Creating Change

This is an exciting time of social change, with restorative justice just one of many movements working for greater justice, locally and nationally. In our work as elsewhere, we hear two common questions: How can we create change? and What can I do?

How we work toward change

At the RJCH, we believe there always are four things holding up the status quo, and large scale or lasting change requires shifting all of them. Here’s how we are working toward change in all four at once:

Narrative

Our workshops challenge the belief that authorities are in charge of justice and the assumption that justice equals punishment. We invite community members to reclaim the whole of what justice means and to see the important roles they have in creating and sustaining it. We’re encouraging people to think that what “has to” happen after someone has been harmed is that the community rallies around them to offer support and the person responsible makes amends.

Practices

In our workshops and in our accompaniment, we offer community members new ways to respond to harm: steps they can take and skills they can practice in order to support people they care about, offer apologies and amends as needed, and transform conditions that have made harm more likely. We believe that as these practices become more familiar, they will become what people expect and ask for, gradually replacing the common assumption that punishment is the only thing that works.

Policies

If helpful practices are to be available, there need to be policies requiring that they be consistently offered. This is why we encourage community organizations and local institutions to set policies and official procedures saying the proper way to handle things is to find out what harmed parties need and to tailor processes that help meet those needs.

Structures

For policies to be carried out, there need to be structures making that possible. This is why we advocate that organizations make staff time available for meeting workplace justice needs, that state laws direct courts to allow for restorative justice, that granting agencies fund restorative justice research and infrastructure, and so on.

What you can do

Each of us has limited power to make our community more just. But together we can make that happen if each of us does at least a little toward shifting one or more of these four things. For example:

  • You can help shift the narrative through the questions, comments, and ideas you share with friends and family.

  • You can strengthen your justice skills and practice them in response to small scale harms you experience.

  • You can ask for new policies when you’re talking with people in positions of authority in your workplace, official offices you deal with, and organizations you belong to or where you donate.

  • You can create pressure for new structures by writing letters to the editor, writing to the politicians in your district, gathering signatures, or organizing campaigns.

“We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.”

— Howard Zinn