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BY CAMILLA MORTENSEN
Restorative Justice
I
n the Bible it reads, “An eye for an
eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a
hand.” But death row critic and Roman
Catholic nun Sister Helen Prejean says that
doesn’t mean there should be violence
done in exchange for violence. “People
misinterpret the scripture according to what
their bent is,” she says. “It’s an easy human
impulse to try to get a divine authority to
back up what you’ve already decided you
believe in.”
“An eye for an eye,” Prejean says, “is
really part of trying to contain violence.”
She explains that the concept was meant to
prevent further and more drastic violence
and retaliation. If, in earlier societies
without prisons, one man murdered
another, the family of the dead man might
get revenge by killing the murderer’s entire
village. “It meant only a life for a life,
only an eye for an eye. It was to restrain
violence, to contain it,” she says.
Prejean, known for her book Dead Man
Walking and the feature fi lm it launched, is
coming to the UO to speak on restorative
justice as part of a lecture series presented
by the Savage Committee on International
Relations and Peace. Her talk, “Inalienable
Human Rights Today,” starts at 7 pm
Monday, Jan. 25, in Room 175 of the
Knight Law Center.
Prejean says, “When you look at the
biblical concept of justice, now the Bible of
course can be quoted six ways to Sunday,
but it’s fi lled with the idea of restorative
justice and that healing and health and
wholeness is what is desired and not just
pure punishment and pain.”
Restorative justice, she says, is the
opposite of what we have now, a system
she describes as “pure retribution.” She
says, “It’s the state versus the criminal;
they seek to punish the criminal; the victim
is out of the loop.”
Though no one has been executed in
Oregon since 1997, the state has a death
row with 32 prisoners on it, according to
the Oregon Department of Corrections.
Five of those cases are from Lane County.
The last two men to be executed, Harry
Charles Moore and Douglas Franklin
Wright, chose not to pursue any legal
appeals to prevent their deaths by lethal
injection.
Oregon is one of the many states
where, Prejean says, “Many people have
not refl ected deeply on the death penalty.”
Oregon, she says, “is hanging by a
thread.”
Prejean considers herself to be an
‘When you look at the biblical concept
of justice, now the Bible of course can be
quoted six ways to Sunday, but it’s fi lled
with the idea of restorative justice and that
healing and health and wholeness is what is
desired and not just pure punishment and
pain.’ — Sister Helen Prejean
educator whose job it is to go around
the country to waking people up through
storytelling and explaining what happens
not just to those who are killed, but to the
guards and other people involved.
Under the ordinary system of retribution,
according to Prejean, “You killed, so we kill
you, and the victim’s family gets to watch.
And that’s supposed to heal or restore.”
Restorative justice, Prejean says,
acknowledges that, “Yes, there has been a
wrong done in the community, sometimes
a very grievous wrong.” But it aims to
bring the community together in a kind
of healing circle. And one part of the
restorative justice process is that the one
who has done the crime gets to tell his or
her story, but also meets victims of his
or her type of crime. “They face, by an
encounter with the victims’ families, just
what their act has cost the victim’s family
and the community,” she says. “And then
steps can be taken to restore them into the
community.”
“The way the criminal justice system is
set up, it never brings together the offender
and the victim,” she says.
Prejean says that part of restoring
offenders is looking at their lives and what
led to the transgression: factors like drugs,
education or a dysfunctional family with
abuse.
Then she says those who are going to be
released need to learn confl ict resolution
along with everyday skills such as budget
management, how to have a job and how
to relate to people so they can learn to be
a contributing member of a community.
She cites the example of Bridges to Life,
a faith-based program in Texas, which uses
mentors and counseling to help prisoners
and reduce recidivism rates.
Prejean says that in many places
prisons have a 70 percent recidivism rate,
meaning that seven of 10 former prisoners
wind up back in prison. Oregon prisons
have a comparatively low recidivism rate,
with 29.3 percent of parole or post-prison
supervision offenders convicted of a new
felony within three years of their release,
according to the DOC. But that’s still about
three in 10 prisoners committing a felony
only a few years after their release.
GRANT-GUERRERO PHOTOGRAPHY
Sister Helen Prejean to speak at the UO
Part of the issue is community, she
says; prisoners come out and don’t have
a sense of belonging. “They’re so used to
being alone in prison; you don’t let people
get close to you in prison.”
Prejean says using a healing circle
where former prisoners communicate and
talk to others from the community can help
with that. The idea of the healing circle
in restorative justice, she says, comes
from Native American traditions. “The
community talks about the hurt done in the
community, and the community comes up
with steps,” she says.
States with overcrowded prison
systems like California are starting to look
at alternative sentencing, especially with
juveniles, Prejean says. With 2.3 million
people in prison in the U.S. – one in every
100 adults – and two-thirds of them there
for nonviolent crimes, “our answer to all
our problems has been to throw people in
prison,” she says. “That’s why it’s in the
air that we’ve got to fi nd another way, and
restorative justice is one of those ways.”
In addition to Prejean’s lecture, which
is free and open to the public, the winners
of the Cheyney Ryan Peace and Confl ict
Studies Essay Contest will be announced.
Ryan, a professor of philosophy, has played
a major role in the development of peace-
related initiatives at UO. “Cheyney has
done marvelous work,” Prejean says. “You
can’t have peace if you don’t have justice,
and it’s always peace through justice.” ew
K LCC MICROBREW FESTIVAL
February 12 & 13
5-11 p.m.
Lane Events Center
796 West 13th, Eugene
$12 ADMISSION
Includes souvenir glass
21 & OVER
A benefit for KLCC
PLUS MEGA MUSIC SALE! Used Records & CDs!
Ɖ Fri - LeRoy Bell & His Only Friends
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EUGENE WEEKLY JANUARY 21, 2010 13