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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Randy Cohen, The Ethicist, who writes an insightful and often humorous column for the New York Times Magazine, made a good case for using restorative justice recently.  He answered a question asked by a restaurant manager if he should call the police on a server who was caught stealing.  Mr. Cohen said no!  He pointed [...]

The state of Hawai‘i’s current prison polices risk the safety of our community and waste scarce public resources.  The decision to close Kulani prison is a case in point.
Hawai‘i’s Republican governor Linda Lingle and her prison administration are closing Kulani prison, which focuses on treatment and rehabilitation.  At the same time the administration gives $50 [...]