prisons – Restorative Justice & Other Public Health Approaches for Healing

crime prevention news prisons Restorative Justice Victims

NIJ Report: Prison Doesn’t Deter Crime Supports Restorative Processes

By Lorenn | July 24, 2014July 24, 2014 by Lorenn

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) has released findings of what deters criminal behavior. The NIJ offers five findings that it has learned from extensive research in criminal deterrence including the failure of prisons to deter crime. Prison the NIJ says instead can cause people to become more criminal. The findings support restorative responses to crime instead of punishment. The United States, excluding the federal government, spends $53 billion a year on prisons and in…

crime prevention diversion drug rehabilitation Family prisons school to prison pipeline schools Youth

Preventing the school to prison pipeline

By Lorenn | December 29, 2013January 5, 2014 by Lorenn

Hawai’i is working to improve it’s juvenile justice system which currently imprisons youth charged with status offenses. Here is an op ed I wrote about the need to improve school discipline to address our state’s school to prison pipeline. The editorial is reprinted below and was published in the Honolulu Star Advertiser December 29, 2013 and is on line at:http://www.staradvertiser.com/editorialspremium/20131229_Improving_school_disciplinary_policies_would_improve_juvenile_justice_system.html?id=237807351 Improving school disciplinary policies would improve juvenile justice system By Lorenn Walker POSTED Honolulu STAR-ADVERTISER:…

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The War On Drugs Compared to a Public Health Approach

By Lorenn | June 21, 2012 by Lorenn

My experience in working in Hawai’i prisons since the late 1970s (before the “war on drugs” when we had less than 20 women imprisoned in our state compared with about 600 today), and visiting many prisons on all continents except Africa, is that most imprisoned people are poor people. The legal system favors people with money who can pay for good legal representation. Bryan Stevenson, who works with people serving life sentences and on death…

forgiveness Inspiration prisons Restorative dialogue (aka victim offender mediation) Restorative Justice Victims

Remembering Bob Shapel at a Walla Walla Prison Restorative Dialogue

By Lorenn | October 13, 2011February 11, 2013 by Lorenn

In January 2011 I was asked to work with three people to facilitate a restorative dialogue (a.k.a. victim offender mediation) at Walla Walla prison in Washington State. The dialogue was filmed for Confronting on the Oprah Winfrey Network http://www.oprah.com/own-confronting/Colleen-Meets-Her-Husbands-Killer Colleen Shapel’s husband Bob, who was also her best friend for most of her life, was senselessly murdered in a February 2004 robbery. Melissa, Colleen’s oldest daughter, and William Schorr, a co-defendant who plead guilty to…

APAC Prisons prisons Rehabilitation

Norway’s Halden Prison: A Humane Approach Works for Rehabilitation

By Lorenn | September 8, 2011 by Lorenn

Halden prison in Norway, close to the boarder near Sweden, is amazing: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1986002,00.html Halden’s focus on how to treat imprisoned people humanely works to decrease repeat criminal behavior as illustrated in its 20% recidivism rate 2 years after release. An interview with a man imprisoned at Halden affirmed the value of its humane approach. According to the man, Halden is a “fantastic” prison compared to the other 5 he has been in. He said he…

news prisons Reentry & Transtion Planning Restorative Justice Solution-Focused

3-day Training on Restorative Justice & Solution-Focused Reentry & Transition Planning Circles

By Lorenn | February 1, 2011 by Lorenn

March 16 – 18, 2011, Rochester, New York, Lorenn Walker & Rebecca Greening, will provide a comprehensive training on the innovative reentry and transition planning circle process developed in Hawai’i for imprisoned people and their loved ones. Also discussed on the VERA Institute of Justice website: http://www.vera.org/node/4629 Reentry & Transition Planning Circles are based on the principles and practices of restorative justice (RJ) and solution-focused brief therapy (SF) approaches. The Circles can be used for…

prisons Reentry & Transtion Planning Restorative Justice Solution-Focused

Reentry & Transition Planning for Incarcerated People to help Repair Family Relationships and Increase Criminal Desistance

By Lorenn | January 23, 2011January 24, 2011 by Lorenn

Since 2005 we have been piloting a facilitated group reentry and transition planning process, Huikahi Restorative Circles in Hawai’i for incarcerated people and their loved ones. The Circles use solution-focused brief therapy language and restorative justice to address the needs of individual incarcerated people for desisting from crime and drug use. The Circle process is self-directed by an individual incarcerated person who takes responsibility for addressing how they can meet their and their loved ones’…

Inspiration prisons Psychology of possibility Restorative Justice Solution-Focused

The psychology of possibility: “I am in prison, but prison isn’t in me”

By Lorenn | November 10, 2010November 10, 2010 by Lorenn

Most people have heard that they can look at situations anyway they want, that we don’t have to suffer by adverse situations. “We cannot escape pain, but suffering is optional,” but how exactly do you do this? It’s one thing to know something, but how to actually apply what we know and live it is not the same thing. This year I learned more about applying what we know when I heard a woman say,…

APAC Prisons drug rehabilitation Inspiration prisons Restorative Justice Therapeutic Jurisprudence

APAC: Brazil’s Restorative Justice Prisons

By Lorenn | August 5, 2010August 8, 2010 by Lorenn

On July 5 & 6, 2010, I visited two APAC prisons (Associacao de Protecao e Assistencia aos Condenados in English translated as: Association for Protection and Assistance of Convicts) in the city of Itauna, state of Minas Gerias, Brazil. The original APAC prison, which was in San Paulo, Brazil was reportedly the “first contemporary prison” to totally apply a faith-based approach to all parts of prison administration. (See: “Prison Religion: Faith Based reform and the…

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Bringing court to prison in Brazil

By Lorenn | July 22, 2010July 22, 2010 by Lorenn

While in Brazil learning how it applies restorative justice in its corrections system, I met the wonderful Judge Cristiana Cordeiro. She is young, enthusiastic, and more interested in protecting children than she is in status and her own comfort. Once a month Judge Cordeiro travels to a prison in Rio de Janeiro to conduct hearings for incarcerated women helping them place their children into secure and stable homes. “It was much easier for me to…