To close out a tumultuous year that kept us painfully separate, we’re pausing to report and reflect on all that’s drawn us together. In part to share some dispatches from RCND’s work of Vigil, Reentry, and Restorative Justice during Covid. But even more so, as a way to recall and renew our 28-year path toward all-of-us. This last of three installments lifts up the story of neighbors facilitating community-based responses to harm through the Coalition’s three-year-old collaboration Restorative Justice Durham.
A Story of Bullets and Restoration
From the beginning of RCND’s story almost three decades ago, we have heard the sound of gunfire on Durham’s streets as a cry for help. Bullets don’t just impact the people they hit, the people who shoot them, or the neighbors they fly past. Year after year, we see more clearly how violence impacts all of us. Through our newest program, Restorative Justice Durham (RJD), we met a neighbor this year who was charged with a felony for shooting his gun into a wooded area in a Durham neighborhood. To protect the confidentiality of those involved, we won’t tell you exactly where this happened. But we want to tell you how a neighbor charged with felony possession of a stolen firearm ended up meeting some of the people impacted by the shots he fired and working with them to repair the harm he had caused.
One of our volunteer RJD facilitators, Joe Cole, shared what happened in this restorative process, the first post-arrest diversion case we facilitated in Durham County. “A young man was struggling with anxiety, grief, and stress, and fired a pistol into the trees in a suburban neighborhood. Neighbors heard the shots and called the police, and the young man was arrested.” After our team met with this young man for the first time, we learned more of the backstory. “We learned that there was a build up of stress, grief and trauma that had led to that one difficult moment for him,” another member of the volunteer RJ Facilitation Team, Aviance Brown, shared. “We decided it would be best for him to hear the perspective of someone from the neighborhood, so we got a surrogate to participate.”
The surrogate in this case lived in the adjacent neighborhood to where the incident happened. When this young man expressed a desire to apologize to some of the people his actions had impacted, the surrogate facilitated a plan of action that was both safe and effective for everyone involved. He contacted several neighbors in advance to gauge their interest, then made introductions between the young man and the neighbors who were willing to listen. Together they went door to door where the young man read his apology letter, bringing many to tears. Each of them witnessed the healing that was possible when someone was able to take responsibility for the harm they had caused.
“I’m inspired by how a restorative process can foster new possibilities for healing and justice,” Joe said after the participant had completed his repair agreement. “For me,” Aviance wrote, “the best part of this process was really getting to know each other and creating a community of support that allowed this young man to take accountability but also know that he was not alone.”
A Growing Restorative Community
RJD has grown over the past three years from six dedicated volunteers to over 100 engaged community members, including 75 trained volunteer facilitators like Aviance and Joe. During this year when we’ve needed to distance ourselves from one another physically, RJD has remained deeply committed to the practice of circles and to the values of collaboration and belonging which are the foundation of everything we do. In the midst of widespread and devastating global health crisis, we worked to transfer the restorative justice facilitation process to a virtual setting, along with our community-building monthly Circles. We facilitated nine additional misdemeanor diversion processes, eight processes involving felony charges, another involving misdemeanor charges, and two post-arrest felony diversion cases like the case of the neighbors who met the young man who had fired shots into their neighborhood.
We are grateful for the community that has grown up around RJD. We enter 2021 anchored in the leadership of two collaborative, majority non-white circles drawn from this growing community. We have facilitated a restorative justice orientation with our Durham County District Attorney’s Office and with Durham County’s Public Defender’s Office, and we are excited to be a part of Durham’s new Post-Arrest Diversion Program, developed by Durham County DA’s office and Durham County’s Criminal Justice Resource Center.
Looking ahead, we hope to more effectively address a greater percentage of harms in our community and, at the same time, build up local public and private support for a long-term plan to make restorative justice the norm in Durham. We have not found a way to stop the shots that fracture our community, but we can choose how we respond to the violence that impacts us all. Thank you for continuing to collaborate with us in this work of building a community that pursues something more whole and equitable together, a system of justice that addresses the needs and centers the voices of those harmed.
12/2020