Inspiring: Repairing Our Criminal Justice System Media Articles
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When he walked out of prison after 28 years, the first thing Allen Burnett did was drive to the ocean. “I just stood there for a minute,” he recalls. “I wanted to feel the air.” Sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, he believed he would die behind bars. At California State Prison ... Burnett eventually earned a college degree with magna cum laude honors thanks to a pioneering in-prison education program through Cal State, and he found mentorship with other prisoners. Governor Gavin Newsom commuted his sentence. Today Burnett is the co-founder and executive director of Prism Way, a Los Angeles nonprofit that trains formerly incarcerated people to become peer support specialists. The work draws directly on the peer-counseling culture Burnett experienced during his own incarceration. The mission is clear: turn lived experience into healing. The California Model, inspired in part by Norway’s prison system, emphasizes trauma-informed staffing, education and rehabilitation that mirrors life outside. Peer support is a key component. In 2022, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation began training incarcerated people to become peer support specialists. These mentors help fellow inmates cope with trauma and addiction, bridging gaps that formal treatment sometimes cannot. Early results of peer counseling have been promising. In the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown Los Angeles, it coincided with a sharp drop in self-harm.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive repairing criminal justice.
With all of his appeals exhausted, Charles “Sonny” Burton had already chosen the last meal he would have before being put to death by nitrogen gas at Alabama’s Holman correctional facility. His fate was in the hands of Kay Ivey, Alabama’s governor and a staunch supporter of capital punishment who has presided over more than 25 executions – more than any other Alabama governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. But on the morning of 10 March, just two days before Sonny was to be put to death, Ivey commuted his sentence to life without parole. No new court ruling or legal evidence had come out, but the governor was forced to respond to an unusually diverse coalition [that] made the case that executing a 75-year-old man who didn’t pull the trigger – while the man who did died in prison with a life sentence – was simply wrong. Burton had been on death row since 1992 for the killing of Doug Battle during a robbery at a Talladega AutoZone. Derrick DeBruce, the man who fired the weapon, had his sentence reduced to life without parole in 2014 after winning a federal appeal. That meant that of the six people who took part in the robbery, Burton alone was facing execution. Schulz’s clemency petition cited precedents from Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas – states where Republican governors who supported the death penalty had refused to execute inmates who played a lesser role in a killing than a co-defendant who got a lighter sentence.
Note: More than half of all wrongful criminal convictions are caused by government misconduct. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on judicial system corruption and repairing criminal justice.
I learned to garden in Rhode Island’s Maximum Security prison, which I entered as an 18-year-old kid. I was serving two consecutive life sentences for a gang-related murder I committed at 17, and I was struggling to fully grasp the possibility that I would die in prison while holding onto hope that I wouldn’t. The guys in the crew and I loved that 50- by 20-foot garden, which was fenced off in a corner behind the old gym that was set ablaze decades ago in a riot. At first, it was watering, weeding, trying to figure out how to smuggle strawberries back to the cell block, and learning the science of the soil from a teacher we called Dr. Dirt. Then, the garden became a lifeline for us. When spring came, we could finally see the new life we helped take root. Each sprout was a quiet victory, and each harvest was a reminder that, even in unexpected places, growth was possible. After 23 winters behind bars. I was released under the Youthful Offender Act, which is also known as Mario’s Law, because it was inspired by my case. This legislation allows people who received long sentences for crimes they committed as children the opportunity to apply for parole after serving 20 years in prison. Going into prison as a kid was not what I needed. It did not teach me about remorse, accountability, trauma or my potential. I had very little access to programming or education. Prison would have kept me dormant if it weren’t for the gardeners in my life who wouldn’t leave me in a drought.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on prison corruption and repairing criminal justice.
America talks about recidivism as if it were a mystery. It isn’t. It is a predictable outcome of how we run prisons. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics has tracked what happens after release for decades. In a 10-year follow-up of people released from state prison, about two-thirds were arrested again within three years, and more than eight in ten within 10 years. A newer national analysis still showed roughly six in ten rearrested within three years. That is not just a series of bad individual choices — rather, it is a system producing a revolving door. Other countries have demonstrated a different way to operate secure prisons — one that changes outcomes without weakening accountability or surrendering public control. Over the past year, I have toured facilities and spoken directly with leaders connected to the only nonprofit prison systems operating at scale internationally. They share one defining feature: rehabilitation is treated as a core operational mission, not a secondary program. The question is not government prisons versus private prisons. It is whether correctional systems are designed to reward safety, stability and successful reentry, or whether they default to capacity management and crisis response. Nonprofit operators differ fundamentally from both traditional government bureaucracy and for-profit incarceration. There are no shareholders, no pressure to pay dividends, no incentives to keep beds full. Success is measured by what happens after release.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on prison system corruption and inspiring articles on prison system reform.
In Montana, a focus on restorative justice is reducing juvenile recidivism through a nonprofit program that engages them, rather than punishes them. The nonprofit believes that it’s actually far more challenging for juvenile offenders to look their victims in the eye and explain why they behaved antisocially than it is to simply serve a suspension from school, where they’re distanced from friends and mentors, and often fall behind in their education. The Center for Restorative Youth Justice (CRYJ), is not a new organization, but their influence in Montana is growing. CRYJ receives referrals from Youth Court probation officers, school administrators, or school resource officers made on behalf of a juvenile offender who’s broken the law. CRYJ then has a conference with the youth and their parent or guardian, and creates a tailormade program of restorative justice. This can involve peer group discussion, victim-offender meetings, and other situations where the youth is given the forum to reestablish a relationship with the community, rather than something like a school suspension. CRYJ believes that by limiting the overuse of exclusionary discipline and emphasizing a community-driven approach, it can help at-risk youth avoid falling behind in school. We spend a lot of time separating people after there’s been harm, but often the deepest healing and learning and moving forward can happen ... when we can actually come together and talk about what happened and how to make things right.
Note: Read more about the powerful work of restorative justice. Explore more positive stories like this on repairing criminal justice.
In the misty hills of southern Haiti, the town of Beaumont sits on a fault line of tension. Yet in this uncertain landscape, a quiet movement has been unfolding, one led not by international nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) or government officials, but by local mediators who believe that peace must begin with conversation. Their work, modest in scale but profound in effect, is helping rebuild what years of unrest have eroded: people’s belief in one another. At the heart of this effort is Médiation Lakay (“community-based mediation”), a grassroots initiative reflecting the work of local community leaders in Haiti who mediate disputes over land and resources. Elders, local officials, and church figures convene to discuss disputes before they escalate. Rather than waiting for formal judicial intervention, these mediators facilitate dialogue between families, helping them reach agreements and restore communication. “It’s not about who wins,” says Wilfrid, a local Haitian pastor. “It’s about whether both sides can share a plate of rice after.” The process blends traditional dispute resolution with restorative justice principles, an exchange of listening, acknowledgment, and reparative action. Disputes that might have lasted years are often resolved in weeks. The team keeps no written records, to preserve confidentiality and community trust. By focusing on rebuilding relationships rather than assigning blame, Médiation Lakay is gradually reweaving the social fabric that conflict had torn apart. “People came to understand that fear had made them cruel,” [school teacher] Josette says. Beyond conflict resolution, the group’s meetings have become spaces for collective healing, where villagers discuss shared trauma from past hurricanes or lost livelihoods. By focusing on rebuilding relationships rather than assigning blame, Médiation Lakay is gradually reweaving the social fabric that conflict had torn apart.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive healing social division and repairing criminal justice.
My journey into healing began 10 years later when an envelope containing a greeting card slid beneath my cell door at Florida State Prison. Inside was a card embossed with a dove carrying an olive branch—an image that would come to symbolize restorative justice in my life. “I’ve been thinking about you over the years,” it read. I stared at her handwriting, confused. When I wrote back, she revealed, “You killed my daughter and grandson.” That sat me down. The impact of what I’d done suddenly became tangible. I wept—for Pat, for Chris, for Agnes. We began exploring the shades and textures of the tragedy that connected us. Our relationship became a living example of restorative justice—pouring our spirits out like wine into each other’s hearts. On the morning of our meeting, I walked alone across the compound toward the visiting park. My heart raced as I prepared to meet the woman whose life I had shattered. Inside the visitation booth, I waited, unsure. When Agnes entered—small, strong, radiant—her presence filled the room. We had already done the hard work through years of letters and calls. This meeting was about connection, remembrance, and honoring the restorative justice we’d built. Agnes pressed her palm to mine through the glass. Her eyes met mine. I broke down. “I’m sorry,” I cried again and again. “I forgive you,” she said softly. “And I love you.” That moment—her smile through tears—was the purest expression of restorative justice I have ever witnessed.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive human interest stories and repairing criminal justice.
After a decade behind bars, it wasn’t the fields that stretched for kilometers around him that struck Nicolas when he first set foot on the farm. It was the smell. “I’ve been through six different jails and they all reeked. But you get used to it and forget it ever smelled bad — until you get out. Here, you can breathe in and out fully,” he says, gesturing to the light-stone buildings and tractor parked in the courtyard. Located in Coucy-le-Château-Auffrique, a small village in the north of France, the Moyembrie farm hosts inmates through a detention program run by a small nonprofit. Along with nine others, Nicolas came to spend the last stretch of his sentence beyond prison walls. At Moyembrie, time is served differently. There are no bars, no cells, and inmates can go into town during their time off. All staff are social workers directly employed by the farm — the first facility of its kind to receive a contract from the Ministry of Justice to host inmates. Residents work four hours each morning. They tend to vegetable plots, lead goats from the barn to the field, or cook meals shared in the common room. All inmates at the farm are able to pursue classes and training programs. Some are even run on-site by volunteers, like lessons for the driver’s license written exam. Nicolas, who has never had his driver’s licence, attends these every week, hoping it will help him secure a job. Over half of the inmates who go there are working or in training three months after release and all leave with stable accommodation.
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The aviary has a narrow duck pond in the back and a plywood square painted with the portrait of a coyote hanging on the front door. Inside, 71-year-old Willie H. uses plastic tweezers to feed moistened dog food pellets to juvenile robins through the bars of their cage. Like every day, he does this with his pet cockatiel, Bird, on his shoulder. The makeshift aviary he’s spent the past 20 years working in is within the confines of the Marion Correctional Institution, where he’s serving a potential life sentence. The Ohio Wildlife Center has been sending injured and orphaned wildlife to Marion for rehabilitation since the 1990s. According to Brittany Jordan, the center’s wildlife rehabilitation operational director, these behind-bars rehab centers are now in five prisons across the state, and more institutions are joining the program as a way to help both the inmates and the animals. Willie ... was one of the first inmates to participate in the program, which has rehabilitated and released thousands of animals that required extra care after being treated at the Ohio Wildlife Center’s hospital in Columbus. The inmates volunteer as caretakers and learn how to handle, feed and administer medication to a wide range of species—from barn swallows to opossums. While the Prison Program benefits wildlife ... it also rewards inmates with new skills, routine and purpose. They tend to stay out of trouble, away from substance abuse, and have an increased interest to learn more about the animals they care for.
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The chapel of San Quentin prison was abuzz as more than 100 incarcerated men and their friends and families took their seats. A banner with large orange lettering hanging at the front read “Arms Down: Teaching there are options between the first and second amendment”, and the mood was festive, with the men hugging their spouses, parents and siblings. Arms Down is a “mutual help group for firearm offenders”, meant to help incarcerated people understand the reasons that they carried and used guns. Understanding will lead to healing, the program’s creators hope, and insights the men gain in the program will travel beyond the prison’s walls and help reduce violence in the free world. “This is an opportunity you have to give back to your community. We’re the untapped resource,” said Jemain Hunter, the program’s founder. “People are scared because they don’t understand what we’re doing as gun offenders – as far as rehabilitation goes – to come out and not commit these sorts of crimes again.” “I’m just trying to make sure people don’t end up like me,” he continued. The sessions, many of the participants said, allowed them to talk about the shame and regret they feel over their offenses, and connect the dots between the violence they witnessed in their youth and the harm they have caused others. Word about Arms Down has spread to other California prisons, which Hunter hopes can introduce other incarcerated people to a new way of thinking about their crimes.
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In 2021, Kristen Magnuson had to make a secret deal to continue a staple of her daily routine: swimming at her local outdoor pool. During the pandemic, the state of Washington required a vaccine passport to gain access to public spaces such as restaurants, movie theaters, and gyms. Ms. Magnuson chose not to get vaccinated. So the mother of two made a covert arrangement with gym staff. She could bypass the lobby by sneaking in through a back door. Ms. Magnuson was grateful, but she felt like a second-class citizen. Now she has a plea: Can we talk about what we went through? She isn’t opposed to vaccines – her husband and children got them. She and others are asking: What would America do differently if the country could have a do-over, or faced a similar challenge in the future? Ms. Magnuson ... isn’t ready to absolve top officials until they show “a recognition of harms.” “I was surprised when some politicians and doctors said that those who remain unvaccinated should not be treated if they fall ill. People were not ‘bad’ or ‘COVidiots’ if they contracted COVID-19; they were human,” [Dr. Monica] Gandhi wrote. “There is absolutely no place for stigma, judgment, and a shame-based approach in public health.” The former NIH director [Dr. Francis Collins] proposed, instead, a reckoning modeled on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the aftermath of apartheid. “That means people coming forward and confessing what they did that was harmful in public and asking for forgiveness,” said Dr. Collins, who was appointed by President Obama and served as a science adviser to Biden. “That’s very different than just amnesty.”
Note: Read NIH director Jay Bhattacharya's powerful call for forgiveness despite being cancelled for having dissenting views on COVID policies. Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division.
Over the course of a week, officials from Massachusetts, North Dakota and Oklahoma toured four German prisons where inmates wore street clothes, maintained their right to vote, cooked their own meals, played in soccer leagues and learned skills like animal husbandry and carpentry. One, called the Open Prison, allowed residents to come and go for work, school and errands. [German] prisons must provide single-occupancy cells at least 10 square meters in size. Many have kitchens where residents may cook their own meals. In the United States, privacy, time outside of cells and family visits are considered risky, and “over-familiarity” between correction officers and inmates is prohibited. German prisons take the opposite approach, known as dynamic security. Correction officers are expected to develop relationships with inmates and know when problems may arise. Yvonne Gade, a correction officer in a ward that houses a small number of prisoners deemed particularly dangerous, shrugged off concerns about their access to a gym with free weights. “It would be a huge potential for violence if you locked them up all the time,” she said. A growing number of American states are looking abroad for ideas that can be adapted to their state prison systems. California, Arizona and Oklahoma’s prison systems have shifted their focus to rehabilitation rather than punishment. In 2022, Pennsylvania opened a unit known as Little Scandinavia, and last year Missouri began a similar transformation project in four prisons. Six other states have established European-style units for younger prisoners. The efforts are still small. Prison conditions are not a priority for voters. U.S. prisons are in crisis, struggling with severe staffing shortages, crumbling facilities and frequent violence. Inmates in U.S. prisons often endure extreme temperatures, vermin-infested food and years, or even decades, in solitary confinement. High-profile cases have brought attention to prolonged shackling, fatal beatings and sexual abuse.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on prison system corruption and inspiring articles on prison system reform.
On July 7, 2022, days after Chad LaVia was freed from a year of incarceration at the jail in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, the county sent him a bill for $14,320 in “room and board” fees — $40 for each of the 358 days he’d spent inside. The invoice also reminded LaVia that he owed another $2,751.46 in fees from previous jail stints there, which brought his total debt to just over $17,000. LaVia had only two months to pay off the debt, the invoice warned, until it would be turned over to a collection agency. In September, Dauphin County’s commissioners voted to forgive the nearly $66 million in pay-to-stay debt looming over formerly incarcerated people and their families. The move, championed by a commissioner who won in 2023 after running on jail reform, followed a 2022 decision by the commission that ended pay-to-stay fees but had not erased people’s previous debts for jail stays. LaVia Jones said the decision to finally forgive the outstanding jail debt will help her son move on with his life, calling it “a huge relief.” “The longer you sat in jail, the more debt you incurred, the more debt your family incurred. People sit there pretrial for one year, two years. It’s so wrong,” she said. “So this really helps him to move on with his life.” Local groups ... argued for years that the pay-to-stay scheme worked against efforts at successful re-entry for people released from jail, who are typically poor and who are almost always more concerned with basic survival and staying free than with settling debts.
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Oregon has for years struggled with a drug crisis, reporting one of the highest rates of substance use disorders in the US and ranking last in the nation for access to treatment. The problem is systemic, rooted in decades of failure to invest in the level of behavioral health services needed for people with mental illnesses and addiction. The Pacific north-west state’s significant affordable housing shortage has compounded the challenges, as people languish on the streets without care. On 12 November 2024, Cameron Washam, 45, was lying on the street by Portland’s Union Station, on the brink of death. He and his wife, Christina Bell, 47, had long struggled with homelessness and addiction. Workers from a Portland street outreach initiative coordinated by the Mental Health and Addiction Association of Oregon (MHAAO), a non-profit dedicated to peer recovery services, approached and offered help, saying they could immediately take them to a detox program. They entered detox, Washam got emergency surgery for his infection, and after eight days, they were placed in an outpatient program, then a sober recovery home. The outreach effort [is] called the Provider-Police Joint Connection Program. Since its launch, the program has connected 1,005 people to services, including 651 who received access to programs on the same day outreach teams met them and 159 who got into detox and treatment.
Note: Explore more positive stories on healing our bodies and repairing criminal justice.
Tina imagined the sound of Ira’s key in the door, and then she realized she would never hear that sound again. It had all been stolen from her. Someone would have to pay the price. “Whoever killed my son,” she said, “they were gonna get it.” In the days after Ira’s death, there were other things besides retribution to keep Tina busy. Tina had wondered for a while about $50 that disappeared from her bank account. Then a woman approached Tina at a vigil for Ira and told her a story. Her boyfriend had been beating her, and Ira found out, and he gave her $50 for a bus ticket so she could get out of town. Turned out he had his own little ministry. And Tina continued that ministry: listening to Ira’s friends, having them over for lunch or dinner, occasionally giving someone a place to crash. She thought less and less about revenge. That December, a grand jury indicted two men for the murder of Ira Hopkins. On October 27, 2017, following guilty pleas, [Jy’Aire Smith-Pennick] appeared in court for his sentencing. Almost seven years passed from Jy’Aire’s sentencing until the day Tina saw him in person again. “I’m in prison for participating in a murder,” he would later say. “And the mother of this man is here, present, on behalf of me, watching me receive my degree.” When Jy’Aire gets out, he plans to study sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. He and Tina will work together on the IRA Foundation, teaching at-risk kids that there are better options than drugs and violence.
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For 13 years, the Brazilian government has offered its incarcerated citizens a simple deal: read a book, serve less time. This “Remission for Reading” program is now serving as a template to other nations, and prison populations are enjoying similar deals in countries such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. With a recidivism rate of more than 80% and the 15th highest imprisonment rate on the planet, the Brazilian criminal justice system was for decades failing its 1984 mandate which states that prisoners must have access to programs that will help prepare them to reenter society. Remission for Reading works by offering all Brazilian prisoners regardless of literacy skill or mental faculties access to the prison library, which includes books in Braille and audiobooks for those with poor eyesight. Once a book is checked out, the inmate has 21 to 30 days depending on the page count to finish it, and then 10 days to complete a written book report to demonstrate their knowledge of the text. Assistance is offered to those who speak different languages or who are intellectually impaired. For each report, the prisoner’s sentence is commuted by 4 days. An inmate can submit up to 12 reviews per year, which if maxed out equates to 48 days of commuted sentence. According to a study conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion and Statistics, Brazilian prisoners read nine times more than the national average of five books per year.
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Between 2000 and 2020, the number of young people incarcerated in the United States declined by an astonishing 77 percent. The number of young people behind bars increased steadily in the 1970s and 1980s and then rose more sharply in the 1990s. In the last two years for which we have data, 2021 and 2022, the number of incarcerated juveniles rose 10 percent. But even factoring in that increase, the country locked up 75 percent fewer juveniles in 2022 than it did in 2000. With fewer juveniles behind bars, many states have shuttered youth facilities. Today America has 58 percent fewer of them than it did in 2000. Beginning in 2008, New York State closed 26 juvenile jails; over the next 12 years, juvenile crime in the state declined 86 percent. [Susan Burke, director of Utah’s juvenile justice system from 2011 to 2018] sees it similarly: “When judges worried that crime would go up if we closed the assessment centers, I could show them data that it was already dropping. Then I could go back and show them data a year later that it was still declining. At that point, what could they say?” Exposé after exposé piled up to prove to the public what many insiders already knew: The biggest recidivists in the system were the institutions. In early 2004, a series of expert reports documented rampant violence and cruelty. Custom-built individual cages where youth deemed violent received their school lessons. Video footage from a facility in Stockton showed counselors kneeling on the backs and necks of prisoners, beating and kicking the motionless young people. Six months later, The San Jose Mercury News published a multipart exposé revealing that youth were regularly tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed and forced into solitary confinement.
Note: Read the research that proves juvenile incarceration does not reduce criminal behavior. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on prison system corruption and inspiring stories on repairing our criminal justice system.
Mr. Brian Hance is urgently attempting to get the police to investigate what he says is an organized international bicycle smuggling ring depriving hundreds of Americans of their high-end bikes. The police in counties like Sonoma, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz didn’t listen to him. “We’re not Interpol” they would say. Mr. Hance took up the charge himself, putting together dossiers of evidence on a one-man mission to prevent bike theft in America. Submitting them to various district attorneys, he watched as several key cogs in a giant machine of sophisticated bike theft and smuggling were dismantled. Hance runs Bike Index, a website where bike owners can register their bikes with serial numbers and photos to help ensure that if they’re ever stolen, there’s a community of people who may be able to help find it. There are 1.3 million bikes on the site. In the spring of 2020, scores of high-end bikes began appearing as missing on Bike Index, and Hance began seeing pictures on Facebook and Instagram of bikes for sale that matched the descriptions of those listed as stolen. Hance urged theft victims to report the crime in as detailed a way as possible to build a case file, and then ask the police to contact him so he could explain what he had stumbled upon. Finally, a major development occurred when the Attorney General’s office of Colorado indicted eight people on 227 counts of theft, including 29 bike shop burglaries. All eight pled guilty.
Note: Read about Iceland’s "bike whisperer," the man who finds stolen bicycles and helps thieves change. Explore more positive stories like this about repairing criminal justice.
Many sweeping attempts to reform policing have faltered. But one proposal that has taken hold across the country, and continues to spread, is launching alternative first response units that send unarmed civilians, instead of armed officers, to some emergencies. In Dayton, Ohio, trained mediators are dispatched to neighbor disputes and trespassing calls. In Los Angeles, outreach workers who have lived through homelessness, incarceration or addiction respond to 911 calls concerning people living on the street. In Anchorage, Alaska, trained clinicians and paramedics are showing up to mental health crises. Researchers have tracked over 100 alternative crisis response units operating across the U.S. Some distinguish between mobile crisis teams, which exclusively send clinicians to mental health emergencies, and community responder programs, which send civilians to a wider range of calls. The key tenets are that they can be the first response to an emergency situation and that they arrive without armed officers. There have been no known major injuries of any community responder on the job. Eventually, a large portion of current police work could be handed off to alternative responders. A 2020 review of 911 calls ... estimates that up to 68% of calls “could be handled without sending an armed officer,” according to a report by the Center for American Progress and the Law Enforcement Action Partnership.
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Latin America is the world’s most dangerous region due to cartel and gang violence. It has 9% of the global population but one-third of the world’s homicides. Kidnapping and extortion are on the rise. The trend is driving a turn toward increasingly militarized solutions. El Salvador, for example, has incarcerated some 75,000 people – nearly 2% of its population – in recent years on suspicion of being involved in gangs. In Colombia, by contrast, exchanging the threat of arrest for dialogue is a key part of the government’s painstaking strategy of negotiating peace simultaneously with some 20 armed factions to end 60 years of conflict. That process, known as Paz Total (“total peace”) and launched less than two years ago by President Gustavo Petro, has been marked by reversals and unintended effects. But a key distinction lies in its emphasis on both empathy and the rule of law. The strategy’s first example of “restorative incarceration,” launched earlier this month, shows how. In exchange for admitting guilt for violent acts and seeking forgiveness from victims and the families, 48 military and former guerrilla leaders are now serving “sentences” by planting trees and helping heal the communities they once dominated through fear. “We’re going to sow life to try to make amends and build peace,” [said] Henry Torres, a former army general. As Colombia’s new attorney general put it, “our mission will be ... a mission for the dignity and well-being of our people.” Peace requires patience, said Juan Manuel Santos, a former president who negotiated a 2016 peace accord with Colombia’s main guerrilla faction that still serves as a template for Mr. Petro’s broader peace plan. “You need to convince, to persuade, to change people’s sentiments, to teach them how to forgive, how to reconcile,” he told The Harvard Gazette.
Note: A prison in Brazil with low recidivism rates uses a humane approach, where there are no armed guards and inmates have the keys to their own cells. Explore more positive stories like this about repairing criminal justice.
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