Advancing Restorative Justice in NYC Schools

The CIRCLE UP team just returned from an exhilarating trip to New York City to lead a professional development event for principals, restorative justice coordinators, and social workers from 19 of the city’s public schools.  Our goal was to help this dedicated cohort of educators reflect on the successes and challenges of implementing restorative justice – and to showcase our film as a tool for demonstrating what RJ looks and feels like.

After a casual welcome breakfast, filmmaker Julie Mallozzi, film subjects Janet Connors and Clarissa Turner, and impact coordinator Genevieve Hunt presented the film to the 50 participants and held a panel discussion about what brought them to do RJ work in schools – and what they have learned in the process.  We then broke into several smaller circles, each co-facilitated by a local educator and a member of the CIRCLE UP team, to explore participants’ responses to the film and to reflect on what might be needed to further RJ at their schools.  Returning to the full group, we shared what we learned and brainstormed how CIRCLE UP might be used with staff, students, and families to model restorative practices.

Each school received a copy of the CIRCLE UP DVD, which includes both the 69-minute feature and the 14-minute short, and a print copy of our fresh-off-the-press Facilitator Guide. 

The gathering concluded with a vociferous request for Janet and Clarissa to go on a “speaking tour” to individual schools in New York City.  Their powerful testimony, as mothers who lost sons to homicide and now help other children break cycles of revenge and violence, always sets a room afire.

A Second Festival Circuit

After making the rounds of film festivals with the CIRCLE UP feature – screening in dozens of cities across the country – we are now starting a second round with our new short version of the film.

At 14 minutes, the short conveys the heart of the story of Janet Connors’ and Clarissa Turner’s transformation of trauma into healing.  We created it to make it possible for the film to be included in shorter class periods for students or trainings for professionals.  And a side benefit is that it opens up interesting programming opportunities for festivals, too!

Bringing Emotional Narrative to a Courthouse

by Genevieve Hunt

Last night filmmaker Julie Mallozzi, our film subjects Janet Connors and Clarissa Turner, and I presented a screening discussion of CIRCLE UP at the Social Law Library in Boston’s John Adams Courthouse before an audience of judges, lawyers and other court professionals. As we walked through the hushed library past classical wood friezes and shelves filled with heavy, leather-bound law books, I remembered a scene in CIRCLE UP where Janet remarks that she felt her son’s life didn’t matter at all in the courtroom – that the that the whole trial process seemed to her driven by the prosecutor, the state, and the defendant. Would this audience of judges and lawyers be more sympathetic to the victim families tonight?

My worries were unfounded as the audience was hushed and attentive, passing tissues as Janet recounted the details of her son’s murder and Clarissa tearfully remembered the moment she spontaneously forgave her son’s murderers in court. During the panel discussion, Janet and Clarissa held the audience spellbound as they shared their journey through grief and anger to forgiveness and healing after the brutal murders of their sons. They spoke movingly about the transformative power of forgiveness and the desire to help create a positive way for harm-doers to show accountability and return to their community. Janet and Clarissa stressed that their desire to spare other families from the pain of losing a child motivated them to continue sharing their story and helping young people find ways to turn away from revenge violence. 

Audience members were deeply appreciative of Janet and Clarissa’s sharing of their emotional journey and asked questions about the restorative justice experience. One audience member thoughtfully asked if there was any communication with the families of harm-doers; both Janet and Clarissa spoke about the sorrow and pain shared by victim and defendant families. The panel discussion ended on a positive note when a psychiatrist from McLean Hospitalsaid he would like to share the film with his patients because"Forgiveness can't be prescribed but it's a wonderful medicine."

 As we left the screening, I reflected on how much more powerfully film conveys the emotional impact of a court trial than a court transcript or a newspaper story. It offers court professionals a way to think about the consequences of traditional justice processes and begin to consider how bringing victims and harm-doers face-to-face in a restorative justice setting may serve both sides more effectively. 

 We have had a lot of interest from the legal community in CIRCLE UP. As more states and municipalities grapple with criminal justice reform and ways to reduce the prison population, we’ve gotten more requests for screenings from state legislators and law schools around the country (including Harvard, Drexel and New York Law School). We hope to do more these kinds of screenings and discussions about the role that forgiveness and personal accountability can play in reducing recidivism and increasing healing among crime victims and their communities.

Thank you to Social Law Library Executive Director Robert Brink for bringing this emotional narrative inside a courthouse!

"Just doing your time doesn't mean you're sorry"

Last week inmates of Philadelphia’s Graterford Prison who have completed the not-so-coincidentally named Let’s Circle Up restorative justice program screened CIRCLE UP in their monthly alumni gathering. This is exactly the kind of setting in which we’re most excited to share the film!

The inmates talked about how they can apply the lessons of the film in their own lives and used it to reflect on both times they have harmed others and times they experienced harm. Facilitator Anthony Marqusee shared notes from their amazing revelations :

• “Just doing your time doesn't mean you're sorry. Made me think, what am I doing to show it in my situation?”

• “You can forgive someone and it can still hurt.”

• “It seemed like part of Janet's pain regarding those who did not admit guilt actually came from her empathy because she knew those who were not admitting it couldn't move forward.”

• The film highlighted the “dilemma of fighting a case but not wanting to have it seem like denying accountability. In my case, I went back to court to challenge my illegal sentence because I wanted the sentences for two charges to run concurrently, not consecutively. I thought it was just a legal issue and was surprised when the DA dragged the victim back into court. I had to make sure clarify to them that it was about the sentence, not guilt, and that I did not want them to think I was denying my guilt.”

• About the "I'm sorry" "I know" interaction between Janet and AJ: "I long to hear that and be that way towards others who hurt me."

• “It takes guts to sit with someone who caused you harm.”

• “I liked how the mothers and sisters were trying to stop the domino effect, trying to help younger people.”

• “(I) valued the fact that the VOD didn't ‘take’ right away for AJ – it was a few years before it sunk in. Showed that we can't measure restorative justice processes by what happens the next day. The gift may be a seed that was planted that sprouts much later.”

• “I imagine what my life could have been like if I had had this process or knowledge as a teenager when I was starting to get drawn in to destructive activities.”