Author: Justice Conversation

Reclaiming Our Humanity: A talk with Fania Davis

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Hosted by YWCA Madison November 8th, 2018, 10 am – 12 pm Central Time | Madison, Wisconsin, USA Cost: $25, follow link for more information and to register: https://www.ywcamadison.org/blog/event/reclaiming-our-humanity-a-talk-with-fania-davis/ Quoted from YWCA’s web page about this event: Fania Davis is a leading national voice on restorative justice, a quickly emerging field which invites a fundamental shift in the way we think about and do justice. Restorative Justice is based on the desired set of principles and practices to mediate conflict, strengthen the community, and repair harm. She is a long-time social justice activist, Civil Rights trial attorney, restorative justice practitioner, writer, and scholar with a Ph.D. in Indigenous Knowledge. In the United States, the school-to-prison pipeline (SPP), also known as the school-to-prison link or the schoolhouse-to-jailhouse track, is the disproportionate tendency of minors and young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds to become incarcerated, because of increasingly harsh school and municipal policies…. Continue reading

Elevating Justice: Widening the Circle

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Hosted by National Association of Community and Restorative Justice (NACRJ) June 14-16, 2019 | Denver, Colorado, USA | Also available: June 13 preconference workshops “The 7th NACRJ Conference focuses on elevating this broader meaning of justice by intentionally widening the circle of engagement in meaningful ways that welcome the voices of victims, formerly incarcerated, LGTBQ, racial, ethnic minorities and others, as we promote safe, just, equitable and sustainable communities and institutions in the US and around the world.” For registration, pricing, and further information visit this web site: 2019 NACRJ Conference Continue reading

Positive Discipline

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Contributed by Dale Gregory, co-director Broadmoor Preschool, and Kim Vanderheiden, founder of Justice Conversation. I first met “Teacher Dale” as a new parent participating in a local co-op preschool known as Broadmoor. Over the next four years, I watched as Teacher Dale and her co-director Teacher Colleen guided parents as well as children with a patience and care that made a cohesive community out of families with tremendously varied backgrounds. Dale’s knowledge of child development is rich, extensive, and continually expanding. With compassion and realism, She and Colleen have provided countless parents with added positive tools to pull out in difficult situations with their children. Dale also has a strong interest in justice, values restorative justice practices, and has a ready grasp of the connection between family discipline and problem solving and the larger practices of justice in our society. When I began this site, I knew I had to… Continue reading

Book Review: ‘The Desire for Mutual Recognition – Social Movements and the Dissolution of the False Self’ – Peter Gabel

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Contributed by Elaine Quinn, editor of The Conscious Lawyer This review first appeared in the online magazine, The Conscious Lawyer, vol IV, October 2018. You can purchase this book through Routledge Taylor & Francis Group or through your favorite bookseller. “…our original longing from birth [is] to be seen by the other in a way that fully recognizes our humanity and our longing to simultaneously affirm our recognition of the other in the same way.” (Chapter 3, page 58) Before reading any further, take a moment to sit and look at the striking portrait below. This unusual and powerful invitation is one made to the reader in the first chapter of the book. It is an invitation that perhaps experientially captures the essence of what the author wants to convey – the experience of being truly recognized by a fully present human being, of deepening into our own natural presence… Continue reading

Reimagining Justice for a Precarious World

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Contributed by Mothiur Rahman of New Economy Law, a legal innovation lab based in the UK, strengthening civic resilience for precarious futures. Having been invited to give a UK briefing for the 2018 Conference for the “Project for Integrating Spirituality Law and Politics” (PISLAP), I have been reflecting on what it means to bring these 3 domains together of law, politics and spirituality. Many might associate law and politics together, but joined with spirituality? Modern notions of spirituality often see spirituality as a personal individual pursuit, separated off from the political that is social and collective by definition. Why is this the case? This separation begins to make sense when one considers that the spiritual foundations of Christianity were being settled at a time when the idea of institutions and their functions were still in their intellectual infancy. Thus it is arguable that the manner by which “spiritual authority” was… Continue reading

Matthew Part I – What is Justice?

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Matthew Avery Solomon, my stepson, was shot and killed while walking with friends on a San Francisco Street on September 4, 2008, an innocent victim of some gang related retaliation. His friend Noel Espinoza was also killed. ________ September 4, 2008 to September 4, 2018 – a decade, ten years – September 4th being an anniversary of a murder, the murder of Matthew Avery Solomon as he walked the streets of San Francisco with his two young friends, Noel and December, after work, just hanging out and having a good time. As it turns out, just a few months ago, in the middle of this tenth year, three young Hispanic men were arrested and charged with the murder of Matthew and of Noel, his buddy. December survived to tell the story: December’s eyes Her ears ringing from the shots,         She could not hear herself scream,        “They shot Matt… Continue reading

Book Launch for Peter Gabel at the New York Open Center

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Book Cover for The Desire for Mutual Recognition by Peter Gabel

Date: Thursday, October 18th 2018 Time: 6:30 pm Location: New York Open Center; 22 East 3oth Street, NYC, Room 3A Join lifelong social activist, philosopher, founder of an alternative University, editor-at-large of the award winning Tikkun Magazine, and Open Center friend Peter Gabel for a discussion about his new book The Desire for Mutual Recognition: Social Movements and the Dissolution of the False Self. The event will take place on Thursday October 18th at 6:30pm in room 3A at the New York Open Center, 22 East 30th Street, NYC, and will be followed by a book signing and reception. Nominated as Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year by Routledge Press, Peter’s book speaks to the longing in each of us to see and be seen by the other in a way that confirms our authentic humanity. He shows that in our culture this longing is everywhere denied, creating an “outer”… Continue reading

Book Review: Transforming Justice, Lawyers, and the Practice of Law by Marjorie A. Silver

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Review by Elaine Quinn This review first appeared in the online magazine, The Conscious Lawyer, vol II, May 2017. Available through Carolina Academic Press If I had an understanding before that law needs to change and that that change is already happening, this book has helped that understanding become a conviction. The book reinforces the message that our society is undergoing a shift in consciousness from an experiential sense of innate separateness to one of innate togetherness, that scientific evidence is available to prove the validity of this shift, and that our cultural institutions – law being one of the most essential – need to join with and support this shift rather than resist and hold it back. One of the core messages in the book echoes that of ‘The Ecology of Law – Toward a Legal System in Tune with Nature and Community’. That is that legal thought needs… Continue reading

Book Review: The Mars Room

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Rachel Kushner’s The Mars Room tells the story of one woman’s life inside the prison system – Contributed by Jenny Zoe Casey In her novel The Mars Room, Rachel Kushner (http://rachelkushner.com) considers our criminal justice system from a rare vantage point – that of a vulnerable young woman who is both subject to it and victimized by it. Kushner’s protagonist, Romy, is just a few years shy of a youth spent in the crevices of working class San Francisco, amongst a cohort trapped in cycles of petty crime, drug use, dysfunction, and poverty. The mother of a young boy whose father is absent, she makes her living as a lap dancer. For reasons that seem rational and easy to understand, Romy finds herself the recipient of two consecutive life sentences, plus a ludicrous additional six years. Thus we are introduced to her experience of life in a women’s prison. According… Continue reading