Restorative Justice Initiative Added to Drug Court
Professor Lang and Judge Aloi participate in a role play of a Restorative Justice Dialogue.
Restorative justice has found another home in West Virginia! In April 2022, the West Virginia Bar Foundation funded a Restorative Justice Initiative in the Federal Court in the Northern District of West Virginia. The purpose of the grant was to provide the opportunity for participants in that Drug Court to engage in a Restorative Justice Dialogue. Recall from my prior posts that restorative justice is another way to look at wrongdoing. Rather than focusing on punishment, restorative justice focuses on harm and how to make things right. Participants in the drug court program had articulated a need to have help in reaching out to those they had harmed to try to make things right.
This initiative began when Judge Michael John Aloi approached me about this issue in the summer of 2021. Judge Aloi is a judge in the Northern District of West Virginia in Clarksburg, where he presides over the Drug Court. He established the state’s first adult Drug Court in Marion County as a judge for the West Virginia 16th Judicial Circuit.
Fortunately, I was able to recruit two other professionals devoted to strengthening our communities as part of creating opportunities for recovery and healing for the members of our communities.
Professor Kenneth Lang is an associate professor at Glenville State University. He is a retired 25-year law enforcement veteran from the Baltimore County Police Department. Marti Steiner Unger is the Executive Director of GRaCE (Greater Recovery and Community Empowerment). The program matches trained volunteer recovery coaches with people to become the best versions of themselves by removing barriers and obstacles to change and empowering those seeking support and resources to improve themselves.
We held our first training for the restorative justice facilitators on June 29, 2022, for 90 minutes, with about twenty participants. The primary objective was to provide an overview of restorative justice so that participants could be more fully engaged in the in-person training.
On July 15-16, we met for the in-person portion of our training as part of the RJ initiative. The training was held at the Clarksburg Baptist Church, which donated the space for our meeting. Twelve trained recovery coaches with Greater Recovery and Community Empowerment attended and participated in the training. I was also happy that two other restorative justice advocates in West Virginia, attorney Emily Neely and Sister Rose Hefner, assisted in small group facilitation.
Professor Lang and Sister Rose Ann Hefner participate in a talking circle.
We finished up with an online session on August 20 and September 13, reviewing the referral process and conducting further dialogue facilitation role plays.
The initial feedback from the participants was excellent.
One participant said, “This training was extremely enlightening, and it has given me so much hope for our country.”
“And I wanted to say thank you so very much for including me in this training. I am looking forward to using this in Morgantown and seeing the difference it makes.
My hope is it roots itself so deeply and touches the lives of many!”
We began receiving referrals last month and the process to prepare for and facilitate a few restorative justice dialogues is underway. In addition, we are exploring other areas of the state where a restorative component may complement the drug court.