Hearing from Victims. Creating Safer Schools
When parents, Phillip and Meredith, learned about their teenage daughters’ experiences of cyberbullying from peers at school, that included name calling and death threats, they were deeply disturbed.
Because of this harassment the teenage women, Cleo and Tia, refused to go into businesses where they knew the two young men would be and were so afraid to attend school the family began considering alternate schools for them.
When the referring School Resource Officer (SRO), began investigating the case he realized it would be a great fit for restorative justice and consulted with the young women and their parents for the case to be referred to LCJP. This would allow for the young women’s voices to be a central part of the justice process.
For the young men, restorative justice meant that taking accountability and making meaningful repair could prevent the young men from being charged with a class 5 felony. If charged they could be sentenced to up to 8 years in state prison and face a $100,000 fine. Marcus and Kyle could then become a part of the between 65%-80% of young men in America to commit a second offense. This is a stark contrast to LCJP’s recidivism rate of 3% for youth who complete our program.
Engaging in restorative justice meant the harms caused by the young men’s actions could be explored in safe space. And Cleo and Tia could be heard and allowed to share their fears and how their sense of safety was ruptured.
Cleo and Tia's story captures the meaningful ways in which LCJP works to help repair harms to ‘victims’ and offers reintegration for ‘offenders.’ It shows the importance of LCJP’s presence in schools to help reduce bullying, harassment, and fear for our students. The vision for LCJP is to have a community of restorative schools where all staff, teachers, administration, SROs, coaches, and youth are integrating restorative practices into their classrooms and communities.
Watch Cleo and Tia's dad discuss the impact of RJ on his family here.
We need your partnership to help us achieve this goal. We know we are in a moment where restorative justice is in great demand. The ripple of relationships, respect, responsibility, repair, and reintegration reaches all places within our community helping us all to feel safer and more connected.
No gift is too small. Our organization is sustained by the hundreds of you who are committed to restorative justice in our community.