SPOTLIGHT ON RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
What It Is and Why it Matters • Key Accomplishments
Circle Up Program • Restorative Justice Community “Court”
Periodically, we shine the spotlight on a specific initiative that the Moran Center has embarked upon to further advance our vision of creating a more just, racially equitable, and restorative society at the local, regional, and state level.
In November, we are pleased to focus on Restorative Justice. We have a multi-pronged plan for building a Restorative Community that weaves together a tightly knit system of programs, services, and policies and practices based upon the values and principles of restorative justice, beginning with the Roger Pascal Restorative Justice Initiative.
The pandemic then forced us to reflect on what it means to build community restoratively within a crisis that made visible so much injustice, and created profound isolation – while continuing our ongoing efforts and commitments to effect collaborative communal transformation.
A CONVERSATION WITH RESTORATIVE JUDGES
On November 22nd, the Moran Center hosted a virtual panel discussion entitled “A Conversation with Restorative Judges Who Are Reshaping Justice.” The panel featured four amazing Chicago-area judges – Judge Sophia H. Hall, Judge Martha A Mills (Retired), Judge Sheila M. Murphy (Retired), and Judge Patricia S. Pratt. In the panel discussion, the Judges described how they work and have worked with their communities to embed restorative philosophy and practice into their court practices, and shared their perspectives about the transformative power of restorative justice. Click here for biographies of the featured panelists. The panel was moderated by the Moran Center’s Restorative Justice Manager Pamela Cytrynbaum and Community Engagement Specialist Raymond Lackey.
You can see the panel discussion in its entirety below:
WHAT IT IS AND WHY IT MATTERS
Restorative Justice is a philosophy that is based on a set of principles that guide the response to conflict and harm; it is a critical part of building a Restorative Community. It reflects the reality that acts of wrongdoing do not just violate laws and rules but, more importantly, harm people, communities, and relationships. By providing a mechanism to identify and repair such harm, Restorative Justice builds relationships and empowers the community to take responsibility for the well-being of its members by using a wide range of facilitated, restorative conversations including peace circles, harm repair conferences, re-entry support circles, family conferences, incident-response circles, and community circles.
KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS
As we take a moment to breathe in, looking back on all we’ve accomplished; and to breathe out, facing all the hard work still before us; we are grateful and so very proud to report that the Moran Center’s restorative efforts have innovated, grown and thrived in ways we could never have imagined.
Click the arrows on the slideshow below to learn about some of our key accomplishments:
Restorative-Centered Strategic Planning
Expanding our restorative justice efforts is a central priority of the Moran Center’s exciting new 2021-2024 Strategic Plan! Our strategic priorities for the Roger Pascal Restorative Justice Initiative include:
- Seeding restorative practices throughout the Moran Center to embed philosophies and values within the organization’s everyday culture.
- Leading collaborative, community-wide public education and training of restorative philosophy and practice.
- Supporting the City of Evanston’s juvenile administrative hearings process and launching a local restorative justice community court.
- Facilitating learning and visioning regarding the import of restorative justice practices being legally privileged.
Successful Capacity Building
After three exceptional years of working 20 hours per week, the Moran Center is thrilled to announce that as of July 1, 2021, Pam Cytrynbaum, our Restorative Justice Coordinator, is now our full-time Restorative Justice Manager! Hear directly from Pam about Restorative Justice at Moran Center by watching this video.
SEEDING RESTORATIVE PRACTICES WITHIN THE MORAN CENTER
One of our key ongoing strategic goals is to embed restorative philosophy and practice into every element of the Moran Center. We have worked intentionally to build a foundation of awareness throughout the Moran Center, and to give staff ongoing opportunities to learn more about building a restorative Moran Center relationship by relationship, case by case, circle by circle.
Reimagining Safety within Schools
In an all-hands-on-deck collaboration that has included all Moran Center Departments and a wide range of Moran Center Board Members, we have placed the full weight of the Moran Center into a multi-pronged effort to truly address issues of physical, emotional and cultural safety in our schools – building a whole-school restorative community. Read our recent report, Reimagining School Safety, to learn more about our vision.
Senate Bill 64
Following five years of inspiring teamwork by advocates, on July 15th, Governor Pritzker signed our proposal – Senate Bill 64 – into law. The new law, sponsored by State Senator Robert Peters and State Representative Carol Ammons and shepherded by the Juvenile Justice Initiative through the legislature, historically throws off the chill of self-incrimination as a disincentive for authentic participation in a restorative justice practice.
Widening the Off-Ramp From the Criminal (In)Justice System through the City of Evanston’s Juvenile Administrative Hearings
The Moran Center has led efforts to reduce arrests in our community! We codified numerous misdemeanors in the City Code – empowering police officers to issue city citations instead of arresting individuals for minor offenses. For juveniles, after receiving a citation, they’re now offered the opportunity to participate in a restorative process that includes needs assessments, referrals/treatment/follow up, and restorative circles where all participants collectively create a repair of harm agreement that includes individualized, meaningful community service opportunities.
Innovative Pilot Collaboration: Kingian Nonviolence/Restorative Justice 2021 Summer Institute
In an exciting, innovative collaboration, the Moran Center and the City of Evanston’s Youth & Young Adult Division created and launched the pilot Kingian Nonviolence/Restorative Justice Institute, a four-week intensive exploration of the philosophies and practices of Kingian Nonviolence and Restorative Justice – how the two intersect and practical ways to live and practice these philosophies. The Institute, which ended in August, culminated in the youth co-facilitating two circles with Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss alongside several other community leaders and restorative practitioners.
Broadening Our Collaborations with Chicagoland’s Restorative Justice Community
The Moran Center is participating in a Chicagoland restorative effort to support the more than 400 Black Lives Matter protesters arrested in the summer of 2020. The effort is being led by Kathleen Bankhead, a former Cook County State’s Attorney and the state’s former Independent Ombudsperson for the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice. The Moran Center’s Restorative Justice Manager, Pam Cytrynbaum, is one of 40 (to date) area restorative practitioners supporting the effort by offering trainings, organizing, and facilitating circles for any cases that the State’s Attorney will not dismiss. The Moran Center’s Social Work team has offered to share training in trauma and resilience with this group, as well.
Public Education in the Legal Community
Moran Center staff are often asked to participate in public discussions. Our innovative restorative efforts are gaining awareness, especially within the legal community. Restorative Justice Manager Pam Cytrynbaum participated in the Chicago Bar Association’s panel exploring what restorative justice is, how it is being used in Chicago and beyond, and what opportunities and barriers there are for the growth of restorative justice practices in the legal profession and our communities.
ONGOING COMMUNITY BUILDING AND RESTORATIVE TRAINING CIRCLES
Circle Up: Building a Restorative Community
The Moran Center was thrilled to receive a $30,000 Healing Illinois Grant from The Chicago Community Trust/Illinois Department of Human Services. Our project, Circle Up: Building a Restorative Community, offered restorative practices training to BIPOC emerging adults and elders in Evanston.
Circle Up: Building a Restorative Community Project, successfully positioned BIPOC emerging adults and elders to lead restorative circles, fostering the ideals of a radically welcoming, reparative, and antiracist community. The Moran Center trained and held restorative spaces for a total of 108 community members, hosting 27 separate restorative events. This effort also included our new collaborative effort with Youth Job Center, Curt’s Cafe, and the City of Evanston’s Youth & Young Adult Division – CEO: Plugged In Program – a pilot program in which disinvested emerging adults were compensated for participating in twice-weekly circle training as part of an innovative, collaborative workforce training program.
Click the arrows on the slideshow below to learn about some additional programs that were inspired by the Circle Up project:
Circling Up with the Collective
As part of our ongoing commitment to help build Evanston as a fully restorative community, we offer free trainings – and support circles during the pandemic – to all non-profit organizations within the Collective.
Circling Up with Our Youth
Throughout the year, the Moran Center has worked with a number of high school students interested in learning about restorative philosophy and practice. We have offered numerous trainings and ongoing circles for those youth. Many of those students have gone on to work as summer interns at the Moran Center.
Circling Up with Our Elders
Moran Center Board Member Janet Alexander Davis and Moran Center’s Restorative Justice Manager worked together to organize and host two community-building circles with 10 community Elders.
Circling Up Intergenerationally
The Elders asked for a series of intergenerational circles with Evanston youth who similarly participated in circle trainings with the Moran Center. At the same time, Mayor Daniel Biss reached out to the Moran Center asking about holding community circles exploring issues of community building and safety. Put it all together and in September we held intergenerational community circles, with Mayor Biss, introducing restorative practices, building relationships, and sharing stories and experiences around safety and building our Beloved Community.
Circling Up with Our Faith Community
The Moran Center is often contacted by community members and organizations to offer restorative trainings or various forms of circles. The Moran Center offers these trainings at no charge. We were thrilled when the Reverend Dr. Michael CR Nabors asked us to conduct restorative circle trainings for about 20 members of Second Baptist Church to prepare the group for upcoming racial solidarity circles they were holding with about 20 members of Lake Street Church. In one of our many collaborations, we were grateful to have the chance to co-facilitate these trainings with Jude Laude, a longtime restorative justice practitioner, former ETHS D202 School Board member who is now Director of Programs for the Youth Job Center. The church members then led a series of racial solidarity circles as part of a joint partnership in community building.
Evanston’s Restorative Justice Community “Court”
Serving as an alternative to the (in)justice system, Cook County established the North Lawndale Restorative Justice Community Court (“RJCC”) in 2017 to adjudicate nonviolent offenses involving emerging adults, offering “offenders” the opportunity to admit wrongdoing and develop “Repair of Harm Agreements.” After achieving repair, the State dismisses the charges and the Court expunges the records. Seeing the RJCC model as a transformative tool in building a more just and racially equitable community, the Moran Center started laying the foundation for Evanston’s RJCC in 2018.
Recognizing the significance of developing a restorative web of social services for emerging adults as an initial step to establishing an effective local RJCC, the Moran Center partnered with eight other youth-serving agencies to form the Evanston Collective in November 2018. In the spirit of “nothing for us without us”, the Collective recruited former clients to hold conversations with young peers and caregivers, as well as front-line providers, about service gaps and system barriers. Using the survey data, the Collective adopted a shared agenda for local systems change and a vision for building a more responsive safety net. Central to that vision was the establishment of Evanston’s juvenile administrative hearing process – an alternative to arrest for children under the age of 18 stopped for low-level offenses in Evanston. Since July 2019, youth are now cited and referred to Evanston’s juvenile administrative hearing process where they develop a “Repair of Harm Agreement” in lieu of fines. The Collective partners with the City in supporting children to achieve their individualized, restorative goals.
Building from the strategy employed in forming the Collective and the lessons learned from rolling out Evanston’s juvenile administrative hearing process, the Moran Center has recently convened a Working Group of Evanston community members including former Moran Center clients, restorative practitioners, 27 incarcerated students in Northwestern University’s Prison Education Program (NPEP) along with their instructor, a law professor who teaches Restorative Justice in the Center on Negotiation and Mediation at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law and her students, to explore with our community regarding the possibility of establishing Evanston’s RJCC and/or other local systems of accountability. We firmly believe that by creating an off-ramp for emerging adults (18-26-year-olds) for higher-level offenses from the criminal (in)justice system, we will take a critical step towards building a more just and racially equitable community.
The Moran Center’s proposal to establish “Evanston’s Restorative Justice Community Court” was recently granted $45,500 by Northwestern University’s Racial Equity and Community Partnership Grant Program!
