Did I say how last week we all left on a high feeling as though we had the men with us – getting the concepts and more importantly getting it for themselves…well week 5….first we arrived to find one of the men had been transferred elsewhere and another was at a meeting the Governor about a project that could not be missed and Bob has tooth ache and had refused to come out of his cell.
Some afternoons it is as if the air is thick and heavy and today was one of them: two announce that they are not prepared to stand up front to say anything then another joins in and suddenly my first exercise, which acts as a kind of warm up for week 6 and a recap of all the material we have covered so far, is looking like its dead in the water. The first pair do refuse to stand but I gently coax them into saying much more than they thought they would be prepared to talk about – their subject was Forgiveness and Roger had told me point blank it wasn’t something he needed, would give or was interested in. As he started to talk to the group he mentioned Ray and Vi and their extraordinary forgiveness of the killers of their son Chris. As he talked around the subject he began to talk about forgiveness in a positive way – how beneficial it had been to Ray and Vi and how it was important to forgive yourself in order to move on……
The next pair are fine and everyone who has muttered about “not getting up front to speak” joins in one by one – I decide not to remind them that they had initially refused! The important thing for these men is to make the theory real: the course explains what Restorative justice is all about but in the end we can’t arrange for their crimes to be dealt with restoratively. But we can explore and challenge attitudes and, we hope, behaviour, and in particular encourage them to start that process of change while they are still in prison. As I talk through how this all hangs together I realise again that it is all so simple in fact: it is all about right relationships and respect for fellow human beings. And through this process of bringing offender and victim together (even in Sycamore Tree when offenders meet a victim other than their own) there is an extraordinary power that transforms lives – both of the offender but also the victim. Time and again in the stories we have examined we see victims reaching out to offenders, not seeking retribution, not shouting for the prison gates to be locked and the keys thrown away, but for offenders to make amends by stopping committing crime and by sorting out the problems in their lives.
We watch a final film – the moving story of an offender called Ron Flowers and Mrs Washington, the mother of Deirdre, an innocent bystander shot dead in a bungled drug deal. The story examines the extraordinary changes of heart on both Ron’s and Mrs Washington’s parts – Ron has an opportunity to complete Sycamore Tree in jail in the US and as a result writes to his victim’s mother to explain what happened the night she was killed. Out of that comes a reconciliation in which Mrs Washington says on hearing of Ron’s deeply troubled past, that if she had known she would even have visited him in prison and that he can consider her as a mother. Ron finally confesses to those around him what he did and having dealt with his addictions, and having been granted parole with Mrs Washington’s approval, begins a crime free life – as Mrs Washington says “ if he stays out of trouble and raises a family then Deirdre’s death will not be in vain”.
In the final part of the session we talk about week 6: which will offer a chance to make a symbolic act, to do something in response publicly if this course has made them look at themselves, their victims or their offending behaviour differently. But this is not an obligation or requirement to pass the course: the important thing is taking responsibility and that involves truth, honesty and integrity of approach. If they are not in that place I honour more the honest choice not to do something publicly next week. The big question, going back to our conversation in week 1 about restoring a the car, is whether they can imagine what their life might look like restored and have decided that they are “worth it” – worth the effort and time that will be required to break through into new ways of living. We believe that they are worth it.
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