82-year-old Howard Zehr credits his religious education as a Mennonite for his work as a social activist.
“It’s a tradition that emphasizes relationships, community and integrity,” he says, and that helps to explain some surprising choices.
“I had graduated from an historically Black college – Morehouse – and went to teach at a historically Black college – Talladega in Alabama. I got involved with prisoners there, and also a colleague and I got involved with defense attorneys.”
He felt sure many juries and judges were biased against people of color.
“At the time I thought I had a pretty good idea of what was wrong with the system – how mistakes were made and how racist they were. I didn’t know anything about victims, and like a lot of offender advocates I didn’t want to know about victims I suppose.”
But then he learned about a program called Victim Reconciliation – pioneered in Canada. It brought the perpetrators of crime together with their victims for an experience that was perhaps less traumatic and more productive than a trial.
“Guys who had first done this had three basic concerns," he recalls. "They knew victims were not only being left out, but they were being re-traumatized by the process. They knew people who caused the harm were being punished, but they weren’t being held accountable, they weren’t being helped to understand what they did. In fact, they were sort of turning into victims themselves, because they felt mistreated by the system.”
He launched a program training volunteers to be facilitators of what he called restorative justice and was surprised by what he saw.
“One of the things we’ve found is that people who are victimized feel much more in control after these things. They get answers to questions that they’ve been trying to sort out. Victims’ fears are reduced. Their stereotypes are reduced.”
He remembers a couple whose home had been burglarized. During a restorative justice session, they asked the perpetrators to buy them a new couch.
“They all went shopping together, and then to top it off, a month or so later this woman is walking down the street, and who does she run into but one of her burglars, and she said, ‘What’s happening?’ He says, ‘I lost my job.’ She said, ‘What are you going to do?’ He said, ‘I’m headed to that factory up there.’ She said, ‘I know the owner. I’ll call up and see if we can get you a job.’"
And he shares the story of two high school kids who planted an explosive at the home of their assistant principal.
“He had just heard something and closed the door when the shrapnel hit the door, and the mother had just put the baby down in the front room, and shrapnel came through the window over the baby’s bed. These kids could be given a slap on the wrist, but they could also end up with big prison terms. They’d never understand what they did.”
Instead, they agreed to speak at school about how dangerous pipe bombs can be and went door-to-door to reassure neighbors that they’d never plant explosives again.
Zehr wrote a manual explaining the process and followed up with a book called Changing Lenses. It noted criminals could still be locked up or fined, and victims need not forgive them, but restorative justice gave them a voice and helped hold wrong doers accountable.
That book was published around the world, prompting invitations for Zehr to visit many countries including Russia.
“Somebody asked me, ‘What did your prosecutor say when you try to do this?’ And I told them “I heard he had called it was a communist plot, and when the laughter died down, he said,’ Our prosecutors called it a CIA plot.’”
Today, restorative justice is used in over 140 countries, with formal systems in New Zealand, Norway, Belgium, Canada and Australia and programs in Charlottesville, Richmond, Henrico County, Harrisonburg, Lynchburg, Roanoke, the New River Valley and Northern Virginia.
