Lynette Parker

Rehabilitation is everyone’s responsibility

by Lynette Parker Recently, I watched a Vimeo video about the reform of the Solomon Islands Correctional Services. It starts with an individual describing his crime and how the local traditional justice would’ve responded with banishment. The current system wasn’t very different; the banishment happened with a prison sentence. From that point, different officials and community volunteers describe a process of shifting the system culture from punitive to rehabilitative. It’s a shift that focuses on needs and relationships.

Considering consequences

by Lynette Parker I enjoy restorative conferencing. I've been awed by the way people share their hearts and address the harms they've caused or experienced. While not everyone will go into a conference, I like offering an opportunity. I've learned that I can serve just by listening to stories when people aren't interested in the conference process. They are interested in someone who will listen to them.

Considering consequences

by Lynette Parker I enjoy restorative conferencing. I've been awed by the way people share their hearts and address the harms they've caused or experienced. While not everyone will go into a conference, I like offering an opportunity. I've learned that I can serve just by listening to stories when people aren't interested in the conference process. They are interested in someone who will listen to them.

Grace, forgiveness, justice

by Lynette Parker Recently, we posted an article reviewing the book The collapse of American Criminal Justice. I found a comment to the article posted on the Restorative Justice Online Facebook page to be very interesting: “I find it interesting that Protestant America, who supposedly believes in free grace and forgiveness, are the first to espouse punishment for its own sake.”

Can I cry?

by Lynette Parker I have a confession to make. I cry at the drop of a hat. Movies, television shows, commercials, stories – it doesn’t matter. I can be in tears in 0.2 seconds. So, it may be a surprise to folks that know me to learn that I don’t cry when I’m facilitating. I’m tempted at times, but I haven’t actually shed tears during a conference. I’ve been thinking about this recently after a training event in Panama where several Prison Fellowship leaders were talking about facilitating the Sycamore Tree Project®. The training had been intense with personal stories and a lot of tears. In the middle of all the sharing, one of the leaders asked if it was okay for the facilitator to cry.

I’m not into remorse

by Lynette Parker Lots of people will ask me about offenders feeling remorse when they go through a restorative conference. Trainee facilitators will ask whether or not I thought a client showed remorse during a pre-conference. People curious about the process will ask if those who have committed crime actually show remorse. The most difficult conversations occur when I talk to a victim of crime about participating. They may ask if the offender has shown remorse in my meetings with him/her.

Justice? What about understanding?

by Lynette Parker Scrolling through RSS feeds I saw a link for, “After driving on sidewalk to pass school bus, woman must wear ‘idiot’ sign.” I admit clicking the link to see what it was about. The first line quotes someone as declaring, “Justice has been served!” before going into how a woman had driven on a sidewalk to get around a parked school bus with children on it. The penalty was to stand near the scene of the incident wearing a sign that says, “Only an idiot would drive on the sidewalk to avoid the school bus.” She will also pay a $250 fine.

Review: The Final Gift: A documentary film

Reviewed by Lynette Parker The Final Gift-- A Documentary Film offers an intimate look into one woman’s journey of healing following the violent death of her brother. Therese Bartholemew’s brother, Steve, died after being shot in an altercation at a club. This film results from her attempt to understand what happened and its impact on their family. It chronicles their emotions and responses from receiving the first phone call to the sentencing to Therese’s meeting with the offender.

A need to talk

by Lynette Parker “He never talked to us and we were friends.” I recently heard this statement several times from a couple whose teenage son was killed in a vehicular accident. The “he” they referred to was the driver of the vehicle who had been their neighbour at the time. Throughout the hour long preconference, they continually repeated their hurt and disappointment that the offender had not offered condolences or talked to them since the accident. That lack of communication just seemed to weigh on this couple as they struggled with their grief.

Releasing control

by Lynette Parker As a facilitator, I occasionally face situations that give me pause. Do I really want to facilitate this case? Am I competent to facilitate such a case? There are times I walk into the situation with real concerns and doubts, but simply have to trust the process.

It could be different…

by Lynette Parker Recently, I’ve been working with a colleague in Liberia on issues related to pre-trial detention. In his country, as much as 85% of the prison population is awaiting trial. My colleague would like to see this change.

So, what's the punishment?

by Lynette Parker I have several RSS feeds related to restorative justice, prison reform, and criminal justice. Usually, the headlines speak of unsafe prison conditions and the need for governments to make real changes to criminal justice policy. The articles highlight the problems created by prison crowding that results from an over-reliance on incarceration and pre-trial detention. High levels of recidivism and the lack of rehabilitative programming for prisoners are decried.

Christian critiques of the penal system

from the article by L. Lynette Parker in Baylor's Christian Reflections issue on Prison: ....While approaching the issues from different theological and philosophical traditions, the above authors nevertheless agree on the problems with contemporary criminal justice and together begin to trace the outlines of a solution. The problems: institutional forces benefit from a destructive status quo; the public view of prisoners makes citizens indifferent to their plight; and an emphasis on individual responsibility fails to take seriously the systemic injustice that prisoners face. The solutions: remember that prisoners, too, are made in the image of God; address the systemic causes of crime; and learn to love the people touched by crime.

Restorative justice and coercion

by Lynette Parker: Recently, I had a brief Twitter conversation with HMP_Chaplain about restorative justice and coercion. HMP_Chaplain commented on a statement by a Sycamore Tree Project facilitator in England and Wales that “if they make RJ compulsory she will pull out. I responded in a couple of Tweets: “Can understand...voluntariness is essential in RJ. Coercion can stand in the way of dialogue but doesn’t have to.” “Also RJ is more than a process its a way of thinking that can inform all interactions with offenders.”

Apology letters

by Lynette Parker As I was browsing through Twitter feeds I saw a comment about an offensive apology letter. Of course I clicked the link to read the letter. I had to agree with Victim Support UK; the letter was offensive and disrespectful. I also agreed with the Twitter comment from Why Me?, “The problem with That Letter is there was no preparation first.”

Alternatives for juveniles in Bulgaria

by Lynette Parker Recently I provided restorative conferencing training for Prison Fellowship Bulgaria (PF Bulgaria) and several of its partner agencies. The twenty participants represented different public and non-governmental organisations including the Department for Child Protection, the Anti-bullying Commission of Vratsa, the Cultural Centre of Vratsa, the Probation Department, Caritas- Ruse and PF Bulgaria. They are all part of a new juvenile justice initiative being led by PF Bulgaria and Caritas-Ruse to introduce alternatives for working with at-risk youth. The project, “Active communities in the prevention of the institutionalisation of children and juvenile offenders,” offers several services for young people coming from difficult home situations and for those who have committed crime. It is being implemented in the Bulgarian cities of Vratsa and Ruse.

Helping the community, building connections

by Lynette Parker Recently, we shared the article “Give prisoners the chance to help the community” by Erwin James in which he describes prison as consisting of “enforced idleness” and working to “create model prisoners instead of model citizens.” Erwin describes the benefits of programmes allowing prisoners to do something for the community. Referring to his own participation in a Braille unit when incarcerated for murder, Erwin says, “...it was the first time in our lives that we had experienced the satisfaction that can be gained from helping other people.” I thought about Erwin’s article as I read about prisoners making trauma bears in the Australian state of Victoria. The programme – a partnership between Prison Fellowship Australia and the prisons – teaches prisoners how to sew and stuff the soft toys that are provided to emergency service personnel to use to comfort children experiencing an illness or injury and given to disadvantages children in the community. The prisoners may also pay for the materials to make a soft toy for a loved one. Programme volunteers describe the paradox of watching the men who have caused harm work to create the soft toys. As described in the article, “Masculine hands clenched tight ready to harm or reaching out to thieve and finally bound for prison now develop something creative and productive that brings joy to traumatised children and their loved ones.”

A scary, but exciting prospect

by Lynette Parker Recently, I was in the Bahamas to conduct a training seminar on the Sycamore Tree Project® for Prison Fellowship Bahamas. A diverse group of people including prison officers, volunteers, and police officers gathered to learn about this in-prison restorative justice programme. Through the day and half of training two emotions stood out: fear and excitement. For many, especially the prison officers, the idea of bringing victims into prison to meet face-to-face with prisoners (but not their own offenders) was novel and a bit overwhelming. Although the programme has a positive track record in close to twenty countries, the training participants still had serious concerns about how this would work. For one thing, how do you handle victim anger? Why would victims want to go into prison? Isn’t this just setting up an explosive situation?

Storytelling: Simple but profound

by Lynette Parker I hesitate to write about storytelling and restorative justice as a lot of people have written about the profound impact of this form of communication. A quick search for the term “storytelling” on Restorative Justice Online returns 29 different entries by people such as Kris Miner and Kay Pranis. Yet, I’ve recently been reminded of how important storytelling can be not only in communication but for an individual processing through pain and loss. I remember talking with a woman who had lost her son in an automobile accident that involved drunk driving. She expressed a series of emotions ranging from grief to anger to denial. In telling me about the impact of her son’s death, she also described her anger and frustration with the criminal justice system in that her family was denied an opportunity to tell their story. She summed up all this in saying that they deserved the right to have the conference with the young man who had been driving that day. They deserved to be able to tell him how profoundly that one night had changed their lives.

I’ve hit my emotional limit

by Lynette Parker As a restorative conferencing facilitator, I often receive the brunt of a lot of strong emotions. This happens most when I’m making first contacts with individuals are in the preconference interviews. I can’t count the number of times I’ve called a victim to introduce the programme to receive a twenty minute monologue covering everything from the pain of the crime to their frustrations with the criminal justice systems to questions about how to move ahead. These emotions are very real and the person expressing them needs to be able to do that. Just recently, I was the recipient of such victim from the daughter of a crime victim. At one point she apologised for dumping her anger and frustration on me as I was only doing my job. I quickly responded that it was okay, that was part of my job. And, quite frankly, it is a part of the work. Even in what might seem to us to be “minor” crimes; we can encounter very strong emotions from those we are serving. This makes facilitator self-care very important.