We brought together some of our transformative justice partners for a panel discussion at the Minneapolis Community Connections conference on June 10. Pictured at our exhibit table at left, Alternative to Violence Project's Matthew Walker and Leah Robshaw Robinson with Minnesota Women's Press outreach director Crystal Brown and publisher Mikki Morrissette. A deeper story to come at womenspress.com.
Reflections from Mikki, editor
While Matthew Walker was incarcerated, an Alternatives to Violence Project workshop taught him about about how the brain tends to shut down when we get triggered with strong emotions, with chemicals that can lead to poor coping mechanisms. He believes we would have a much healthier society if more of us were taught conflict resolution skills.
At the Community Connections discussion we moderated he said: "Another integral part is building a community — taking a group of people and getting them so bonded that after the weekend workshops," Walker joked, they are saying 'Oh my gosh, I love you, what's your phone number, let's stay together forever.' "They are committed. And everything is consensus, not one person rules. That's missing from so many people's lives. Once they do a workshop, they can't wait to come back."
At the Collaborative Journalism Summit in D.C. last week, I connected with the editor of Prison Journalism Project. She gave me a copy of her newspaper that coincidentally included a story about restorative justice written by a person incarcerated at Washington Corrections Center, who said: "The circle changed our whole culture. We talked about toxic masculinity and the role it played in our lives, where all our problems were solved with violence. ... Conversations I never thought I'd hear in prison began to spark up everywhere. Many of us began to live a healthier life, and the community within the prison started to change. People began accepting each other a little more and were more willing to take the time to get to know each other. ... We began to heal, and I realized that healed people heal people."
At our panel discussion, Michele Braley of Seward Longfellow Restorative Justice said: "Part of the challenge is we've spent 400 years building a retributive system that has led a lot of people to believe falsely that it works and that punishment is the answer. ... We don't ask enough of those hard questions of that retributive system to prove that the billions of dollars we put into that system have given us any positive results."
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