Cancel culture did not arise just in the past five years. While it has been a phenomena that has taken center stage in recent years and in this author's opinion a part of a larger social manipulation to divide and polarize, there has always been a strange acceptance that people are disposable, especially if they do something inexcusable. It postulates that anyone can make that judgment, and have the authority to deem it final. It relies on the insistence that there is no further conversation: it's final. It relies on veiling or even erasing the context of an individual's life and their story, their history. It thrives on fear and lacks any form of curiosity or humanity. It is a false and arrogant cultural phenomenon that is the antithesis of belonging. And make no mistake, it’s been a deep facet of American culture for its duration.
It is estimated (and arguably underestimated) that one of two adults or at least 113 million Americans have ever had a loved one incarcerated, and that for every individual incarcerated, there are at minimum ten people impacted.
Close to 10% of all American children have experienced the impact of a parent being locked away. It is estimated that life expectancy of someone with a parent or loved one currently or formerly incarcerated drops by 2.6 years.
Yet day-to-day, few seem to be addressing this legitimate pandemic of the human spirit and the blunt aggression of living in a society infamous for being the “Incarceration Nation”, leading the entire world in how many it incarcerates (25% of total world’s total prisoners, but only 5% of that total global population).
While a general positive arc towards awareness that our country has a massive problem has grown exponentially in the past decade, there is hanging in the air a silence of strange antipathy towards the actual impacts on actual people. In the day to day habituations of American living, just how many of us are dealing with the impact that stigma and shame have in association with emprisonment--and not just that but the accompanying social outcasting and erasure--real and imagined (equally potent)?
What is going on in America?
Cancellation and justification of erasure and dehumanizing is one of the primary “unseen” yet very real factors that keep punitive systems working in the US. Beyond the systems themselves is a silent yet pervasive adoption of valuation terms upon human beings: how we belong, or don’t, how that is wrapped tightly (and intently) with identity; that somehow actions in absolute terms define one’s being, and so on.
I for one have seen them first hand, as the daughter of a mentally ill violent offender, who also arguably herself was the victim of malpractice by her then-psychiatrist. When someone commits a violent crime, they are dehumanized and no thought is given to the context of their past, or how these abhorrent behaviors became their identity as such. No thought is given to the treatment of offenders as less than human, even within a system that proclaims that it serves to rehabilitate or “correct”, as in naming many prisons “correctional centers”. The language betrays the real motive, the real driving force, behind American justice, at least the primary normalized form of justice that has snaked itself into our culture and somehow left to fester without any thought further to the general population, who may likely be quite comfortable with it being NIMBY-esque–and who’s to blame the public? Many who know not what is really going on. Until….a loved one is incarcerated, and cancelled, made inhuman and all within the context of it being justified. This is abhorrent, unjust behavior and treatment that we as a country have signed onto, and without likely knowing.
I don’t even want to go into the human rights violations and racism, the stigma and maltreatment of the meek and mentally ill, that occurs within prisons. Or the treatment of birthing mothers, or those with newborns. It is horrific in and of itself. What happens inside prisons, as our own Department of Justice said in 1973, doesn’t work. They say themselves that it makes criminals. And for our youth caught in the irresponsibly vague and ambiguous juvenile systems, it locks the limbic system in fight-flight and freezes neural development and plasticity, among many other things. It also convinces youth and adults alike that they ARE what they did, not that their actions were an expression of unmet needs and behaviors–which is a wholly separate thing from one’s identity. Oh no, we really go after them with sticks, to ensure they adopt the idea that they are bad, and they have to live with that as their identity. It is nothing short of sick.
Lately I've been thinking a lot about my life's journey, as the daughter of a wonderful mother who by society's terms is a monster. She is now in her eighties, and served 15 years, solitary confinement, and additional juggling around over 3 further years between jails and mental health lockdowns. I've been thinking about how what she did destroyed a lot of lives and relationships, although I can only speak from my own journey. I know for sure that people who seem like friends and community can, do, and often will, turn on you, when the worst happens.
When I think about being cast out of my own neighborhood and monitored by association, I think about the authority people felt they had to do violence in return to me, and to my family. I feel sad about that predicament, as it arguably was not unjustified--we all know that the worst can bring out the worst in all of us. Yet a long-lingering grief continues in my heart for that shaming, public shaming, outcasting, and erasure that I endured, and on behalf of my family. I to this day want to tell the people I used to babysit for -- at least three families regularly on that street -- how much their petition and actions impacted me. How their lack of any form of compassion appeared then, and even now, as being a very violent response to the horrific original violence. I think about the Amish and their somehow innate ability to not just say they forgive, but to behave authentically as such. I wonder what the difference is between my neighborhood then, and how Amish see life. The gap is wide, maybe even to this day.
While what my mother did was horrific, and requires accountability and also the type of perspective that allows for the unthinkable to come from inherently good people--which my parents were and still are--it has haunted me how it is anyone's gamble what will occur in the aftermath. In my work as a social justice leader, researcher and educator, I've heard the gamut of stories, from types like the one I lived and live to the ones where Grace seems absolutely infused into the entirety of the circumstances, where the community offers a higher understanding while still rightfully requiring accountability and repair. It is a mystery to me to this day.
What is not a mystery is how we can actively dismantle the tendency to entangle a person with their act, their behavior, and make it their identity. The criminal justice--and arguably all social systems in the USA--manipulate human worth and value on this scale: what you do, not who you are. Doing over being. Accomplishment over presence. Justified value over inherent worth. And so on.
So if you are currently struggling with a loved one, a child, a parent, family or friend, being in prison and the media circus, the stigma, all of it that comes with it, not to mention the behaviors and actions that are justified in how your loved one is treated in custody, you are NOT ALONE.
The statistical evidence I cite at the outset of this piece, I believe, is as other criminal justice related stats: highly under-estimated. If close to half of the adults in this country have been impacted by incarceration and at least ten people or more beyond that get the seismic impacts, seen and unseen, then we have more people in this country struggling silently than we could even imagine. This is on my mind daily.
I want our kids and youth to know especially that they have implicit value, just for being who they are. Since Mr. Rogers is no longer with us, sadly, as a kids public television show, to ensure our children never forget this key foundation of life, we have to remind one another. We have to push back on what the brilliant Tema Okun terms the Supremacist Characteristics--the valuation of accomplishment, doing, expediency, and all things surface forever stamping out essence--the value of a human life as is upon birth--the value of presence, of one's story, of one's unique and singular fingerprint-gift to the world.
Next essay: How restorative justice reconnects us and our humanity
*This is part one of a series of essays formulating an upcoming book devoted to the topic.
In this episode, we hear from the founder of The Circle Keepers, Martin Urbach, and three youth keepers, centering their voices and ideas about restorative practices, how to build unity across divides, and more.
RJOTR believes strongly in this program and was deeply honored to host this very special episode that you won't want to miss. Listen in now to hear how youth -- directly from their voices and lived experiences -- are advocating and practicing on-the-ground!
The Circle Keepers started in 2017 as a volunteer-run after school program for high school students to learn restorative justice practices such as peer mediation protocols, conflict resolution circles and community building activities as well as to hone their leadership skills, engage in political education, civic participation and produce community service/social justice projects and thus, create change in their school and in their neighborhoods.?
100% of student participants surveyed report that The Circle Keepers program made their school experience more meaningful
Started youth-led restorative justice cohorts in 8 different public schools, across Manhattan, Brooklyn and Bronx.
Helped reduce suspensions by 95% at one Manhattan borough school in District 2 in the span of 4 years (2019-2023)
Testified for City Council to successfully restore over $32M of funding cuts towards restorative justice justice programming in NYC Public Schools from 2022-2024.
Developed a comprehensive Restorative Justice Curriculum for grades 6-8 and grades 9-12, currently offered as semester long electives in a D2 and a D15 school.
Trained over 1000 students as restorative justice peer mediators,
Trained over 100 NYC Public School staff in school based restorative justice practices.
Traveled to Austin, TX to present a sold-out workshop at the SXSWedu 2023 conference of over 100 guests.
Traveled to Washington, DC to meet with Leader Charles Schumer to learn about federal policy and explored the National Museum of African American History and Culture to develop a stronger sense of Black epistemologies and ontologies.
Produced a “Green New Deal for Public Schools” roundtable with Congressman Jamaal Bowman at Sarah Lawrence College.
Produced youth led conference for 250+ NYC youth, rooted on the theme of “peace and justice”, bringing together 50+ stakeholders, including youth development organizations, city agencies, elected officials and even private businesses donating food and supplies!?
HOSTED BY: Founder & Executive Producer Molly Rowan Leach (she/her), and Social Media and Marketing Manager Logan Ward (he/him), who is also an accomplished Award-Winning Documentary Filmmaker (Remarkable, 2024)
ABOUT MOLLY: https://restorativejusticeontherise.org/about-us/host-executive-producer/
Molly’s writing: https://medium.com/@mollyleach
ABOUT LOGAN: https://www.loganward.net/about
Logan’s portfolio: https://www.loganward.net/
ABOUT RESTORATIVE JUSTICE ON THE RISE
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By Molly Leach
July 23, 2025
I recently read an Op-Ed written by the current Executive Director of a Community restorative justice program that I directed for a year during a volatile but positive transition time, working alongside courts, schools, LE, and the community as a whole--and one that was rapidly expanding due to the excellent work of the previous director. His Op-Ed celebrates and clarifies what RJ is with a clear eye on statistical evidence and illuminating its good principles and how they ideally should play out, in practice. I wondered, seven years now after my involvement in that program as its leader, have they changed how they operate on the inside?
When I got called to take over the program, it was jump-time into multiple counties as judges, DA's, police, and schools began to see the efficacy of our work offering a restorative process as an alternative to sentencing. Given this program is within the state of Colorado, it also legally was, and is, able to receive direct pre-file inquiries due to the stipulation (HB24-1101) that citizens have a right to restorative justice. Yet that stipulation put into law was only the beginning of much deeply needed work to build trust and alliances with all concerned. Having an RJ based law in place is a great first step--then the real work begins, of finding common values with justice officials and principals, of slowly building basic trust and avoiding trying to convince anyone that restorative justice is what they should be doing. We have to show them, and let them come to us, based in the time we take to demonstrate that we are all on the same team.
But the point of my post is that in all this key and critical work on "the outside"--meaning what we offer out to our communities--we are missing a big piece. What I experienced directly was a top-down delivery of power and politics that harmfully extricated me from a position I was dedicated to, without any form of restorative process--even as I asked the board for that process--not selfishly, but for all involved. I knew I was responsible, and so were others--the Board included. I knew I could have done some things differently and I knew that policies that reflected what we offered on the outside could have been game-changing, if we had them on the inside. Meaning, we were doing RJ for others but not for our internal systems. I'm not the only one who has experienced this. I've heard many stories over two decades of social justice organizations doing one thing on the outside and an entirely different one on the inside. The gap is frankly surprising yet not. And we need to do something about it--it's not that difficult.
Let me explain briefly.
What I experienced as that program's director was an insight, albeit a very difficult one, into how well-meaning non-profits doing restorative justice are actually doing harm to their own staff and perpetuating the lesser qualities of nonprofit work: high pressure, many hats worn, financial limits and lacks, rush culture, all the things that Tema Okun points out in her work (see our podcast "Transforming Systems Broken By Design", with her). When RJ organizations do not do RJ within, it is bound to fail at some point, and, perpetuate greater dysfunctions within the organization.
In writing this, I wish to emphasize that I am responsible along with those I worked with, and to date my inquiries for a restorative process were not replied to by the Board. Yet individuals--not all of them--were willing to have conversations of repair--and for me, wanting to repair and hear what I'd done unintentionally, to cause harm. I wanted to be responsible, and I also wanted responsibility and was curious why things became so harmful and destructive. Part of the reason was because the Board often functions as a rote activity of low responsibility and high status, as well as often a sense of disconnection from day to day work. There is also a prevalence of assumption across organizations as to what restorative justice is--as many board members as there are opinions about the matter. This is why a continuum of circles for connection and understanding are so important to any non-profit or any human system. Why we continue to gloss over and think that our old, tired, harmful policies work, is truly beyond me.
What I gained was an incredibly hurtful experience that clued me in on what to recommend to anyone doing any kind of work where two or more are gathered:
What would you add?
*****
So when I read Op-Eds by people doing great work in this field, specific to an organization I'm pretty sure still hasn't fully learned its lesson from the harms it laid only on my shoulders, it stings but not like it used to at all--I know that some of us, not just myself, in this field, have experienced the severity of a values contradiction that is directly significant to one's professional and personal life--where one thing is said or offered, and yet the opposite is carried out.
My invitation to the Colorado program this concerns is, would you be willing also to learn from what happened? What can be done to support others in this field out of our mistakes? Is it ever too late for learning and to amend punitive internal policies? I wish my former colleagues all the best, and I still extend an invitation to the board to reconcile alongside and with me.
*this piece originally appeared at truthout (with special thanks to Editor Maya Schenwar)
By Molly Rowan Leach, Founder of Restorative Justice on The Rise
In 1995 my mother went into full blown psychosis as a result of a drastic change in the medication she was taking for schizo-affective disorder. She lured some of our friends and neighbors into our home and took the youngest, a toddler, into the basement bedroom. Once there, she slashed the child’s throat with a knife because of a voice telling her she had to. The toddler survived despite a massive loss of blood.
Mom had suffered from mental illness for most of her life in some form or another, and her new doctor at that time had reduced her antipsychotic medication without monitoring the effects. She had tried to take her own life after I was born, so afraid of being a bad mother that she thought it would be better if she exited, but I had no idea that she was managing life with depression that turned into bipolar disorder in my teens. She never harmed me. Quite the opposite — I was loved and supported by both my parents. But I do remember, and live with, the stigma that surrounds people with mental illness and everyone who loves them.
After the attack my mother was arrested, obliterated out of her mind. The media went wild, and she became the town monster. The magnitude of what she had done and the fear it elicited was everywhere. Others in the neighborhood began monitoring my family. They wanted to make sure the monster was put away for life. People I had known since I was a kid turned against us.
Restorative justice values and strives to honor the needs of everyone involved in the most humane ways possible and in a safe environment — those who commit crimes, and those who suffer from them. In so doing, it brings humanity back into the justice system. It converts a limited worldview based around isolation and individualism into a much more positive vision that is rooted in honesty, accountability, and the visible connection of causes with effects. And it works in concrete terms by drastically reducing recidivism and costs. Most important of all, it nurtures new relationships and a strong sense of human unity. In that sense, the root power of restorative justice is love expressed in action.
This is not to shy away from the need for accountability or regret. I cannot overstate the utter sadness that I and my family have felt for what happened ever since, the desire to take away the pain from my mom’s victim and those who love her. The empathy and care we felt and still feel has never had a chance to be fully seen or expressed given the shambles of a criminal justice system that pits people against one another to further detriment and destruction — not to mention the total lack of opportunities for a mentally ill person to try to communicate their authentic feelings and reach for accountability under the harrowing conditions of imprisonment, where they are denied proper psychiatric treatment. This has been a hex for us all.
My mom was put on trial in the spring of 1996. I testified that she was not a criminal, but has a mental illness. I stand by that to this day. The court was cold and bifurcating: divided aisles, and a mix of fear, judgment and unspoken hatred mingling in the air. The judge ruled that my mother did not belong in prison due to her illness, and she was sentenced to house arrest and stringent rules for probation. If she violated them, she’d face 15 years in jail. And that’s when the neighborhood witch hunt resumed in earnest.
In 1996 and 1997, the Probation Officer received slews of calls about my mother’s case, falsely reporting violations. One group of neighbors followed my family around like bloodhounds, and one day at a water aerobics class at the local YMCA they found out that her caretaker had gone back to the locker room because she had a cold. Although my mom was in the pool with other responsible adults, this was one of the things cited by the group as a violation of her probation.
She was summoned to a hearing and from there to prison to begin her sentence (the judge who had issued a clear ruling against incarceration at the initial trial was now up for a possible spot on the state Supreme Court, and this may have influenced his decision). I remember the day she was taken away very clearly. My father and I sat with her. “Molly, you have to live your life — go on,” she told me. That was the last time I saw her outside of prison until 2014. It was 1999. I was 29 years old.
I visited my mother at the Pocatello Women’s Correctional Center in Eastern Idaho, a dank university town with a strange oppression in the air. The prison is located as far as possible from most of Idaho’s other major cities, which is a common pattern in American society — to make it as hard as possible to keep up any kind of contact or relationship with incarcerated family members. My mom became another number, 48985 to be exact.
In the western world prisons have become de facto asylums. Data are very difficult to gather, but it’s estimated that over half the prison population in the USA are mentally ill. At Pocatello, female prisoners shared a host of human rights violations with me: one belly-chained at her child’s birth with an officer watching the whole proceedings. Others forced to strip naked and be probed in their vagina or anus on suspicion of hiding items. Women with babies and small children who were not allowed extended or overnight visits. Mentally ill prisoners like my mother who were punished in the ‘hole’ — placed in solitary confinement — for being honest about their symptoms. On and on, repeat ad nauseam.
In our failure to acknowledge everybody’s shadow side we act out our fears on the most vulnerable members of society. We scapegoat the mentally ill and treat them as though everything is their fault. We are unwilling to acknowledge the sickness that imprisons us in our own patterns of projection. Afraid to face the truth, we cannot enact true or lasting change. Transformation is only possible if we set ourselves free from these limitations and acknowledge the injustice that lies at the heart of the justice system.
My own work as an advocate for restorative justice emerged from these experiences. I saw needs go unmet for decades for everyone involved. I saw no chance of healing, or even of the slightest opening towards it in the prison system. I knew that what I’d experienced was the exact opposite of justice. Justice is respect and communication, and true accountability and reparation. It means distinguishing the individual as separate from their crime and the harm it has caused, and truthfully evaluating the unique conditions that inform a person’s actions. Justice is helping all people — including offenders — to be and feel accountable for what they have done, and to work together to make things right.
I can’t be anything but grateful for the opportunity to choose love over fear again and again throughout the last 25 years, and to live out that commitment in my work. I’ve done everything I can to respect and understand how my mother’s actions have affected others in the community, and to listen to the often ugly, revenge-based messages I’ve received from strangers. I know that housing 25 per cent of the world’s prisoners in American jails when only five per cent of the world’s population lives in the USA is both morally wrong and substantively ineffective as the basis for justice and reconciliation. I know that corporations with vested interests are passionate about filling every prison bed. I know that punishment only exacerbates the problem.
I know that stories like my mom’s must be held and heard safely to provide the raw material for healing. I know that people do not heal when they are pitted against each other and made to play a ruthless game of blame and shame. I know that by humanizing those stories we release the possibility of redemption, and come to understand our shared humanity. Without doubt, I know that restorative justice makes real the fact that conflict, pain, suffering and crime are part of all our existence. They constitute our shadow side.
Facing those shadows head on, naming them, and valuing people for who they are and not for the crimes they have committed, opens the way to offer a renewed sense of belonging to those we realize we have discarded. As Carl Jung once wrote, “if [we] only learn to deal with [our] own shadow [we] have done something real for the world. We have succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day.”
Salzburg Global Fellow and Founder of Restorative Justice on The Rise Molly Leach knows from experience that storytelling has the power to restore human connection
*This op-ed article originally appeared at the Salzburg Global Seminar's Media Academy site and is credited thus.
This op-ed was written by Molly Leach, who attended the Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change in July 2024.
The central theme of this year's Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change was exploring the deep human need for belonging and the obstacles we face as artificial intelligence (AI) encroaches into every aspect of our lives. Titled “Belonging in The Age of Machines: Reimagining the Soul of Media”, participants from across the world collaborated for two weeks in Salzburg, fueled by the heart and spirit of the 40,000 Salzburg Global Fellows before us who have aspired to make our world the one we know is possible.
During the second week of our intensive and extremely generative space, faculty member Roman Gerodimos invited us all to participate in the "Living Library", a project that was inspired by his long-time attendance at the Media Academy. He offered a space for people to choose to be either a “book” or a “reader” to share personal stories of social exclusion and disconnection. This project is an example of the many life-changing initiatives that have resulted from the Media Academy and continue to this day.
This experience was profoundly moving for me and everyone involved – “books” and “readers” alike. I heard how meaningful it was for “books” to feel listened to deeply, some for the first time, and for “readers” to feel the transformation in themselves through this common humanity across real and perceived barriers.
I participated as a “book” alongside seventeen other people. My title was “Daughter of A Monster”, as I recounted the details of when my mother became criminally insane and was incarcerated; my written essay elaborates on my experience.
The concept of belonging and its interrelationship with the power of storytelling has been at the heart of my work, much of it inspired by my own lived experiences in the United States as the daughter of what society would term a violent criminal. I have experienced the implications of how that impacts life in very subtle and very overt ways and the role media plays in perpetuating destructive narratives.
I have seen firsthand how our criminal justice system destroys lives, profits off of people’s mistakes, categorizes and discards individuals, takes voices away from the already voiceless, and perpetuates a state of discord and destruction.
At the heart of our humanity resounds the deeply important need of belonging - to be seen, heard, and truly understood. Feeling safe in one’s storytelling is unequivocally one of the most urgent and important aspects of creating spaces of connection. We underestimate the power and impact of micro-spaces that are fugitive, and free, and bridge people back from isolation and exclusion. Throughout the Media Academy, we returned to the quote of Salzburg Global Fellow Margaret Mead, who said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
We asked tough questions and dove deep into the challenges and discomforts of our current media hemisphere. If we think of media as a reflection of our current state of connection, or disconnection, we see some challenges. We must simplify and return to the ground level of our hearts, minds, and being-ness, in order to understand the solutions to the gargantuan problem of AI and the way many technological devices have in fact taken us away from each other and out of presence.
The art of presence requires us to be with one another in deeply meaningful ways, like only humans can do. We have imagination, we have creativity, we have will, and we can manifest these key qualities that are not characteristics that come from machines.
The "Living Library" experience offered a space for human connection that reveals a sense of connection and understanding, and a potential to bear witness to the shame and pain of others and find common seeds of experiences. It may seem like there needs to be a more intellectual approach to the answers that we are seeking around how we push back, how we stand for one another, how we defend humanness, and how we rediscover the deeply connected experiences we have as human beings through the stories of the “other”.
One of the keys to our power in retaining our humanity in these times is to return to simple and profound spaces that are intentional; this can include spaces online, in podcasts, libraries, lounges, or coffee houses where people feel heard. These spaces create an unquestionable feeling that it’s safe to be real, human, and vulnerable.
When we ask the question of how to create meaning and belonging in such challenging times, the answer may simply be that we must prioritize slowing down enough to create intentional spaces that allow time for people to be heard, seen, and valued. More than ever, technology offers us a global space to do that and I’ve seen it change lives. I encourage people to consider the possibilities of technology’s role in uniting us, while acknowledging that it can also potentially divide us further.
I’ve had the honor of hosting spaces online and in person where people can build connections, mobilize, be creative, emote, and be real. What comes out of these spaces is beyond any expectation when they are well held; this is the way towards imagining a world we know in our hearts is possible.
Leaving the intensive space here in Salzburg a different person than when I came, and knowing that many Salzburg Global Fellows have come and gone before me, has incited in me what my colleague and teacher in the field of restorative justice, Fania Davis, calls us to rise up to:
“Today, I believe there is nothing more subversive than helping to midwife a new evolutionary shift of the human species into an era where we will no longer be entranced with socioeconomic formations and ways of being and thinking that produce disconnection, domination, and devastation. Instead, we can be present upon the Earth in ways that bring healing, wholeness, and a sense of the sacred in our connection with one another and with all of creation.”
Molly Leach founded the first known restorative-justice-focused podcast in 2011, Restorative Justice on The Rise, a publicly accessible live forum and itunes/spotify stream, which uniquely records interviews with a live, interactive audience. She also has partnered with media companies such as CNN and supported HBO Documentaries in efforts to reach grassroots organizers and communities working to transform systems and lives. Molly is an essayist, researcher, educator, and visiting lecturer and presenter in the USA and worldwide.
This webinar was recorded on May 9th, 2025.
In this episode, social anthropologist and experienced mediator Deborah Heifetz will explore her groundbreaking Map to Compassion — a non-hierarchical framework recently published in MIT’s Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change. She will guide us in understanding how we can sustain curiosity in environments dominated by fear and distrust. Drawing on over 30 years of global peacebuilding experience and somatic education, Heifetz illuminates how our developmental needs, culture, and tribal affiliations shape our emotional responses. Her emphasis on fairness over punitive justice aligns with Restorative Justice principles, inviting inquiry through the question: “What can be done to feel fairly treated?” This focus on fairness elicits deeper, more feelingful inquiries and reveals choices that support repair with the intent on rebuilding relationships and communities. Over many years, Heifetz has worked at the nexus of inner and outer peace. In this webinar, she will offer compassionate approaches to conflict resolution, providing practical tools for balancing emotionally charged needs during challenging times.
ABOUT DEBORAH:
Deborah Heifetz (she/her) is a social anthropologist, mediator, and professional facilitator with over 30 years of experience in peacebuilding, conflict resolution, and somatic education. She developed the systems-based model – the Human Needs Map, a circular matrix representing the interconnections between human needs at different levels of scale and reflecting the synergies and tensions between needs. Her model has been considered a breakthrough framework by founders of Human Needs Theory for its non-hierarchical approach to human needs and for the way human needs and emotions are tied to human development. A co-founder of BraveHearts International, she has worked globally in mediation, sustainability, and leadership training, integrating movement-based and somatic practices like Laban Movement Analysis and Somatic Experiencing with her knowledge and sensitivity for culture and community building. A Chevening Scholar, she recently published The Map to Compassion in MIT’s Journal for Awareness-Based Systems Change. Heifetz works at the nexus of inner and outer peace.
Website: https://heifetzmatrix.com/
HOSTED BY: Founder & Executive Producer Molly Rowan Leach (she/her), and Social Media and Marketing Manager Logan Ward (he/him).
ABOUT MOLLY: https://restorativejusticeontherise.org/about-us/host-executive-producer/
Molly’s writing: https://medium.com/@mollyleach
ABOUT LOGAN: https://www.loganward.net/about
Logan’s portfolio: https://www.loganward.net/
ABOUT RESTORATIVE JUSTICE ON THE RISE
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Author (Being Restorative, April 2024) and restorative practitioner Leaf Seligman invites us to the tenderness of humility, listening, and towards the values and principles that unite us as a humanity, as we face intense and urgent polarization and violence in our world. Our host Jabali Stewart of Huayruro, himself a martial artist of nonviolence and unification, weaves us in conversation to implore deepening inquiry into what this thing we call ‘restorative’ really is, how it makes its way into the world, and how it ameliorates connection and context.
Tenderness is often considered weak or scary, and yet it is itself a revolutionary act. Leaf’s work within prisons and communities, as well as her personal experiences as a partially sight-impaired person, illuminate the “lens” and approach to this work that grounds individuals much beyond the field of restorative justice, in times of great upheaval and disconnection. Tenderness is a powerful bridge that acknowledges the other, that asks also of accountability of self first, and of others, yet from an understanding of our global interrelationship as a baseline for life, and life well lived. And alongside her perspective, we keep in mind the indigenous of our world who came long before this movement, knowing we are related to all life, humans and animals, trees, waters, skies, and cosmos. With this there is honor in having responsibility to all. This awareness is welcomed throughout our dialogue.
Oftentimes it is easy to misunderstand restorative as only relating to conflict and the modern justice systems in our world, yet it is a much larger scope of practices that center our common humanity and ask us to hear from one another in ways that build or rebuild, reshaping trust and meaning, offering powerful and sustaining agency for change on every level imagined.
ABOUT
Leaf Seligman
Leaf Seligman is the author of Being Restorative which was published in April 2024 and is available from the publisher, Bauhan Publishing, and online retailers. Leaf considers herself a daughter of the trees, grateful to live in Maple Nation and be close enough to spend time among beloved copper beeches. She has taught in colleges, prisons, and community settings since 1985. As a restorative practitioner, Leaf draws on her experience as a jail chaplain, prisoner educator, congregational minister, college instructor, and human being. She facilitates peacekeeping circles, immersive learning experiences, and restorative processes of accountability, healing, and transformation. Leaf delights in bringing tenderness everywhere. Her previous books include Opening the Window: Sabbath Meditations, A Pocket Book of Prompts, and From the Midway: Unfolding Stories of Redemption and Belonging. She lives in New Hampshire.
Jabali Stewart
Jabali is an organizational consultant, a leadership coach, a public speaker, a youth worker, and a circle keeper. He has kept Peacemaking Circles in schools (K through College), businesses, families, government, and community settings. He has trained in and practices the lineage of Circle Keeping connected to Mark Wedge, Kay Pranis, Barry Stuart and Tahnaga Myers for over a decade. Besides Circle, he also practices other Art of Hosting and Participatory Leadership modalities. Jabali is a former independent school administrator, a public speaker, and has also cultivated a practice of one-on-one counsel. He enjoys collaborative problem-solving, and his work is deeply informed by his belief and practice of sensible, love-based leadership.
Find Jabali on Linkedin
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This episode features Dr. Tema Okun who gives us a brief rundown of the characteristics of White Supremacy Culture, which can be understood in-depth on her website: www.whitesupremacyculture.info
Dr. Tema Okun offers her knowledge of relationships that people may have with White Supremacy Culture as well as suggestions to dismantle this broken system. We welcome listeners to step outside of thinking that these systems are working for us in any shape or form.
The live webinar was recorded on January 23rd, 2025 and it is hosted by Molly Rowan Leach, founder of RJotR, and Logan Ward, Restorative Justice on the Rise’s new Social Media Manager.
Logan then relates a statement from the website to his recently released documentary, Remarkable, Voices from the Trans Community, which covers the similar topic of objectivity’s irrelevance when in dialogue with oppressed (marked) and non-oppressed (unmarked) groups.
Logan’s film can be found on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PpjhMnVsFk
And the subsequent discussion space can both be found on his website: https://www.loganward.net/film
Key notes from this episode:
Dr. Tema Okun recommends that if we are going to engage in restorative justice work we need a:
The instructions from Tema’s mother are:
ABOUT
Tema Okun
Dr. Okun has spent over 40 years working with and for organizations, schools, and community-based institutions as an educator, facilitator, and coach focused on issues of racial justice and equity. She currently facilitates, consults, mentors, and offers talks for and with leaders and organizations locally and nationwide.
She is the author of the award-winning The Emperor Has No Clothes: Teaching About Race and Racism to People Who Don’t Want to Know (2010, IAP) and the widely used article White Supremacy Culture. She has published a revised version of this article on an extended and expanded website at www.whitesupremacyculture.info
Tema is a fierce Jewish advocate for Palestine solidarity as a member of the Triangle Chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. She is on the board of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and belongs to the Bhumisphara Sangha under the leadership of Lama Rod Owens. She is a graduate of the Spiritual Guidance Training Institute. She is an artist, a poet, and a writer. She lives in Durham NC where she is fortunate to reside among beloved community. Her current project is deepening her ability to love her neighbor as herself. She is finding the instruction easy and the follow through challenging, given how we live in a culture that is afraid to help us do either or both.
Reach her on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tema-okun-0a14311a1
Logan Ward
Logan Ward (he/him) is an illustrator, writer, and filmmaker who values dialogue, challenging societal norms, and mutual respect. He graduated with a master’s in Media Design in August 2024, where he studied community-centered and participatory approaches to research and design.
Reach him on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/logan-ward-860620218/
Check out his illustrations on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/l.ward.draws/
And also on his website: https://www.loganward.net/
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**Disclaimer** Audio was recorded with limited resources, please listen with good headphones to properly hear the valuable information in this episode.
recorded at Expanding Restorative Justice in Oregon in 2021.
In 2021, the Criminal Justice Commission created rules regarding the administration of the Restorative Justice Grant Program. Those rules require applicants to propose community based restorative justice programs that serve as alternatives to prosecution. This requirement is in alignment with best practices from across the country that speak to the importance of community held restorative justice programs.
This panel discussion will explore the importance of keeping restorative justice programs based in community and separate from the criminal legal process. Panelists will provide background on their experiences with community based restorative justice programs and will speak to the critical differences between the restorative and punitive approaches to harm.
Danielle DeCant
Deputy District Attorney in Hood River County
Member of Circles of Peace Advisory Team in the Columbia River Gorge
danielle.decant@hoodrivercounty.gov
Debra Pennington-Davis
Circles of Peace Program/Six Rivers Dispute Resolution Center
Restorative Justice Coordinator
Laura Diamond (She/her)
Conflict Artistry LLC
Co-owner, Coordinator, Facilitator
Emily B. Naylor
Emerging Adult Program / Community Solutions of Central Oregon
Restorative Justice Specialist & Lead Facilitator
In Partnership with:
Restorative Justice Coalition of Oregon
RJCO is a coalition of Oregon restorative justice practitioners and programs.
We promote and support the implementation and practice of restorative justice principles and models in Oregon’s justice, law enforcement, educational and other community institutions.
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Media That Matters:
Public Dialogue On Justice
Restorative Justice on the Rise is an international live dialogue via Webcast and Telecouncil platform that reaches an international constituency of invididuals, organizations, professionals, academics, practitioners, and more. The mission is to provide connection, advocacy, education and inspired action as a public service to individuals and communities seeking to proactively improve relationships and structures within their spheres and our world.