Blessed Are the Peacemakers, by Maggie Lauder

Blessed are the Peacemakers

BY MAGGIE LAUDER

I was feeling very nervous

to begin this restorative process. Many of the seventh graders were still talking about the fight in gym class: There was video. Was one of the girls dragged by her hair as the kids were saying? The administration suspended one of the students who had other infractions on her record (notice the carceral language we place on students) and sent the other three to district “alternatives to suspensions.”

The four girls involved in the fight arrived in my room to participate in a restorative process after already being punished for what had happened. They sat in chairs arranged in a circle in uncomfortable silence, arms crossed, their eyes on me. It wasn’t the ideal implementation of restorative justice as an alternative to punishment, but at least it was something. They had all agreed to participate in hopes of preventing further conflict. All four felt bogged down and pressured for a “round two” fight.

One girl’s mother was so concerned about another fight that she was reluctant to send her daughter to school. In addition, the girls were strangers to one another: Two were in the school’s magnet program and the other two were in the general education program. The two student subsets minimally interacted.

Despite my anxiety, the resulting circle was one of my most successful and one that often comes to mind when I think about the power of reconciliation and restorative justice. The four girls spent close to two hours agreeing on the parameters for discussion and discussing what had happened, how they had been impacted, what they were worried about, and what they needed to do going forward to make it right. They discovered the fight had really started over nothing; because they didn’t know one another, their suspicions, assumptions, a little bit of seventh-grade rumor, and the perceived need to “save face” escalated the situation.

One of the girls, a quiet magnet student with no previous discipline record, acknowledged the physical harm she had done by pulling one of the other students’ hair. She apologized. All expressed a fear they would be pressured into fighting again and a desire not to be under the microscope. The lone student who was suspended expressed her frustration, and the others met her with empathy. The final shared sentiment was something along the lines of, “Hey, I didn’t know you before and thought you were [fill in the judgmental assumption], but now I know you are pretty cool.” The students didn’t fight again. They walked out of my room with specific agreements they created together,

they felt safe on campus, and they were assured the conflict was over. This is a triumph of peace when you are in seventh grade.

Blessed are the peacemakers.

I was first exposed to restorative justice when studying the 1994 Rwandan genocide. I read about community meetings in which perpetrators of the genocide were held to account by their communities. I was taken aback when I considered what healing looks like after the most egregious acts of violence. Surely, if God is present at all, God is present in projects such as this.

In the United States, many cite Howard Zehr’s powerful 1990 book, Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice (Herald Press), as essential to popularizing and raising consciousness about restorative justice. The book articulates an alternative vision of justice that addresses a weakness in our criminal process: As it is now, criminal justice doesn’t meaningfully include the victim. Folks often walk away from our Western legal system unsatisfied that the harm they 1 experienced is healed or that they feel any safer.

Another practitioner of restorative justice, Ron Claassen, points to several independent movements in the United States that arose simultaneously and which the growing restorative justice movement drew from.

1. The victims’ movement in the 1970s and ’80s, which is best known by groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and the National Organization for Victims Assistance (NOVA).

2. Indigenous communities around the world who “have been preserving and reclaiming some of their most constructive 2 old ways of resolving disputes and maintaining order.”

3. The Alternative Dispute Resolution movement dating back to the 1970s and ’80s focuses on providing ways to resolve civil disputes that might otherwise end up in court.

4. The Community Oriented Policing movement, which “brought attention to the need for police to partner with the 3 community and assist them in solving their problems.”

1

Howard Zehr, The Little Book of Restorative Justice (Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2002). See also Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice, zehr-institute.org.

2 Ron Claassen, “Restorative Justice - Fundamental Principles” Presented May 1995 at NCPCR; revised May 1996 at UN Alliance of NGOs Working Party on Restorative Justice (2004): 4-6.

3 Claassen, “Restorative Justice,” 5.

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5. The Victim Offender Reconciliation Program movement started in the mid-1970s to assist victims and offenders in a process in which offenders accept responsibility for wrongdoing and do something to repair harm.

The cluster of practices and evolving philosophy called restorative justice draws elements from all of these movements.

Today, there are restorative justice practitioners and practices in the criminal justice system, the school system, workplaces, and within community centers. In any place where there is conflict, there is an opportunity to share power, to explore what harm has been done, to be accountable for the harm one caused, and to give space for those affected to share their story and have their needs met.

Today, restorative justice practices are expanding beyond the criminal justice system. There is a growing understanding, for example, that our school punishment system mirrors our criminal justice system and that educational code is a form of law. The 1980s and 1990s saw a focus on “zero-tolerance” policies in our schools that mirrored our sentencing. Students who are suspended and expelled are more likely to drop out and have higher instances of contact with police and eventual incarceration. Many young people experience their first contact with police at school. Additionally, data demonstrate these school punishments disproportionately affect Black students and students with disabilities.

In 2007, early adopters of restorative justice in education, such as Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY), found success using restorative processes instead of suspensions. They used restorative processes to build community and belonging and to support students reentering school after incarceration.

They included families and worked towards a wider vision of community healing.

In 2014, the Obama administration issued guidance on school discipline that pointed to racial bias in school discipline 4 and outlined data demonstrating the school-to-prison pipeline.

This report prompted states such as California to make adjustments to their educational codes, banning suspension for certain offenses (for example suspension for willful defiance in kindergarten) and incentivizing school districts to use alternatives to suspensions. Restorative justice was named as one possible alternative.

It was into this sea of overlap between schools and courts that I began my work in 2016 as a restorative justice trainer and practitioner in southern California. It is because of this growing understanding of restorative practices that I was able to help those seventh graders process a harmful conflict and move beyond punishment to reconciliation.

As people of faith, our understanding of God commits us to work for peace. There is a clear vision of shalom in the prophets of the Hebrew scriptures that carries through to our understanding of God as love, or agape. This love-agape is centered on the other and does not expect reciprocation.

For example, in Matthew 5, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’

But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’” (43–44).

The church has always had a presence in prisons, living out the corporal works of mercy and bringing the dignity of 5 all people into this work. Restorative justice goes beyond prisons and fosters a way of being in relationships that seeks connection, belonging, and love. Humans are hard-wired for 6 relationship, and we experience the “necessity of the other” in God’s love manifested in our love for our neighbor and their love for us.

“Restorative justice goes beyond prisons to a way of being when we are at home and to in all relationships where we seek connection, belonging, and love.”

4

US Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, “Data Snapshot: School Discipline Issue Brief No 1.” (March 2014). https://www. ojp. gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/civil-rights-data-collectiondatasnapshot-school-discipline-issue.

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Maggie Lauder taught theology at Servite High School for 10 years and has worked with Orange County Human Relations to help design and launch a restorative justice in schools program. In 2021 she began work at Brophy College Preparatory teaching and working in social justice formation.

5

United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, Responsibility, Rehabilitation and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice. (Washington DC: United States Catholic Conference, 2000).

6 One of the four formation themes at Servite High School in Anaheim, California. servitehs.org/formation

branch images © mokoland, Freepik

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In my limited experience, focusing on relationships is the most concrete way to teach people how to share power, how to be accountable for the harm we do to one another, and how to follow the lead of those who have been harmed in finding ways to heal. Restorative processes do not just tell young people about our values; they give us actionable ways to live them out.

I am deeply grateful for all the encounters I have had with youth when they are “in trouble,” as they have shown me the face of Christ even when they were not ready to take responsibility and participate. The youth I have worked with in my career have always done more for me than I have for them. There are programs, projects, and iterations of restorative justice throughout our communal systems; however, they are merely glimmers in a landscape which is primarily punitive and often biased. The deepest transformation only comes when each of us embraces the peace-making that characterizes the reign of God. Blessed are the peacemakers.