 Hello again, this is season two of 15 Minutes and I'm here with Shalene Onyango, the Executive Director of Longmont Community Justice Partners, an organization that does essentially restorative justice, some other services as well, but restorative justice is the big deal and it's what we're going to talk about today. So welcome Shalene. Thank you. And I think you should start by explaining in about two or three minutes what restorative justice exactly is. Yeah, great. Thank you. Restorative justice looks different depending on the context of the community. There are two kind of primary different forms of restorative justice. The form that LCJP utilizes for our community-based restorative justice program is addressing municipal and low-level felony crimes that are happening in the community and are an early intervention program. So we get referrals from law enforcement and from schools when folks have had interactions with law enforcement, when there has been criminal behavior, and rather than these people getting ticketed and charged and appearing in court and being given a punitive sentence for their crime, they instead come to our organization and we basically talk it out. A central point of that is having victim voice and victim participation so that people who have been most impacted by that crime can also share what the impact was like for them. And to be absolutely blunt, what good is it? In other words, how does it work better than trying people and convicting them and giving them a criminal record and locking them up? Yeah, great question. Well by the numbers, there's really no good way to measure recidivism so like the number of times that people go in and out of the criminal justice system, nationally it varies pretty widely, but generally we hear that once people have an interaction with the criminal justice system without restorative justice, there is between a 60% and 80% chance that they will reoffend and have another interaction with the criminal justice system and another and another and it just kind of snowballs and people can get stuck with LCJP and the services that we offer, our recidivism rate when we look at people who we looked at data over the course of a five year period at the municipal, county and state level and our recidivism rates were less than 10%. So people who had gone through our restorative justice program had a less than 10% chance that they would reoffend when we looked at things as wide as the state, the caveat being we're not looking at data on a national level. So in Colorado, in Colorado, but Colorado does not have a particularly clean, squeaky and blessed crime record, we have plenty of people offending, plenty of people incarcerated. I would say most people, especially youth, tend to stay in the same place, right? So if they're going to have another encounter, it's in the same jurisdiction or at least within the same state. There's a pretty good chance that we have captured most of the people. And just quickly, what's the definition of reoffend? Does that mean that the person is arrested again? Is that the count or is it they get as far as the criminal justice court or what does it mean? With LCJP, that means that they have another interaction with law enforcement that leads to a ticket and or a charge. So not just they don't have to get arrested, it just means that they have another interaction that leads to a ticket. When someone gets a ticket, is that automatically a record of offense even for a juvenile? Yes. But with LCJP, there is no everything that we do is within the context of pre-file. That's what we call it. So that means there is no ticket issued. And they are referred to our organization and go through the restorative justice process with LCJP. And they have a at the end of that what we call a conference, there's a legally binding contract that talks about how they plan to repair the crime that has been committed. And all of the people who participate in that conference weigh in on what they would like that contract to be. So that includes members of the community. That includes law enforcement who also participate in the conference. That includes the victim and also the person who is responsible. We call them the responsible person or the offender. They all weigh in on what they would like that contract to look like and what those items for repair would be. And that is a legally binding contract that those folks have to complete in order for their case to be completely. It's not even wiped off the record because there is no record. But in order to ensure that it doesn't get referred back to police and then potentially looked at for ticketing and charges. Restorative justice is about making amends. And making both the offender and the victim believe that amends have been made that things are better if not back the way they were because they also can't always be. We have the woman who founded our organization. Her name is Dr. Beverly Tidal and she created kind of the five pillars of restorative justice which are what we call the five Rs which are respect, relationship, repair, reintegration and responsibility. So those five tenants are all are what restorative justice is about. So it's not just about you know helping people keep out of the criminal justice system although that is a very, a central part of what we do. It is also about helping people to reintegrate into the community and to repair. And in order to help ensure people remain productive citizens so that they can have jobs and remain in the community, have children, do all of the things that we all want to do, repair and reintegration are fundamental tenants of that. So those five Rs are both values and life skills. And I can see easily how someone who lives with those would not be likely to become an offender or to reoffend. I think that's an important point. Would you say those again? Yeah, they are respect, relationship, responsibility, repair and reintegration. Very good. So that's the responsibility being also a fundamental part of what we do and in order for us to be able to kind of vet the success or potential success of the restorative process we have to be able to on some level know and understand that the person who has committed to the crime has an ability to take responsibility and wants to repair. And that's not always true for everyone. Sometimes people are not interested in taking responsibility. But we also see that as a spectrum and understand that through the restorative process we can help bring people along in understanding the impact of their crime. And can you describe, let's say that it's a juvenile and that it's something that happens to a lot of young people fighting at school, shoplifting. What does the restorative justice process not, you know, what does it look like? Yeah, great question. So we get right now in Longmont, the city and the probation, the municipal courts and LCJP have all committed to bringing all youth into early intervention diversion through this pre-file system. So assuming that they meet the criteria, which is, you know, they can't have had more than three interactions with law enforcement. They have to be willing to take responsibility and participate in the interventions in restorative justice. They get referred to our program and it's a multidisciplinary team. So there are social workers, therapists, people who have expertise in substance abuse, folks who are experts in restorative justice. And we look at every single youth and determine, and they also help in this process. What services do they need in order to help them be successful? All behavior is an expression of a need. So we are trying to get to that underlying need that led them to the shoplifting, that led them to their curfew violation, that led them to the fighting in school. And if they come to restorative justice, we do a pre-conference with them, talk to them, make sure that they understand the impact or are willing to understand the impact and take responsibility. And the next step is a conference or a circle where they sit with the victim, or we call them the harmed party. They are allowed to bring a support person. The harmed party has a support person. We have volunteers who are the facilitators and people who are members of our community, who are the ones actually in charge of the process. As well as community members who are there to say, from my perspective, this is how your crime impacts me, so that they can hear voices from everyone. And then we also have law enforcement. And that's an important and really critical part of the conference and circle process. We see much higher rates of contract completion when officers are present to be able to say, this is what the other option could have been for you. If you weren't sitting in this circle right now, you could be facing jail time. You could be facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees. And then at the end, like I said from there, we create this legally binding contract where it's strengths-based. So we try and look at all of the really positive things about this person in order to kind of unroot them from the shame that can come with criminal behavior. And so that contract is based on their strengths in order to help them kind of get re-intouch with the positive things about them. Okay. And is the circle process, is there one conversation circle or does it happen multiple times over a period of weeks? Yeah, good question. We do the pre-conference with just the responsible person and a pre-conference with just the harmed person and our facilitators, our volunteer facilitators. And then we all come together in just one, in one meeting. That's generally between two and three hours depending on the severity and the needs of everyone and the complexity of the cases, which can vary. Right. So the follow-up might be something as simple as I re-finish your fence that I spray-painted or it might be I have to do community service or I work to pay back for things I stole. Yeah. We try and make it meaningfully related to the crime. So yes, if it's something like vandalism, can you partner, we have strong partnerships with the city with someone who will help them go around and clean up graffiti around the city? Or perhaps if you were putting graffiti on a business, then can you, from a positive lens, can you create a piece of art that shows what you learned from this process? But it all is intended to be meaningfully related to the crime. Okay. So let's go on to the idea of adult offenders. Because I just recently learned that restorative justice methods can be applied to adult offenders. What percentage of your activity is for non-juveniles? About 30%. And of that 30%, that is non-juveniles. So everyone up to 18, 90% of that 30% is with people between 18 and 25. So it's pretty rare that we have people who are 25 and older, although that does happen sometimes, but it is still within that 18 to 25-year-old range where people's brains are developing. They are still, we treat them as adults, but they're really still young people who are still learning. And that's primarily because the current criteria for being able to participate in a restorative justice conference is this has to be the first time for this offense. So by the time folks get to 25, there's a pretty good likelihood that this is not the first time that they are having interactions with law enforcement or involved in criminal behavior for the specific offense that they are being referred to us for. Are there additional benefits for an adult offender or is a process identical? I would think that the older the person is, the more able a person is to make amends. Yeah. That's a great question. They are identical in how it's laid out and how it is conducted, but we do consider the needs of each individual. So that's sort of why the process can be identical is restorative justice is really about that one person and uncovering those needs, again, that led to this behavior. With youth, we are in partnership with the city and their Rewind program in order to again just try and keep as many people as we can out of the criminal justice system. So the youth who come through restorative justice also receive interventions through the city's Rewind program. So there's actually more services in place for youth in a stronger referral network. So if we, through this team of professionals, identify that they also need substance misuse treatment, they also need mental health treatment, that parents might need parenting classes, they can get all of those things through the city. We don't currently have that referral network in place for adults, but there is a need for adults to also be able to have all of their needs addressed. For adults, it's generally homelessness, substances, jobs, those kind of things. So there is a need for adults, we just don't have that system in place right now. Well I can see that there is a lot more, we have to go a long way both in informing the public about this and in terms of increasing the reach and effect of restorative justice as a theory of crime prevention. So I want to thank you personally for your service and for being here and giving such a clear explanation. And I hope we do more. Yeah, thanks for having me. This has been 15 minutes or a little more and we're going to stay tuned for more about restorative justice.