerated in Vermont. And she is working now as the Outreach Coordinator at Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform. Thank you, Glenda. My name is Anne Green, I'm the Outreach Coordinator at Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform. I was incarcerated for two years at Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility and decided I wanted to make a difference when I got out and started working with Susie and Anna over at Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform. I hold educational, well, we as an organization hold educational forums around the state focusing on education and advocacy, trying to think about the way we address harm within our communities and think about maybe better ways that we can do that. Thank you. I'm going to use my outdoor voice. All right, this is... I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Thank you. The director of the Montpelier Community Justice Center and who is totally devoted to restorative justice as an alternative to prison and punishment. And retribution, general avoidance. And retribution. And as you can see, I was really eager to talk about it. Let me go now. So I started, was the director at the beginning of our community justice center here in Vermont which is almost 14 years ago. And from there we've built, we started with one program and we've built and built and built and at this point we have a staff of three almost full town people and one part time person. We have close to 60 volunteers at any point because our programs really depend on community involvement and we have a lot of that. So some folks are sitting in the audience here tonight. And we, in answer to Glinda's question about what's justice, I buy into the notion that it is a state of right relations. And all of what we do is in support of having those right relations in our community. We do some prevention kind of work with classes on conflict resolution skills. We actually do a parenting class for men who are correction involved and various forums and such. And then we, but we know that no matter what we do, things will happen that disrupt relations and then we have a number of programs that work with that. We have a victim outreach program where someone from our staff works closely in partnership with the Montpelier police department calling victims in Montpelier in a pretty immediate aftermath of an offense to just check in on them, have that community connection. People seem to really appreciate that circling back after the police have gone. We have a conflict assistance program where we help neighbors who have conflict with one another or sort of neighborhood issues and such, with mediation services. We have restorative justice service for folks who've incidents of crime from vandalism to the far end and in all cases where we're looking to help victims have an active role in articulating what they need and having a voice and having the person who has responsible for the offense have a way within the context of community to be accountable for that, understand the harm and make things better as much as possible. And then at the far end of our criminal justice system, we have an intercept point where we work with people who committed serious violent offenses coming out of incarceration to live in the community under supervision. And in those cases, we provide a circle of support and accountability for each person to help them make that transition in a way that is safe for them. Thank you, Yvonne. And next is Rick Gunworth. You have two microphones. If you need them. Rick is a senior student in the mountains and rivers order of Zen Buddhism and the Zen affiliate group of the month. He is also a spiritual practice advisor for the national Buddhist prison somewhere. Rick, will you tell us a little about your work? Sure. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. So in my working life, I'm a clinical social worker and I live down in Rutland. And I've also been a Zen Buddhist practitioner for about 30 years now. And that spiritual home for me is in the Catskill Mountains of New York State down in Mount Trempner, New York. So my teacher is actually down there. But the work I do in relation to prisons is a correspondence program. Part of what Glenda mentioned was the National Buddhist Prison Sangha. So as part of that work, I write to about 30 to 40 inmates really all over the country. I've been doing that for about, oh, 15 years or so now. And it's a way to encourage and help people who are imprisoned, who have an interest in doing a spiritual practice, a Buddhist spiritual practice, and also trying to develop a meditation especially within the heart of some pretty harsh conditions as you can only imagine. Also as part of that outreach, for about 10 years, I went out to Greta Meadow Correctional Facility. So it's right on the border of Vermont if anybody's ever left Rutland heading on Route 4, kind of heading over toward Glens Falls area. At some point there's a lone traffic light. And at that point, if you look to your left, you'll see about a 30-foot white wall, captain, razor wire, and behind that is a very, very old brick prison. And there's about 1,600 inmates in there. And so for about 10 years, I went out and helped co-lead a meditation group for a group of inmates who were trying to do this very things, is develop a spiritual practice within the heart of this maximum security prison. So again, thank you for being here tonight. Actually, how does it work? How do you get in jail? How do you get out of jail? Just a few basics in a few minutes if you work with me. I'm sure. Very good, sir. How do you get in jail? How do you get out of jail? So, well, here are a couple of things that I think would be important to understand. But what I do want to do is be responsive to where your curiosities and where your need for information is. And I do really see this as the beginning of an ongoing dialogue. And I'm very available again at work for the state. So I'm at your service. Think a couple of things to understand when I thought about this evening. I thought we have a tendency, and I'm generalizing we as sort of citizens to talk about the criminal justice system. And that may be a misnomer because I think a system implies sort of a set of intentionally integrated parts that, and embedded in our governmental structure are three branches of government. This isn't intended to be a civics lesson, but I think it's germane, right? We've got the legislative branch and the judicial branch and the executive branch. And by design, we have these separate branches so that, of course, no one given branch of government can have a disproportionate amount of control power. However, the promise and the challenge embedded in that is having these three big parts that help to stand up this system engage. So you ask how you get into the system. This is why I mentioned this. A different branch of government, the judicial branch is essentially the gatekeepers. So you have to be arranged, right? You have due process. You have to be found to have a probable cause for having committed something that could be an offense based on our code of law. You have to be then charged with that in a court of law. You have to have your day in court, so to speak, which you do if you choose to contest it, that's obviously your right, and then ultimately you have to be proven to be guilty of having committed a criminal act. That's how you at least enter the criminal justice system. That doesn't necessarily mean you enter jail or prison, but you come under some supervisory status. That all takes place in one branch of government, if you will. The Department of Corrections is an executive branch. So we have a set of procedures that we are responsible for enacting and filing to supervise people once they've been sent to us. And when to those standards set by the legislature, as well as the courts, we can say they've done this, they've served their entirety of their sentence to the minimum sentence, commensurate with whatever case plan that we've created, then we can release people. So you've got multiple moving pieces, and then one other thing that I just, I think is important, because I think it'll circle around themes around tonight, is each county in the state has its own state attorney, and that person's elected. Official, they're actually the highest ranking law enforcement person in your county, but we vote for them. And I think that that's important, because I think localizing participatory opportunities for justice is where we're gonna collectively see some more aggregate change. And so you have then within the state different sort of subsystems based on each prosecutor and they have to all function within the rule of law, but they also have different ways of approaching what it means to prosecute cases. So I don't know if I totally answered your question, but I feel like it's important to have a context for the complex and often seemingly disjointed pieces that again, somewhat intentionally, but somewhat unintentionally form what we think of as a criminal justice system. I'm happy to give more information. I doubt you're gonna want that. Thank you. Very good. Thank you. You will have a chance to talk more later, of course. This program tonight was organized by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. We annually present a program on a larger issue of current concern, climate change was last year. This time it's justice. And so we would like to share a Buddhist perspective on this issue. And Ricky, if you could say a few words about the Buddhist teachings and justice. So just as one of the people on the panel said, I'm here representing just myself in my own view, and so only in part the monastery. But so Buddhism itself primarily is a contemplative religion. Meditation is at the heart of most Buddhist practice, no matter what school of Buddhism we're from. But from its very earliest times, there's been a very strong social justice ethic. And really stemming from the perspective of compassionate action. So that being the heart of much of Buddhist teaching. And according to the Buddha, as human beings, we all make choices, karma. And these choices inevitably have consequences. So we learn to watch, we learn to pay attention to those choices, to those consequences. We watch and hopefully learn and see what happens as we negotiate our way through the world. And if these choices are informed by wisdom and compassion, then the Buddha taught that the outcome will be beneficial for us individually, for society, for our communities. If they're informed by what in Buddhism we call the three poisons. So greed, anger and delusion, then the outcome will invariably be suffering. And again, suffering is individuals and communities, society. So it's interesting historically to look back and see some of the things happening. But in the Buddha's time, in the sphere of social justice, there's an example of a ruler who followed the Buddha's advice. And that ruler, some of you have heard, the name King Ashoka. So he lived from 304 to 232 before the Common Era. And we know of this Ashoka from Buddhists and other Indian teachings, other Indian legends, but also from his own words that are inscribed on numerous edicts still can be found over India. So this Ashoka inherited a vast empire. It was in Northern India. And he immediately proceeded to consolidate that empire, but in a very aggressive manner, very warlike manner. And at some point in his life he was exposed to the teachings of the Buddha and became a disciple of the Buddha and felt a tremendous remorse for his actions, his previous actions. He expressed this sorrow and repentance and changed his way of governing, changed his way of being a king, being a ruler. And started using non-violence and expressions of non-violence within this area of India. And as a ruler, he also looked at how people were treated who had done some type of infraction or were perceived as doing some sort of infraction to the community. So he found ways to extend amnesty to people who were jailed, who were imprisoned and tried to do that whenever and wherever possible. And also created measures for rehabilitation at a very early stage in looking at that possibility. So in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition of which Zen and Tibetan Buddhism are apart, the ideal of spiritual practice is that of the bodhisattva. And again, it's a name that many of you may be familiar with, but if not, so it's this ideal of a bodhisattva. And this is someone who dedicates their life to the welfare of all beings. So in whatever capacity they find themselves in the world, whatever path they've taken in terms of their own work, this ideal of trying to extend a bodhisattva way of being becomes the ideal. So working for a more compassionate and just prison system truly fits in with this bodhisattva way of life, this bodhisattva ideal. Thank you, Rick. Now, we get into the dialogue, we get into the conversation, we get into the stories. And we have three very courageous women up here who have stories to tell. And I don't have any particular order of the jingles. I'll repeat to about five minutes. I know I've heard some of his stories at length and they are very moving stories. And I'm sorry we don't have more time, but this is only the beginning of our conversation. So, Megan, do you want to say your go first? Yes. We have, let me say after this, Rick and Rod and Derek will respond to these stories, to the storytellers, to the issues raised, however this starts our conversation. And we will have a break and most people have restrained themselves from the beautiful array of food over there. It will be a time to eat and visit. And we will come back and you will become part of this conversation and we will invite questions and comments from the audience to these folks. So, that's the shape of the evening and Megan, if you would start us off. So, again, I'm Megan. In 2010, I was incarcerated as a first time non-violent offender. My crimes actually did happen in 2008. I was arrested a year later. My husband and I actually were both arrested. We were put in jail, $25,000 bail for each one of us when we were a low income family. Thankfully, my parents bailed me out because as I've stated, I was the primary caregiver for our daughter who was 18 months old. When we were bailed out, we owned a house together in St. Albans and the courts first told us for a month that we weren't allowed to speak. We couldn't sell our house. We couldn't raise our daughter together. We could no longer live together. They ordered us both to move back in with our parents. So, ultimately, we ended up having to sell our home. After fighting with the courts for a month, we were able to finally have contact because we didn't have a daughter and a house that we needed to deal with. And thankfully, with my parents bailing me out, I was actually out on bail for a year before I finally went to report to serve my time. I happened to end up in a county where the state's attorney is definitely hard-run women. My husband, who committed a burglary, served 57 days, had five years of probation and was released off probation after two and a half years. I was charged with aiding in the commission of that burglary. I did seven months in jail and I am still currently under supervision with Department of Corrections because I did have a street sentence that required me to be released on furlough and then make parole. There were six co-defendants and I'm the only one still under supervision, but I'm also the only one that's never been in trouble since I was incarcerated. So, it's an interesting standpoint, being a female in the mix. Again, I think it gave me a great perspective, though. I landed at the Community Justice Center doing a work experience under Karen Besting and she is the one that actually really pushed me to start believing in myself. And although I've had some negativity with Department of Corrections, I also owe my first positive relationship to them because my probation officer was out of St. Alvin's and when I left jail, I actually entered into the Lund Residential Treatment Program and did nine months of treatment with my daughter with me and my probation officer at that time actually drove from St. Alvin's to Burlington to meet with me. I had initially only wanted to do 90 days and it was one of his meetings with me where he had just asked me what I was rushing to. You know, I was, I had a home, I was out of jail, I was with my daughter. He had asked me to give it three days. Just think about it for three days and if I wanted to continue on with submitting a residence, he would do that, but to just consider it and it was that conversation that actually made me decide to wanna stay and it was my last five months at Lund that was really the key turning point for me. Having supports that believed in me with Department of Corrections, with Lund, eventually with the Community Justice Center, which led to the city of Burlington and a bunch of other agencies that I now work with helped with my healthy relationships. My crimes were actually due to an unhealthy relationship and a drug addiction and when you mix the two, that's how you end up in the criminal justice system. So, but yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Megan. Paige, would you tell your story? My name is Angie. I'm originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I'm from New York. Could you use the mic? Yeah. I'm originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I moved to Vermont in 2009, addicted to opiates and I came up here to seek medication assisted treatment and was put on a waiting list where I was told to wait and basically keep using until availability opened up where I could get treatment. A series of bad events happened in between and I ended up getting charged with a felony of assault and robbery resulting in injury. I too was in an unhealthy relationship and I was in the same room as something that had happened and left and unfortunately didn't call the police and now I'm labeled a violent offender. This affects my life and employment and all sorts of other ways. Thank God I work at BCJR and I love the work that I do there. When I got out of jail, well I went to jail for two years, I've been almost a year now, the 25th I'll make a year. I wanted to make a difference and change and not be another statistic. So like I said, the work I do at BCJR and I changed while I was in jail, I was helping people in jail who don't have effective counsel. I would give them legal advice and help them with their cases. Like I said, three years clean, I've been out of jail a year and I do work all across the community and I really enjoy what I do. Thank you. What was it that sort of turned you around? What support or? I think sitting back in jail and watching it be a revolving door and I didn't wanna be one of the people who came back and back and back. I went to transitional living at Northern Lights and they helped me establish independent living, which without programs like that, it makes offender reentry almost impossible. Thank you, thank you. And now, Tony, your story, I know the long version of your story and I'm sorry you can't share that, but share of what is important. I will share a bit and I'm gonna use a little cheat sheet because it's a long story. I'll keep me on track and I'm a bit of a different story from these two lovely brave young women up here and it's a familial story. So I never met my paternal grandfather. In 1938, he shot himself in the heart with a 35 caliber rifle at a gold mining camp outside of Chicken, Alaska. My father never talked about either of his parents and for a number of reasons about a seven years ago, after quite a journey, I found in the bowels of the Minnesota Historical Society over 350 pages documenting my grandfather's history with the criminal justice system. And the major crime for which he was tried by jury and committed was carnal knowledge of girls under the age of 18. So when I discovered that truth, not an easy one to swallow, but it was something in me settled because my life all of a sudden made sense. The abuse that I myself had suffered all of a sudden made sense. So a few years ago after having some time dealing with the findings of my grandfather, I decided to go to a sentencing of a man who had been convicted of crime similar to my grandfather's and he was being sentenced in Burlington. And I wanted to go in order to see where I was in my own healing process. And so this man was a man who was convicted of a violent sexual crime. And so I knew that I could go into the courtroom and empathize and be compassionate for the victims in that crime. But I wanted to go and see if I could also keep my heart open to him because I am the grandfather of a man like him. So during the sentencing, members of the family stood up to speak and the first two stood at a podium and faced the judge. But when it came time for the grandmother of the victim to speak, she bypassed the podium, climbed up onto the witness stand and faced the offender directly. She laid into him like only the best grandmother could. You know, we took you into our family. We loved you. We did nothing but welcome you. You betrayed us. And at one moment she demanded that he look at her. And she pointed her finger at him and she said, there is nothing good about you. And in that moment, it was like my heart burst open and the entire courtroom filled with a golden white light. And for the first time in my life, I knew something and I'm gonna look it right to it. I knew that what she'd said wasn't true because when she pointed at him, she pointed straight through to me and to my children and to all of us in the courtroom and to all of us here today because we are all born innocent and vulnerable babies. We are all inherently good. And the personal healing I had in that courtroom washed in that white golden light was for the first time in about 50 years, I think I was back then or somewhere in there. I knew and felt my own inherent goodness. But more importantly, as a professional, I really saw that we can end relational violence now. We can do this, let me go back to my notes because I'm getting lost here. So, yes, I saw that we have what it takes to end relational violence now and to end the patterns of these crimes that can keep happening in families. So it's 2017. We know about epigenetics and neuroplasticity, healing trauma, developing greater conscious awareness. We know about open hearts, compassion, connecting. We know about how to clear the blocks in our unconscious that keep us all stuck. And we know very specifically about the types of holding environments that allow us all to unfold and grow into our highest potentials. So as victims, we need you. We need advocates. We need communities that believe in us and see us. The see straight through our addictions. The see through our depression, our rage, our confusions about how to find our own voices and how to find our power. When we can't believe in ourselves, we need you to see that in us and to pull it out. Pull our goodness out so that we can stand and walk and be in the communities in the ways that we're all meant to be. And as offenders, we need you. We need advocates. We need people to hold us accountable for our behaviors so that we stop those behaviors and we need you to see our inherent goodness because we can't see it. If we could see it, we wouldn't do what we're doing. It wouldn't make sense. So we need you to hold that vision of how we can get from here to there with people who believe in us so that when we don't know the path, you show us the path. Because if we knew it, we'd be on it. So for me, at the heart of advocacy really is the call for all of us to be in, with, and for one another in ways that draw out our inherent goodness and beauty and truth of all of us. And you together, we really can reimagine justice in the ways that we're speaking to the choir here and the ways that are being talked about up here, that we can reestablish justice so that its epicenter is about cultivating the highest potentials in all of humanity so that we create moment by moment lives, a world where our lives are transformed, where we're all free to live into our essential uniqueness within communities that are safe for all of us. That's my story for the day. Thank you so much. I live to God and Rick and Derek to respond to any of the stories that have been told to the issues, to these stories raised to whatever you would like to say in response. Okay, is there a mic? Yeah, just in listening, and just especially I just wanted to ask, at some point as you were telling your story, you talked about helping others and I think you found a way to do that from a legal perspective. But I was especially intrigued, I mean just this idea of extending yourself, reaching out, helping others as a way to kind of help yourself. So I wondered if you could say a little more about that. Helping others definitely does help myself. Even so, I find myself doing extensive peer support out of the girls, out of Northern Lights. So often in these situations, forensic peer support is not available for the girls and just positive female role models or anybody they can call with questions that aren't an authoritative figure is so lacking. I would just like to note too, Ange and I have both attended residential treatment programs and both found a path to fixing what we saw was broken, I guess, too. So putting money into treatment facilities, I think is key because for a lot of us addicts, or it is, what saves us, it's what gets us back on the right track and where we need to be. Yeah, and it was actually at a treatment center where I spent two months, not the traditional 28 days, but in the second part of my stay, we did a family treat where we looked at actually the psychopathologies and the family systems and it was that project that led me on the journey to find the truth about my grandfather. And so treatment is critical. Having any of us, whether we're victims or offenders, in spaces that are safe where we can have some trust and ability to be able to open up to some of the truths that are deep within us that we can't in other places is absolutely critical and to being able to develop the kind of relationships that any of us have done that with people like you, named Karen and others you told me earlier, that see us and they can pull that out because sometimes it's not so easy. So I agree wholeheartedly that safe and available treatment centers are key. And with restorative justice too, there's 21 CJCs in the state of Vermont, all of which offer some sort of restorative justice. I am a believer that any nonviolent offender, I think should have the option of going through restorative justice. It gives you a chance to repair the harm that you've caused with the people that victims, the people that are directly affected, the community and ultimately with yourself too. So I hope we have the program as we should utilize on you. So could somebody explain how does the process of restorative justice? I'm glad to hear. I was gonna, well, I just wanted to use a microphone. I was thinking about in your case how that might have played out differently. So you were, was it an accessory to a burglary? And my victim was my biological father. So it was a. So even more importantly, in terms of the relationship that was broken down and the trust and such, and that had there been in lieu of your separation from your child, incarceration and all that, this opportunity in the context of community, because those conversations are very hard it's just you and your father, it might have been too hard. But when you have that conversation with the natural community or when they're not always that as we use it, the restorative justice panels to help you really hear the harm, as he describes it, the harm to community and to give him the opportunity to talk about what that was like for him, what he needed from it, whatever questions he had for you. And with the support of whatever community would be there to help the two of you construct a plan for what it would take for you to make ends and to have it get to that place of being settled. And it actually works when you and your father and whoever else in the family was affected, crafts that plan. It's something that no one can do for you because they don't know who you are and your back stories and it has to come from the heart. And we've seen it happen so many times and it would have made everything different. If absolutely, one of the hardest things the day of my sentencing being the offender, you have the victims have the opportunity to say what they need to say. You can't say anything back. And I had to sit into in a courtroom, my daughter was two and a half at this time and listen to this man who is supposed to be guiding me tell me in the court that my daughter was better off without me and how I deserved to be in jail that I should spend the next 10 years in jail. And what that ended up doing to myself was like, oh, it was such a blow. I think that's why when I did come out of the criminal justice system, I have such low expectations of myself and of what I was capable of doing. I remember my first six months being out. I had become accustomed to the fact that I would never be anything more than a warehouse worker. I wasn't gonna have a career. I was a two time felon with addiction that my daughter was better off without me. The community was better off without me. So even if we weren't able to repair our relationship, I would have at least given me the opportunity to repair the relationship with myself and maybe for him to find a way to repair what I broke for him to. I think it also gives you or the person in your seat that opportunity to really consider what you did and why it matters and the impact of that, which is a very different consideration from what people who are in the courtroom or throughout that criminal justice proceedings are focusing on, which is kind of their own well-being because they don't know what's gonna happen, what's gonna be done to them protecting themselves. And that becomes what you focus on as opposed to what was wrong with what I did, which is the growth experience, not the other. So that's what I'd like to see more of. I'm sorry that happened to you. And the other thing I would say though is you both spoke about addiction and restorative justice doesn't address addiction. It requires treatment, the kind that they both got in a different kind of model, but they're not incompatible. One of the conversations that I'm sort of having and gonna have another one next week is how we hope the restorative process onto the treatment courts, the drug courts, so that someone goes to drug court and goes through that kind of high accountability and treatment and such and at that far end when they're sober, when they're on that path, that then they can also work through what they did and come to a place where they've made amends to the extent that they can. And all of our restorative justice doesn't address addiction. It opens up the conversation for you to have that conversation in a safe space with other community members, so. And in Chittenden County, we have Rapid Intervention Community Court, which is a program that's designed to offer those wraparound services if they're needed, so, which is really successful in Chittenden County and I might add, so. Other responses? Wait, we have to go over that. I just wanted to acknowledge, I don't, I'm good, I just want to acknowledge just the courage to tell the story and tell your story to public forum and resilience, the resilience that you've all generated. A couple weeks ago, the New York Times ran a piece called, there was an opinion piece called Justice Springs Eternal. It's an optimistic piece, I recommend it, I can get you the link. But it picked up on, there's a quote in it, it picked up on what you were saying, it says that, those closest to the problem are closest to the solution. Yet until very recently, formerly incarcerated people and their families were rarely heard from in criminal justice debates. So an iteration of restorative justice as defined by involving the people most directly involved is having all stakeholders, certainly including people who've been customers of the criminal justice system, give voice to that experience. Because as you said, we need to learn, we need to listen and learn. So I'm appreciative of that. I just want to offer my humble listening appreciation because chances are if you run a system like that, until pretty recently, chances are you didn't get to that position by having experienced it on the other side. However, we are seeing increasing numbers of people in increasing decision-making position who have lived experience. And we're all looking at it for it. I thought I might talk a bit about another way back from incarceration with community support other than the residential treatment if people are interested in that. Sure. It's what we're doing here in Montpelier where we, for each person who we bring into our program as they're being released from incarceration and still under supervision of the community, we form what we call a circle of support and accountability that circle comprises that core member, three people from the community who volunteer and a staff person from the Community Justice Center. And it's a long-term intensive relationship building process where we provide someone, form with someone in an intentional community that kind of walks with that person through at least the first year after they're released and supporting them in living an accountable life in all the ways that, what that means, but basically a life defined by them. So it's one of, I guess, like fellowship with other people. We have several people volunteering that and they have other words for their experience in it. So that's a different model that we're doing a lot of here in Washington County. And I had one other thing I was gonna say because when you were talking about restorative justice that some of you may know John Gorsuch because he lives here in Montpelier and it was when he was commissioner of corrections that he brought the restorative justice into corrections and started the restorative justice panels and ultimately found the money for CJCs. And something that he said is that he regrets is going with kind of the pressure to sell this new idea by limiting restorative justice to the lowest level misdemeanor offenses when in fact it's even more applicable and needed with higher level offenses. This is $62,000 a year for nurse reading, you know? Yeah. If I can pick up on one other theme that maybe will resonate for folks in thinking about the elements of all of your stories. One thing that I experienced that runs consistent with what restorative processes do is they allow space for new narratives to surface and the narratives that we carry about ourselves are self stories. I heard something in each of your stories about how at a critical moment you took ownership in a new way of your self story, that notion I always thought I'd be a warehouse worker. You know, I know, I knew that woman was not speaking truth at that moment, you know? And I think restorative justice processes are the containers and the spaces that allow or at least facilitate better opportunities for people who carry somewhat condemnation scripts, self defeatist narratives that have been imposed upon them and that they've internalized. And to some extent they in fact play out over time. I think restorative processes are places derived by the legitimacy of relationship that allow people to begin to give birth and veracity to new self stories. And then it's hopefully in the context of primary relationships and broader community relationships that those new self stories and new narratives, those aspirational stories can actually be realized, be made true. And I feel like I heard that in all of yours. I think everyone had some beautiful mix of where you were on your own journey and then these other pieces that then supported that, the PO who just said, consider that, the research that led you to see something and then the instinct that brought you to all of these. So I don't think there's a silver magic potion but restorative justice creates the spaces that I think when a somewhat mysterious but also very real set of factors are in place, people take, get new self stories and not just the people who are offenders or victims. I just, I guess the other thing I will say is that we all get new stories going about ourselves and who are the offenders in our community and who are the victims in our community. I think that's equally important and that's why dialogue and restorative processes I think are essential for promoting this notion of a more compassionate system because we hold each other and in turn we're changed. Can I just add a bit to that? Just I love everything you just said and a couple of the words you used that the restorative practices and the circles or even in this room, we have a container where compassion is present and you can feel it. If compassion wasn't here it would feel very different. If there wasn't trust or safety here it would feel very different and this is the kind of environment we all need in order to be able to relax enough to really connect and so one of the things that I do in my profession is I support people to awaken the space between us. The invisible space that actually holds much of what causes the problems for us and so that we can pay attention to the space that if Derek and I were looking at each other and couldn't hold eye contact it would be a sign something's there that we can be with and stay and we need one another to support one another to be able to stay in the uncomfortable positions or in the uncomfortable emotions that we often have that cause us to react. So when we know more and more we can stay with one another through those things and awaken that space and not make those things become actions that are then need to have corrections done. Then there's just so much more hope and we need one another to do that. A lot now we do our individual practices but we really do need to be able to stay in with and for one another with the hard things so that we can continue to clear this space that's between us that has the stuff that you talked about with your father. There's stuff who knows what it is but it's probably lineage even. Sometimes it's stuff that we carry with us from way back we don't even know. So being able to have communities that support us like I just forgot your first name I'm sorry Yvonne was saying to have the whole room full of people that are there it supports so we have so much more capacity when we have one another that we can be with those things that brings healing and the bigger the crimes often it's like the same thing with the broken bone it just comes it can it is possible that then the relationships can come be healed and come back that much stronger not just for the individuals like you just said but for the entire community because if so and so you can do it you can do it you know my family can do it we all can you know it makes it all much more possible so awakening that space between us I think is one of the one of my passions is to help more and more of us be able to do that and live in with it for one another before we take our break I would just like to say a couple of brief things one is the importance of what you said Tony about being able to see the goodness in yourself and I think we're starting justice does that it sees that when we're focused on guilty or innocent punishment we are not seeing the good we're seeing the bad this doesn't help anybody we will now take 10 minutes or so for refreshments conversation we have some people in our audience Susie Whitsiplier is here director of moderns for criminal justice reform if you want to speak with her and of course any of these folks we have at the Buddhist Peace Fellowship table a list of resources of readings, videos, organizations to be in touch with there are tables on this side once you've gotten something to eat with literature from a number of organizations that work for justice in various ways and there is a donations basket if anybody came in the back door and didn't get the opportunity to make a donation it's there and I will ring the bell when we're ready to return it's great that there's so much conversation going on and the food will continue to be here and we're getting back now to expanding our conversation to include all of you there have been a couple of requests that everybody up here no matter how loud they think their voice is use the microphone we are, well I should say Jerome is videoing this session and it will be available in a couple of ways it will be once it's edited it will be on channel 15 it will also be on YouTube Orca YouTube Orca YouTube and the Buddhist Peace Fellowship has a Facebook page and we will post a link to this when it is up and edited so now to all of you one at a time we have a traveling mic so just raise your hand if you want to say something, question, comment whatever Susan I want to say two things aside from just thank you all earlier when Derek was talking about the three different branches of government and the way that the system works and how you get into it I want to make two small clarifications at least one of them has to do with the legislative branch and then what's I think really important that people understand is that crime is not something that is given from defined by some holy authority crime is defined by all of us through our legislative elected leaders so when we think about somebody committing a crime it is worth remembering that all kinds of new things are criminal now that we're not criminal five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago especially around drugs and other behaviors that have changed over time we have criminalized new behaviors which is one of the reasons we have more people in jail and the other thing that you mentioned around being proven guilty I think it's also where probably most people in the room know this but the fact that 95% of the cases that come through the criminal justice system are resolved by plea bargain does not mean that you're proven guilty it means that you agree to a plea which may be what you did and very well may not be what you did it may be something near what you did related to what you did but it's a plea bargain that goes on your record that then becomes the written expression of truth that may or may not bear much of actual resemblance to the truth, thanks can I respond to that? Yes Can you close down me now? Yep Thank you I was really hoping that somebody you or somebody would, you know put a little finer point on that and those are key pieces to highlight so I do appreciate that I will say though that that may be how you enter it but once you are in the corrections system there are a lot of rules and laws so to speak in corrections that an offender then needs to follow and these are normal laws corrections decides our housing decides what we can do when we can do it where we can go what time we have to be home there are very very strict rules with Department of Corrections and I do feel like there are some changes that we can make Department of Corrections has to prove housing for anybody that's being released on furlough and currently we have 150 people in Vermont that are being held for lack of housing and that is not a that rule is not implemented by our government that is by Department of Corrections so, sorry Where's the mic? It's coming with it Actually I have a loud voice I may not need it My name's Jacob Stone I've been a volunteer with the VUNS program with the Montpelier Community Justice Center for about three years now since we moved to Vermont I have an observation I'd like to share with you and ask for any feedback you might have about it especially from Derek and Megan because your comments kind of touched on that I've served on well, four COSA teams in the years that I've been here the first one was spectacularly successful the guy finished his year he's now back with his family working, making solid money doing great the next two didn't go so well I won't bore you with the details right now but they didn't go well and I reflected on the difference between this first one and the next two the difference was the level of community and family support that the first guy got his family rallied around him it was by any reasonable definition a functional family he came out, he had the support of the COSA team the Justice Center and his family did great the next two had virtually no family support and what family contact they had was actually more harmful than positive and I came to the sense that what the community offers the community being family and the community itself is a pivotal factor in whether people are going to make it some of these guys come out with virtually no life skills a simple job of budgeting something I'm not great at either at least I know my limits knowing to save some money to pave the way it's a foreign language for them and then on top of that they encounter obstacles that sometimes seem to me in my darker moments to be almost deliberate that they have to go to various programs and counseling at times when they would and should be working when finding a place to live is an almost insurmountable obstacle when the best money they're going to make is minimum wage when for some of them they have to disclose the sex effectors to landlords, to neighbors, to employers the point I'm sort of circling around is that it seems to me that the support that we as a state as a community, as neighbors offer or withhold is a pivotal factor and I've come to recognize myself anyway that the services being provided now are just not enough I see what the COSA volunteers do I see what the Justice Center staff does the staff is just a heroic bunch of folks working really hard like standing up against a tidal wave of obstacles so it's been frustrating when I look at this first guy who had all this support the next to who didn't have any support it makes me question what more we could do as a community to help people get readjusted from a practical perspective from a tangible perspective I wonder about transitional housing more supervised housing helping people learn the life skills that we used to learn in home economics when I was in high school that sort of thing I'll talk enough I'd be interested in any feedback you might have Thank you for devoting clearly your time and your commitment and your compassion to being a COSA volunteer that's walking the walk right there and yeah I mean one of the things I heard is how do you create a substitute where some of those really primary relationships that kind of keep us tethered to some basic pro-social productive community based life and I think circles of support and accountability as I think your kind of different example set kind of showed a little bit like they provide something very powerful but they're not necessarily at least in all cases always enough and so where do we get the stuff that you know fills in that you know enough that's the heart of that question yeah and I hear it and I hear it I wish I had a good answer other than that I think we ask ourselves this question a lot as a community of practitioners I think one of the amazing things about Vermont is that we have a very ongoing bi-directional conversation between the practitioner community that Avon and her colleagues represent and the department of corrections through my unit as well as the local offices I think it brings into mind where obviously this corrections is kind of a downstream organization like when all else fails and so many other systems tend to fail people we sort of end up supervising them but aren't necessarily set up to address the myriad real and human needs that they have that no doubt may have contributed to some of the behavior that led them into our system but we don't really have the tools that they may need as a human to adequately get them out of that system so yeah I can only all I can really do is acknowledge and empathize with the question you're doing what you can do I guess I'll do one other thing if I may and then Megan all yours I'm going to read you my favorite quote about communities and the power of communities it's by a Norwegian named Nils Christie and he he said this community is made from conflict as much as from cooperation the capacity to solve conflicts is what gives social relations their sinew professionalizing justice steals the conflicts robbing the community of its ability to face trouble and restore peace communities lose their confidence the capacity and finally their inclination to preserve their own order they instead become consumers of police and court services with the consequences that they largely cease to be communities what year do you think you wrote this 1977 so I think what you're doing is reclaiming what he calls conflict as property that belongs to the community we have professional systems for all sorts of human needs but there's no branch of government that is nor necessarily could or should be responsible for the social contract that takes place in private homes and gets enacted in public spaces so the question becomes how can we make a robust social contract absent to any one institution that bears responsibility for it and I would submit that it's through conversations like this volunteering for community justice having these stories get out and iterating those little connections that create bridging capital the bridging capital that Meghan took her from being a client of the Department of Corrections to now an employee within this system people extended their capital relationship of things that said hey there's this tier of society that we need you in as well so I think it comes down to collaboration between professionals and non-professionals that's the best I got I was going to say in Burlington we have so many local organizations and I think for our co-states some of the successful ones when there isn't the family support that we would hope to be we've seen agencies like Mercy Connections and Pathways and Howard Center and so many other agencies that will fill that void that will step in and volunteers I mean the volunteers in the community are so important and I cannot express that enough because like you said to some of these guys and my supervisor we actually just had to get out on Monday and he had to pick them up and bring them to their apartment and bring them grocery shopping and really filled the role of helping them with everything because they didn't have anybody one had been in for 15 years and had stepped out and he was very overwhelmed and was like okay what's this phone thing and yeah these ATMs are different everything was just very shocking so yeah like Derek said agencies, volunteers and creating I guess a space for that and I'll just offer a couple of thoughts with all of this too that we're kind of at a place right now in our society I think where just a lot of things aren't working like there's not working we kind of get stumped at what do we do and it's uncomfortable to be in the not knowing and so there's almost ways to keep doing what you're doing or doing what we're doing here but to come together as a community and staying with we just don't even know what to do and actually I read something recently that Charles Eisenstein wrote about that you know to also be asking you know what's it like to be you you know so really wanting to understand what it's like to be another person and to be with them in it so we're not just asking them and being across from them but we're kind of inside their consciousness being them so we really get it so we would know kind of like if I were you I would have done that too so that we're understanding really what's going on so if we're willing to not know if we're willing to be in reality together with actually what's going on and then also then being able to look at what's below the symptoms what's really needed by those two men you know below I mean maybe it's housing maybe it's whatever but a lot of it you named it it's people it's us it's more of us somehow coming together you know like you're already doing the Costa but it needs like it amps it up almost like how much can we have so that we can be with people because it's actually the connection the vibration of the connection is what undoes whatever is not able to connect and sometimes it's messy and ugly as it does that but you know for these men maybe they needed to just have enough love and compassion around them that you kind of fall apart even more so you can get all of that out so you can then start getting put back together but the answers are we can't legislate it or govern it but it is going to be about how can we be and I used the holding environment earlier it's like we all if we all came into families and we can't because we come from connection from wherever we are bodies to here where we're kind of we think we're separate beings in space we're not we're interconnected you know where does Megan's field and mind start I mean where does any of us we're all in this together so the more that we can have that be a place of compassion and love it will start to undo that some of the patterns that are holding people back and it will also allow us to connect more and more with them when it's not going so well so we can keep in there till it can go well so that's not an answer other than to be willing to come together to not know and then to really allow something new to happen because what we're doing right now isn't working I just want to throw in one other thing change is a process right not a you know a singular moment right so I would encourage you to hold out the space to reframe those other two courses as part of an iterative process you know whatever you held out whatever you were willing to offer to those two individuals it might not have been a function of a deficit that if there were more of it might be a function of some interaction through that and what it meant to receive that and people generally make changes and this is outside the criminal behavior realm usually reflect that of taking a long time so we have this conversation a lot when's the right person in their stage of change process to get into a COSA if they're pre-contemplative in other words they're not really giving any thought to the fact that they're engaging in a pattern of behaviors that causes harm to self and others COSA is probably not going to be the thing that moves the dial necessarily we kind of look for folks who are kind of already recognizing and taking some fundamental responsibility and somewhere in that invisible place of heart and soul are really saying I want to change this and I know I can't do that alone and I need to be around other people that might not be where those two people are and none of us know exactly where people are on the stage of change so I would also just throw that out you know lest you think that oh you know in the post sort of analysis those two didn't work fast forward five years some other volunteers maybe that primed the pump so to speak welcome back in prison and we haven't let them go we're hoping to reconnect with them I understand your point I appreciate it go ahead sorry with the healthy relationships I do want to point out to I'm a supporter of bringing our out-of-state inmates back to Vermont I feel like shipping our inmates out of state is not helping with building healthy relationships we are tearing those families apart we are removing any supports that they had by sending them out of state because most of the people that are incarcerated are low income I know that I can't afford to fly to Michigan to go see my husband if he was incarcerated and I guarantee most of the families that are dealing with that are in the same position too so I think I beat the odds when you succeed too but just thinking about the flip side to that so it I think personally about like wow if I were in those shoes like I had to get to that programming and get like be done before the end of the week with what most people on furlough have to do I just would not have the wherewithal and the resilience and the grit and those things so I don't know I'd also encourage us to say like hey that one first that's one more person and potentially a generational thing who somehow left you know without that person probably wouldn't have so the diagnosis is a tough one anyone that you can get a better outcome we should collectively pat ourselves on the back including that core member him or yourself too you know and do what we did it we beat the odds and whenever we know that something like furlough doesn't work because it's so difficult we need to all be talking to our legislators saying why don't we change the rules around furlough so it doesn't have a 98% success you know a failure rate for example I made that number up but it's very very as Derek say it's very hard let's keep pushing against the things that don't work depending that they change they can change none of this is written in stone right Susie can you say a little more about what we can do with regard to contacting our legislators what bills we might be advocating for what's happening legislatively I'll pick one example right now some of you how many people here are BT digger online so many of you probably saw maybe you saw that came out yesterday last night the article around the fact that the department of corrections which by the way must have a plan to deal with the folks who are now in mission right that's their job they have to they have got to find another place for them they're having a hard time doing that they are having a hard time getting a potential contract but the contract that they are proposing is a contract that has a three year minimum that we would agree to pay for 250 bills so we'd be guaranteeing 250 out of state prisoners for three years that clearly is a terrible idea right so everybody gets that's a terrible idea here's corrections over here saying well we've got it we have to find some place for them we can't find another place so it's not corrections problem this is why it's important that we talk about the whole entire system legislators who have the power to say okay there are ways that we can end the unnecessary incarceration enough for Monter's in the state in the next month so we don't need an out of state contract that's the solution when people say what's the solution to not having to have an out of state contract to having an out of state contract it's not needing the out of state contract so we have people that have been mentioned you know Megan mentioned 150 people are being held for lack of housing there are hundreds, literally hundreds of people who are reincarcerated right now for technical violations something DOC could do but they would need some political cover from legislators and from the public to say yeah we agree well let me finish one other thing the third one we also hold people for lack of monetary bail and Megan gave an example there too she was not held if you can get out because you have money then we shouldn't have monetary bail that means people who don't have money can't get out right you can hold people they can hold people without bail if they are at risk of flight or if they have been charged with a violent offense you don't need to have monetary bail there are other jurisdictions who have gotten rid of monetary bail which is now used to hold people who are at risk of non-appearance what other places have found is that all you need to do is text somebody remind them that they need to show up we don't need to hold somebody in jail for months or a year who is going to have come up and have their trial be dealt with or have their case be dealt with in a year there are hundreds of those people in jail right now these are three cases of three examples of unnecessary incarceration that could be dealt with in the next couple of months the next couple of weeks but let's say the glacial pace of legislative change it takes a couple of months fairly we don't actually need this out-of-state contract if we have these people out of state and we don't reduce the numbers of unnecessarily incarcerated people now then we will have to have an out-of-state contract and if the best DOC can do is this three year guarantee 250 people in out-of-state you know God forbid but we may end up there so the argument for all of us is legislators do something now to end unnecessary incarceration that's the message and out of the 150 on lack of housing 50 of them are non-violent offenders I want to point out they're all eligible for release though yes yes eligible under all other circumstances except for the lack of housing I think just to back up everything that's as I said I think ultimately right we have a democratic process everybody gets to vote for their representatives at a local level and in the legislature and I think part of the question becomes how are our legislators from any of our communities held to account for the aggregate impact of you know whatever policies that they support so I mean I think a lot of this is about participatory democracy we're focused on the criminal justice system because it's it's so pervasive but I just I you know I think one of the real questions is how do communities rally enough of a vision for a different set of values that should be reflected in their vision of justice that either their current representatives are clearly signaled or different ones who maybe don't carry those values you know I think that's the challenge but the promise that that sits out there certainly Vermont for criminal justice reforms doing a very strong job convening those conversations and having a coalition across the state that's you know pressing that so thank you yes I've been sitting here thinking about what you brought up Jacob and I know what you observe is true and the extent to which those people who are involved in the criminal justice system have been victims in their own families is huge and you know I'm thinking how can we support healthier families as a community how can we do more prevention and not try to clean up the messes I know that the department for children and families have been interested in restorative practice to the extent that they use a meeting that affords some degree of agency to the families themselves but what would happen if those families that come to their attention were afforded coses so that we as a community start to show up in really meaningful long term ways individually with families I think there'd be a lot of hope there I'm hoping I can say concisely just what I'm feeling sitting back here I appreciated your questions and your insight into those situations and and the responses too about what organizationally, and stemically we can do but I just I realize that one of the things that coming to something like this does for me is it just reminds me how important my own views my own spiritual practice my own way of speaking about what others do you know how important that is and I've had a personal experience with somebody that I knew who went to jail and I know that it was so very difficult because on one hand I I wanted to see the good and consider the background that led to what had come up and I at the same time I had some of my own personal fears about more some of the people that I could see might be affected by certain behaviors or certain things that I didn't know about but anyway I guess I just want to say that I've appreciated having the exposure to Buddhism which is really seeing Buddha nature to other spiritual practices Quakerism that of God and everyone or just the idea that we have to look beyond our judgments or our labels and see something bigger and something better in everyone and I feel like it was so beautifully articulated in what everybody's shared tonight and all the practices of writing to prisoners, your devotion Rick too for so long writing to prisoners I know Buddhist Peace Fellowship has also done that as a way of just helping people that don't see the good in themselves begin to feel like somebody believes in them and that they too see themselves I just encourage all of us to be careful about our speech and how we talk about someone out of my mouth has come he's just an angry man somebody had said that to me and so then you've got to think about how does that get communicated to somebody who's just a human being and has a situation where their feelings took over again it's a lot of words not really organized but I feel like this is an opportunity for us to look systemically and organizationally and all the different ways that we can influence these kinds of things that we're seeing going on and the injustices for people that are human and that they are you know they're living out their lives as a result of perhaps what happened to them so it's just like a little reminder and I want to think all of you for being here and the Buddhist Peace Fellowship for giving us the opportunity and this isn't in any way to end things but I just feel like I wanted to say that personal thing was kind of sitting in me so thank you for coming out it is time to end and that was a beautiful way to do it thank you to everybody who has come and shared their experiences and their visions and their concerns and before we leave I would like to just quote from another Buddhist teacher your mind is like a piece of land planted with many different kinds of seeds seeds of joy peace, mindfulness understanding and love seeds of craving, anger, fear hate and forgetfulness these wholesome and unwholesome seeds are always there sleeping in the soil of your mind the quality of your life depends on the seeds you water if you plant tomato seeds in your garden tomatoes will grow just so if you water a seed of peace in your mind peace will grow when the seeds of happiness in you are watered you will become happy when anger in you is watered you will become angry the seeds that are watered frequently are those that will grow strong may all beings be free from suffering may all beings be safe from harm may all beings enjoy happiness may all beings dwell in an open hunt