The Restorative Lens National Center on Restorative Justice

Most states now have legislation that endorses restorative justice. This episode explores questions such as: How important is legislation for restorative justice implementation? What can legislation provide? How does it limit or ensure best practice? What advocacy is needed to promote policy change? How can restorative justice practitioners and programs collaborate to have greater political influence?

Teiahsha Bankhead, Ph.D., LCSW, is a social justice activist, a restorative justice advocate, a licensed psychotherapist and a professor with both MSW and Ph.D. degrees in social welfare from the University of California, Berkeley. Born to a Black radical mother during the uprising of the Watts Rebellion and coming of age in South Central Los Angeles during the embittered racial relations and social unrest of the civil rights era ignited within Dr. Bankhead a passionate commitment to social justice advocacy and transformative community empowerment. Dr. Bankhead has a commitment to racial justice, racial healing and restorative economics. She has taught racial, gender and sexual orientation diversity, theories of criminal behavior, and US social policy at the undergraduate and graduate levels. She speaks and holds circle on the subjects of School-Based Restorative Justice, Race and Restorative Justice, the Indigenous Roots of Restorative Justice, Social Justice and Restorative Justice, Truth-Telling and Racial Healing, Youth-Led and Movement-Based Restorative Justice, the School-to-Prison Pipeline, Mass Incarceration, and Restorative Cities.

Ames Stenson hails from Denver, Colorado and their family tree
has been rooting on stolen land in the west since the 1700s. Ames currently serves as the program manager with the City of Englewood, CO Municipal Court Restorative Justice Program; the board president for the Colorado Coalition for Restorative Justice Practices; a founding board member of the Restorative Rainbow Alliance; previously served as the National Association of Community and Restorative Justice’s online programming coordinator and recently retired from seven years of teaching as an Adjunct Faculty member at the University of Denver’s Graduate School of Social Work. They have a bachelor’s in Criminal Justice, a master’s in Theological Studies and a master’s in Social Work and consider themselves to be a lifelong learner. Ames loves spending time with their family, Kyla and Russ, and doing all-things-fun from travel to sports to geocaching – it’s a yes!

In Colorizing Restorative Justice, practitioners of color relate their experiences in the field, examining the inherent contradiction of using these practices within Western, white dominant, settler societies. This episode will explore questions around how cultural competency can be prioritized in equitable systems design, including: How do we account for our own implicit biases when building equitable systems? How do we monitor bias in facilitator discretion? How can we ensure that communities most impacted by inequities in the criminal legal system are included in equitable systems design, implementation, and facilitation?

As an attorney, social worker, and RJ practitioner, Ish Orkar has dedicated her career to trying to answer the question: how can we best live in relationship with each other? Ish is passionate about creating liberatory and healing spaces, working with organizations to evaluate and redesign existing systems, and supporting individuals as they engage in restorative practices. She enjoys being both a facilitator and a student in shared learning spaces on restorative living, mental health, wellness, and workplace inclusion and belonging. Her favorite place to be is sitting in a circle, and she welcomes invitations.

Learn more about Ish and her work at www.grounded-intention.com

Around the United States, restorative justice programs establish different criteria for eligibility for restorative justice including the age of the responsible party, the willingness of the harmed party for the case to go through restorative justice, the type of offense, prior record, and more. There is also an extensive range of subjective measures that decision-makers responsible for referrals to restorative justice programs weigh in considering suitability. These factors and more can create significant inequity in access to restorative justice. This episode explores the issue of inequitable access to restorative justice and potential solutions.

Seth Lennon Nguyen-Weiner is a husband and father of 3 small children. He has been a restorative justice enthusiast for nearly 20 years now. He is a lawyer by training, having graduated from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles where he was taught by the visionary law professor Scott Wood. He co-founded the Loyola Restorative Justice Project with Professor Wood, which today operates as a program of the Center for Urban Resilience at Loyola Marymount University. Today, he is honored to work full-time with the Life Comes From It philanthropy circle alongside many incredible practitioners and organizations. He is also a graduate of the Community Studies program at UC Santa Cruz and the Consciousness Studies program at Rudolf Steiner College. He lives in Weehawken, New Jersey.

Richard Cruz has been with the Ahimsa Collective since 2018. He is native and his relations are through his mother (Georgia) Assiniboine Sioux, Nakota, and Arapaho. He also has an American college education and has earned Certifications as a Substance Abuse Treatment Counselor and Communications Technician. He currently holds a position as the Co-Executive Director. He believes in celebrating our differences and new experiences and healing our communities and history. He lives in the Bay Area of California.

Procedural justice concerns the fairness and transparency of the processes by which decisions are made, and may be contrasted with retributive justice (fairness in the punishment of wrongs). Allowing all parties to be heard before a decision is made is one step which may lead to a process being characterized and perceived as procedurally fair. Some theories of procedural justice hold that fair procedure leads to equitable outcomes, even if the requirements of restorative justice are not met. This episode explores the integration of procedural justice and fairness into restorative justice practices as a way to increase the perception of fairness in equitable systems design.

Rami El Gharib is a Lebanese Restorative Justice practitioner. Rami was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon but moved to the United States in 2018 to escape the criminalization of homosexuality in his home country, and to pursue a master’s degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the University of New Haven. Rami recently joined Georgia Justice Project (GJP) as the organization’s first Restorative Justice Program Manager. In his role, Rami supports GJP in efforts to build Georgia’s first restorative justice program taking referrals of felony cases involving adults, or youth who are tried as adults. The program, Restorative Justice Georgia, is partnering with local District Attorney offices in the Metro Atlanta area. Before his role at GJP, Rami facilitated adult and juvenile violent crime Restorative Conferences and Victim Offender Dialogues in Colorado. Additionally, Rami is the founder of the Restorative Rainbow Alliance, an Alliance which aims to introduce a LGBTQ+ lens into the field of Restorative Justice by providing extra care for LGBTQ+ victims of hate crimes and assisting facilitators in understanding the extra levels of harm that LGBTQ+ individuals may face, as well as creating virtual safe spaces. Rami is also the founder of The Space, a LGBTQ+ youth safe space in Colorado that utilizes Restorative Circles to assess the needs of LGBTQ+ youth in the Region. The Space was funded by the State of Colorado’s Restorative Justice Council.

Jasmyn Story is an international Restorative Justice Facilitator, Doula, and the founder of Honeycomb Justice and Freedom Farm Azul. Named one of Vice’s 31 People Making History by Creating a Better Future, they are a dedicated human rights activist with a decade of experience working in the voluntary sector. As the former Deputy Director of Social Justice & Racial Equity for the Office of the Mayor of Birmingham, Jasmyn co-led the launch of the State of Alabama’s first government-sustained Women’s Initiative. This decentralized movement aims to interrupt the cycles of harm plaguing Birmingham’s women, children, trans, and non-binary folk. After completing their M.A. in Human Rights at the University College London, they are currently completing their Ph.D. as a third-generation Tuskegee University student. Today, they serve the national office of the Sierra Club as the Conflict Transformation Strategic Advisor.

This project is supported by Grants No. 2020-MU-CX-K001 and No. 15PBJA-20-GK-00035 awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Office for Victims of Crime, and the SMART Office. Points of view, images, or opinions in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests, and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Restorative justice researchers Heather Strang and Larry Sherman (2015) argue, “In the past two decades, restorative justice has been the subject of more rigorous criminological research than perhaps any other strategy for crime prevention and victim support.” But this growing empirical evidence does not always inform program design and implementation. This episode explores the role of research and evaluation to support equitable systems design.

Dr. Anne Hobbs is a licensed attorney, a published research faculty member, as well as the director of the Juvenile Justice Institute at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She has served on a variety of advisory groups including the Nebraska Children's Commission Juvenile Services Subcommittee, the Community Planning Advisory Group, the Nebraska Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, and the Nebraska Brain Injury Task Force. Through her research and active involvement, she is able to effect changes in juvenile justice reform, restorative practices, and victim rights.

Dr. Hobbs began utilizing restorative practices 25 years ago, as the director of Juvenile Diversion for Lancaster County. She continues to be involved in implementing restorative practices in her state. Most recently she focused on victim issues and was a co-author on Nebraska’s Strategic Plan for Victims and Survivors of Crime. She was also a facilitator and author on the state’s STOP Violence Against Women Implementation Plan. She has seen firsthand the impact that restorative practices have on the lives of youth and the wellbeing of a community. Her other research interests include inequality in access to justice, juvenile re-entry after incarceration, and mentoring youth who have been involved in juvenile justice system.

Monica Miles-Steffens, MPA, has over 25 years of government and non-profit experience in juvenile justice, policy, training, and most recently restorative practices. She is a Juvenile Justice Coordinator at the Juvenile Justice Institute (JJI) at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Ms. Miles-Steffens work in restorative practices began in approximately 2018 when she had the opportunity to attend and speak at the Lutheran Community Cares Conference in Singapore. While working for Nebraska Probation Administration Juvenile Division, she was appointed to the Office of Dispute Resolution Advisory Committee and assisted in developing ethical standards for restorative justice work in Nebraska. She is a certified mediator and trained in restorative justice conferencing, facilitating conferences for youth at The Mediation Center in Lincoln, NE. She is on the Nebraska Mediation Association Board and co-chairs the training committee. In her role at JJI, she is overseeing the evaluation of restorative justice programs statewide.



This project is supported by Grants No. 2020-MU-CX-K001 and No. 15PBJA-20-GK-00035 awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Office for Victims of Crime, and the SMART Office. Points of view, images, or opinions in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests, and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Many restorative justice programs have been launched by people who are passionate and experienced restorative justice practitioners. They were careful to build their programs with great attention to detail and fidelity to best practices. But when they have tried to expand their programs to handle greater caseloads or across jurisdictions, they have faced challenges including cooptation, deviation from best practices, and case management by people who have little experience with restorative justice. This episode explores these and other challenges to scaling restorative justice.

Francisco Carbajal is a turnaround specialist for youth in underserved neighborhoods. He has a gift for diverting at-risk youth away from the juvenile justice system and toward a path to educational achievement and community leadership. In his previous role as the Director at the National Conflict Resolution Center, Francisco successfully implemented the Restorative Community Conferencing Program and the District Attorney’s Juvenile Diversion Initiative Program as part of the organization’s celebrated “Avoiding the Pipeline to Prison” initiative. Francisco founded Peace Anger Love, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which provides Restorative Justice Diversion programs for communities lacking access to alternatives to youth incarceration. He is also a former Commissioner for the Superior Court of California Juvenile Justice Commission of San Diego County. He provides leadership for citizen action and promotes an effective juvenile justice system operated in an environment of credibility, dignity, fairness, and respect for the youth of San Diego County.

Michael Isaku Begert is a Superior Court Judge in San Francisco. He presides over three collaborative treatment courts: Community Justice Court, Drug Court, and Veterans Justice Court. Previously, he served in the following courts: Juvenile Justice, Family, Juvenile Dependency, Civil Trials and Criminal Trials. Prior to joining the bench in 2010, Judge Begert served on the board of directors for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the Bay Area, the Asian Law Caucus, the East Bay Community Law Center, the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, and the Asian American Justice Center. He received a B.A. from the University of Washington in 1985, and a J.D. from the University of Chicago in 1989.

This project is supported by Grants No. 2020-MU-CX-K001 and No. 15PBJA-20-GK-00035 awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Office for Victims of Crime, and the SMART Office. Points of view, images, or opinions in this podcast and are those of the hosts and guests, and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.