Mission Statement

Restorative Justice on The Rise amplifies the global movement for restorative and transformative justice through media, education, and grassroots leadership. We serve as a bridge between lived experience, frontline advocacy, and systems transformation—empowering communities through our pioneering podcast, training academy, research, and healing-centered facilitation.

Vision Statement

We envision a world where justice is healing, relationships are sacred, and community voices lead systems change. Through storytelling, education, and embodiment of restorative values, we support a cultural shift from punitive paradigms to ones rooted in dignity, dialogue, and transformation.

Why RJ Media & Advocacy Are Essential

1. Media shapes systems.
   Restorative justice is not just a practice—it is a paradigm shift. The stories we tell determine the policies we pass and the healing we allow. Our pioneering podcast has already demonstrated how voices from the margins must be centered to change the narrative of justice.
2. Justice is relational.
   Without public understanding and support, even the most visionary RJ programs lack the cultural oxygen they need to thrive. Media builds bridges between theory, practice, and lived experience.
3. Advocacy is protection.
   RJ is often underfunded, misunderstood, or co-opted. Our media and advocacy work safeguards the integrity of the field by highlighting frontline truth, accountability, and community leadership.
4. Grassroots to global.
   From schools to prisons to entire nations, RJ has universal relevance. Our platform creates a connective tissue between disparate efforts, honoring the wisdom in the room—and the voices too often left out of it.

Legacy & Leadership

Restorative Justice on The Rise stands as a living archive and evolving force of a movement powered not by one, but by many.

While founded by Molly Rowan Leach, whose hosting, writing and facilitation have helped catalyze public understanding of restorative justice, the work has always been co-created with a diverse, dynamic and intergenerational constellation of visionaries, mentors, partners, and grassroots leaders.

Over the years, Restorative Justice on The Rise has collaborated with and been guided by:

• Mentors and Thought Leaders such as Kay Pranis, Fania Davis, Dominic Barter, Dr. Sandra Pavelka, Dr. Michael Gilbert, James O'Dea, and Grandmother Mona Polacca, each of whom has shared their voice, insight, and spiritual integrity with the platform.
  
  
• Organizational Partners and Donors including Bioneers, River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding, Talking Peace, Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY), and REFORM Alliance, among many others whose generous support and alignment have helped bring restorative principles to life in communities across the world.
  
  
• Dozens of community practitioners, circle keepers, educators, system-impacted individuals, peacebuilders, and listeners, who have made their wisdom public through the platform and shaped the broader narrative of what justice and healing can look like.
  
  

This legacy is not static—it’s a circle that continues to grow. Restorative Justice on The Rise is as much an archive of past voices as it is a living invitation for emerging leaders and storytellers to step forward.

The work endures because it is shared, relational, and resilient—guided by ancestral knowledge and the hope of future generations.

We talk with people from all over the world who are leading the charge for change. You are an integral part of this dialogue.

• Provides an uncensored and live dialogue space centered on Belonging and Voice, Acknowledgment and Truth-sharing.
• Answers to the need to discuss openly and honestly a failing justice system and the many models that are actively working as solutions in the field of RJ
• A media outlet that is at the cutting edge of truthful dialogue
• A public forum that includes your uncut input and open access/a direct line to some of our nation’s (luminaries, wayshowers, leaders) in the field
• One of the few media sources where you can access free archives and materials that support the cause of restorative justice
• A resource and a public forum for uncensored and authentic dialogue and engagement
• We leverage virtual technology to reach a significant global participant base in its poignant public dialogues, thus supporting the tipping point and systemic change we are currently amidst in our justice systems.
• In the United States we see a profit-motivated Industrial Complex and one that says one thing (correction, rehabilitation) while enacting another (cycle of endless incarceration and recidivism, isolated stakeholders, etc).
• The United States houses over 1/3 of our world’s prisoners while we only make up less than 5% of our world’s population.
• We also provide a free archive of all our dialogues via our podcast, thus an educational base of resources that help mobilize, educate and connect the powerful work many are doing, and have done, for decades.
• Finally, we provide educational trainings specific to the needs of particular sectors in the field, using the easy to access technology similar to what is used for the radio-style series.