Reframing Our Stories through the Narratives of Others

One of the most important tenets of restorative justice is the commitment to deal only with the truth. This principle might seem obvious, but truth doesn't always look the same to each party. Facts don't change, but our experiences of those facts is subjective. How we remember facts is shaped by our past experiences and by our interpretation of events. Sometimes our interpretations are colored by our past experiences, but other times other motivations change the way we remember things. For example, some prisoners may remember their crimes differently than their victims do simply because of a motivation of self-preservation. Shame sometimes also plays a role, as does fear, in how we remember things. Memory researchers call our retrieval of memories a "constructive process" precisely because we are creating a story, a narrative if you will, with how we remember events. As our lives change, sometimes our narratives change too when we begin to frame our past experiences through our more current understanding. The problem is that when two people, a victim and an offender for example, remember the same event differently, they tell different stories.

When victims and offenders tell different stories of the same event, it impedes the process of healing. Differing narratives stoke feelings of resentment and unforgiveness because it feels like someone is not telling the truth. In fact, it is entirely possible that one or the other person, perhaps motivated by fear or self-preservation, might not be telling the truth. Other cases may simply be a matter of differing subjective experiences. This is one reason why listening to the narratives of others is so critical for healing to take place. Victim-offender dialogues are designed with precisely this function in mind. When we hear the narratives of another, it often broadens our understanding. When offenders hear from a victim specific details of the harm he or she experienced, the offender gains empathy for the impact of his crime. When a victim hears the story of an offender's life, he or she may gain an appreciation for the offender as a person in need of healing too. 

In his book, Emotional Intelligence, author Daniel Goleman relates a key therapy used by some convicted criminals to develop empathy, often missing in criminal minds, for their victims. Goleman claims that when an offender tells his story from his victim's perspective, it often results in a lasting change in the offender. The reason this therapy is effective is because it forces the offender to step outside of his own subjective experience and to relate his story from the perspective of the person he has harmed. Psychologists call this "exemplary memory." Exemplary memory forces us to step outside of our world, where we seek our own good, and drops us into the world of the other. When we remember events from another's perspective, we begin to see how the event affected the other. We begin to understand the harm they experienced and to desire good for them in the future. 

My own experience speaks to how important it is to deal only with the truth. When I came to prison, I accepted responsibility for my crime, but how I framed my story, to myself and others, involved details that reduced my own responsibility. After reading Goleman's book, I began to remember my crime differently. I had thought about my victim's perspective in the past, but I'd never made a conscious choice to tell my story from my victim's point of view. When I began to do this, it changed a lot for me. At first, it opened up a fresh wave of grief and pain. Bu soon it began a process of healing in me and prompted me to have a fresh hope for my victim's healing. Now that I am committed to dealing only with the truth, I am also free to work toward healing for my victim and others, unimpeded by the burden of differing narratives. I understand now that differing narratives are sometimes simply different experiences of the same facts--and each narrative has value in the journey of healing.

A Story of Extraordinary Strength and Grace

Practicing restorative justice is hard. When someone hurts us or harms us in any way, the natural human response is anger, and often revenge. It doesn't surprise me to hear parents who have just lost a child to murder say to the offender, "I will never forgive you. I hope you rot in hell!" I would probably feel the same way if someone harmed one of my children or someone else I love. No serious proponent of restorative justice practices believes that those who have suffered harm should be able to easily "get over" their hurt and freely offer full forgiveness. That's unreasonable. Nevertheless, restorative-minded people do hope for and work towards restoring relationships that have been damaged or sometimes outright destroyed by crime. And it's excruciatingly difficult and painful work.

Recently, two friends of mine who were sentenced to life sentences as juvenile offenders were re sentenced after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed mandatory life sentences for juvenile offenders. Although they were both re sentenced to life terms again by judges who ignored the instructions of the Supreme Court, one story in particular struck me with a powerful message of hope. 

One friend, I'll call him Joe (not his real name), was sentenced to life in prison at the age of 16 for a heinous murder of a stranger. At his sentencing, nearly 23 years ago now, the mother of the murdered man told Joe that neither she nor her family would ever forgive him. It was her desire that he would serve the rest of his life in prison--a sentence that was mandatory at the time. After the Supreme Court ruling, Joe had hope for a life again outside of prison. Nevertheless, facing a re sentencing meant re-airing all of the gritty details of his crime, and watching his victim's family suffer all over again. This prospect caused Joe much grief as he anticipated his pending re sentencing. He hoped for a future outside of prison, but he dreaded harming his victim's family yet again. 

When the judge failed to re sentence him to a term of years, Joe was understandably frustrated and angry. Yet, he later found out that his victim's mother had approached his own mother in court, hugged her, and told her that she and her family would not oppose whatever the court decided. This was a complete turn-around from the mother's expressed emotions at Joe's original sentencing. It also revealed a heart that had begun to heal and that was possibly ready for Joe's heart-felt apology and desire to make things right. This example of organic restorative justice in action infused Joe with more hope than he had felt in 23 years, not so much the hope of release from the physical bounds of prison, but from the prison of shame and grief he's felt for his heinous crime. It also gave him hope that his victim's family will find healing and not live forever with the added burden of hatred on top of their burden of a lost son. Additionally, this woman's hug and openness was also tremendously healing for Joe's mother who lives with her own pain.

I can't imagine the strength it must have taken that woman to hug the mother of her son's murderer. What an extraordinary display of strength and grace! It remains unclear if Joe's situation will eventually involve any formal restorative justice practices, but this mother's strength and grace and Joe's new found hope for his victim's family to experience healing is a wonderful, healing testimony. It gives me hope to hear these stories of healing and restoration, and hope for a future where justice begins with a focus on restoring victims, offenders, and communities to wholeness.

Where Does Justice Begin?

What is justice? This is a difficult, perhaps impossible, question for which there is no satisfying answer For thousands of years, philosophers and theologians (and others) have been trying to define what justice is. Ancient Mesopotamian laws attempted to define justice by lex talionis, otherwise known as "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." This retributive approach to justice certainly provides some deterrent for would-be offenders, but it also leaves no possibility of healing; rather, it encourages revenge and leaves communities of blinded and toothless citizens. A Greek philosopher famously said that justice is "the interest of the stronger," meaning that whoever is in power defines justice in a way that benefits them. We can see where this might have its flaws. Aristotle, another Greek philosopher, defined justice as "the formalized conditions of cooperation, so that as cooperation increases both justice and fellow-feeling increase in proportion." This definition hints at a modern definition of justice as "making things right," but modernity leaves off the importance of relationship. I haven't found an adequate definition of justice, perhaps because of its complexity and the fact that justice often looks different for different people and situations. Nevertheless, I am in prison for committing a crime, so I am compelled to think of justice, both for myself and other prisoners and for the victims whom we harmed by our crimes. Naturally, many prisoners do not feel that their sentences (or convictions) were just. For some, this is because of real injustices and unequal treatment that runs rampant in today's criminal justice system; for others, only a reversal of their convictions and clearing their name would be justice. For some victims of crime, nothing short of the offender's death would serve as true justice. Others would be content with a literal eye-for-an-eye, tit-for-tat equivalent of the crime committed against them being carried out against the offender. Still others find their sense of justice satisfied by the offender's simple acknowledgment of the wrong committed and pledge to right that wrong. The important thing to note is that one's definition of justice is highly personal and often narrowly focused to one's own circumstances--both for victims and offenders. To me, vital justice is restorative and relational. This justice allows for forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration. That means practicing this kind of justice in my own relationships. When someone offends me or harms me, it means refusing to succumb to the temptation to "punish" them with my silence, disdain, or vengeance; instead, it means seeking harmony and healing in all my relationships when it is possible. This is what I hope for others to give to me, so it has become what I strive to give. Because I believe that justice begins with making things right, it also means that more and more I seek to maintain a proper focus on justice for those I've harmed. I can't change the prison sentence I've been given, but I don't believe a prison sentence sets things right anyway. Instead, I believe it is my responsibility to do what is within my power to right my wrongs. It also means being a defender of the defenseless and an advocate for healing. For me, that's where justice begins.

For These I Toll the Bell

November 1st was All Saints Day, and for the first time since I've been in prison our Protestant service celebrated the holiday. During the service, a time was set aside for congregants to come forward and name the cherished loved ones who have died. An inmate tolled a bell for each loved one remembered. It was somber in some respects, but it also allowed prisoners to publicly remember and acknowledge those whom they have lost, something unusual in the prison environment.

Most prisoners grieve, silent and alone, when someone they loved dies. Since I have been in prison, I have lost two sisters-in-law, a father-in-law, a mother-in-law, a great-aunt, and two grandfathers. Others who I considered friends have also died. Most of these deaths I grieved silently because I was not surrounded by a supportive community who could share my grief. Instead, I grieved alone. 

The sad reality is that many prisoners lose loved ones while locked away, leaving them unable to participate in communal grieving. But death is not the only way prisoners lose loved ones. While I've lost at least seven beloved people to death in nearly ten years, I have lost relationship with many more friends and family alike. Some have chosen to cut me out of their lives because of my crime, some for other reasons (I am left to guess), but all have been a grievous loss to me. Again, I have been left to grieve these losses alone. 

Some people might blame God when death claims someone they love, but for many of the relationships I've lost with people I love, I have had nobody to blame but myself. It's true, I may have lost some of these relationships even if I had not committed a crime--some I never even really had to begin with. Yet, I still can't help but blame myself for these losses too. No matter what I do to change my life and try to make right the wrongs I've done, some of these relationships will probably never be healed. For those relationships, with much grief I toll the bell.

For others, I hold out hope for reconciliation, for restored relationship, for a fresh start. For some of these relationships, I refuse to toll the bell until no earthly possibility exists for reconciliation. Some people might think it's delusional to believe that these relationships can be repaired. Sometimes I'm tempted to think the same. But I believe that God is able to do abundantly above all that we can ask or think, and therein lies my hope. 

To those whom I have lost to death, too soon, some still estranged, let me say with the poet John Donne, "Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."