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>> It's now my great pleasure on behalf of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters to
introduce our speakers. You will have an opportunity as well to question them.
mic to be brought to you, just We hope that you'll wait for the
so that again, it can be taped and everyone will be able to
So, Janine Geske, hardly someone hear your questions.
that needs an introduction, distinguished professor of law at Marquette University Law
School and director of the law
school's Restorative Justice Initiative. Janine Geske is a former Supreme
Court justice, served on the
Supreme Court from 1993 to 1998. She must have had very good relationships with her
colleagues, because there are several other justices here tonight as well.
our right. Justice Prosser is up here on
all the justices that have I believe Justice Ann Walsh Bradley is here in front of me. We welcome you and appreciate
joined us here tonight. Thank you. Janine has also received so many
awards and accolades that it's
difficult to know which ones to highlight. She has been honored as one of
the best lawyers in America for her work in alternative dispute resolution, not just once, but
To give you an idea of how year after year.
varied her awards can be, in 2009, she received the Woman of Faith Award from the Sisters of
Divine Savior, the FBI
to the Bar and the ideals of the Director's Community Award, and the Wisconsin Bar Fellows Award for recognition for contribution
American Bar Foundation. For over ten years, she has served as a member of the
faculty of the National Judicial
College of Reno, Nevada. She frequently teaches at judicial legal and community
conferences on mediation and
restorative justice, sentencing, evidence, the courts, spirituality, and work.
She leads retreats and workshops
Bar Foundation, the Wisconsin Bar Foundation, the American life. She is a fellow of the American
College of Civil Trial Mediators and we're proud to say a fellow
of the Wisconsin Academy. Justice Geske also graduated
from Beloit College with a bachelor of arts degree and a
master of arts in teaching and
received her law degree from Marquette University Law School.
one second, after I introduce our second panelist this So, we'll welcome Janine in just
evening, conversationalist Scott Straus.
Scott is the associate professor
of political science and international studies, and
Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. director of the Human Rights
His primary research interests include the study of
genocide, violence, human rights
and African politics. He's the author of the book that I held up earlier, "The Order of
Genocide: Race, Power and War in Rwanda." With Robert Lyons, he's authored
Voices of the Rwandan Genocide." "Intimate Enemy: Images and
He is also co-editor with Lars Waldorf of "Reconstructing Rwanda."
He has published articles related to genocide in a host of prestigious magazines
He's received several grants, including one from the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Henry and journals.
the National Science Foundation, Frank Guggenheim Foundation,
teaching award. He's a graduate of Dartmouth. IProfessor Straus receivede Wihis PhD from the universityed
of California at Berkeley.
So let's welcome these amazing Wisconsin knowledge sharers and we'll have a great conversation
together. Thank you.
Janine Geske: Thank you. ( applause )
It's really a pleasure for me to be here for a number of reasons.
of my friends. First of all, to see a number
restorative justice in My friends from the court and also Jerry Hancock, with whom I do a fair amount of
Columbia Correctional Institute. He's been a good friend for a number of years.
I look forward to this evening. I think it's going to be very interesting.
other. Scott and I do not know each
interesting journey that we We had our ftake.conversation for Asking me to talk aboutrday on trestorative justicebe an
in ten minutes--
( laughs ) Fill in the rest. It's very difficult for me
to do.
So what I thought I'd do that would be helpful is to focus real briefly on the concept of
what it is, and then talk specifically about one of the many uses and processes that we use to help rebuild
relationships and/or to help
repair harm. The concept of restorative
It comes from many, very old justice is not new.
traditions, including Native American, some traditions in the
New Zealand, and a number of Mennonite Church, Maori Tribe in
other tribes and communities. The United States is late in coming to restorative justice.
It's in the UN documents. It's in the EU documents. You see it, it's very, very prevalent in Canada, Australia,
New Zealand.
Europe is using more and more restorative justice. And it's beginning to be used in
African countries.
What is it? It's a philosophical approach to crime or harm.
I'm going to focus on crime for the moment. We all know how our criminal
I never want to badmouth our justice system works.
criminal justice system. It's there for good reason. It's a protection of rights.
It's critical.
it's his or her constitutional We also know that in our system of justice, everything is focused on the offender, because
rights we're protecting. Even Wisconsin reenacted the
giving victims rights, the constitutional amendment for
victim's rights are primarily to know what's happening to the
You know, it's not about them having an independent voice or a offender.
You know, it took me quite a right to anything, other than some compensation in a fund.
while, and actually, even time after I left the court to start talking to survivors and
understand the deep harm that survivors of crime have when the
whole justice system is over, or the fact that they may never
have had it because somebody
Victims talk about this anger, isn't arrested. Victims talk about the system not being there for them.
this rage, depression, all the things that happen to people
particularly in severe violence, who've been victimized,
and really, no process to deal with it.
is to look at harm and crime. It's usually drawn as a triangle. TThere are three points on thee
triangle. The top one is what we call the victim or survivor, if there's
The second one is the community, an individual.
small community and large community. The third is the offender.
When we look at somebody who's
been harmed by crime, if you take a severe crime, take a homicide or a sexual assault, I
talk about the ripple effect. If any of you know somebody who's been a victim of one of those crimes or some other
severe crime, you probably can
name 30 people that were impacted by that crime, whether it's family members, whether
it's parents, whether it's
children, whether it's colleagues. There's a ripple effect.
There's all sorts of harm out there that the justice system never recognizes, but that
important. doesn't mean, you know, it's not
Many, many marriages, after a violent assault, break up. Not recognized by the system.
So that's part of who's harmed
and the harm. When I talk about community, I talk about small community and
large community.
I describe it as you all know that if you have a number of burglaries in your neighborhood
suddenly during the day, and you
don't know the victims, you don't know the houses, that will impact you.
You will act differently. You will make sure the doors are
the dog isn't running loose. locked. If you have a dog, you make sure
You'll be nervous when you see somebody on the street. You've been impacted by those
crimes even though you don't
know those people. In the more global sense, you have children that are abducted
out of their beds at night in California. It's all over the news. There are children all over this
country that are afraid to sleep
in their own beds. That's a ripple effect of those crimes that we generally don't
recognize.
Now, we take the offender, and the offender is always treated
processes, because he or she is the one that made a decision to do something that set this harm into action, and sometimes
devastating action. But there are also all sorts of people around that offender that
are also harmed by his or her choices. we often don't recognize that
There are lots and lots of Parents, children, neighbors, colleagues.
people that are affected by crime. The three questions you ask in
restorative justice are not who did it, do we have the evidence,
The three questions are, who was and what do we do to them after we convict them?
harmed, what was the harm, and what needs to be done to help repair the harm?
The focus is on the harm. There's an accountability piece in there, and we can talk about that later.
But it really is focusing on the
victim and the harm. The piece I'm just going to briefly talk about it, and then
Scott and I will have some
conversation about it, is victim-offender dialogues. That is face-to-face meetings
between a victim and I'm going
to focus on violent crimes, and an offender who's committed that act.
We do those at Marquette Law
They are all victim initiated. School, and a professor at UW also does some at the Madison Law School.
They are family members of homicide victims and sexual assault survivors who make a
request that they want to sit down with the offender. I can tell you, when I was a
this and I thought that was the nuttiest thing, must be some judge somebody told me about
left wing Madison thing, you know, because I can't
imagine it. Actually, Shirley and Ann both
appoint a task force on restorative justice and I said, I don't want anything to do with court that Shirley was going to
Let Ann do it. that.
And she did. So the irony is that I learned
that. There are a number of victims that want to do that. I just want to focus on why that
is. Many survivors of crime, years
and years after the crime, who are still deeply impacted, have
a number of questions.
Why did you do it? If it's a homicide, what were the last seconds of life of my
loved one like? What did she say? Did he struggle?
Now, I often ask victims, what Did he suffer?
if the answer is the worst possible answer.
thing to me, he or she can not And every victim said the same
it is that they've done, and I hurt me anymore than they already have. I've already thought of whatever
just want to know. I want to have that clear in my head.
So then they want to know, you
this crime? Who is this as a human being? What have they been doing since Howthe time of the offense? do
So, it's a long process in
getting ready for these. It can take six months to a year
When we go visit the offender, of prep.
generally in an institution, we explain the process. It's voluntary for him or her.
We don't put anybody into this
They often want to help fix or that doesn't want to do it. But a great number of offenders do.
do something for what they've done, which they know is irreversible harm.
A dialogue is set up. Those dialogues are transformation. They're spiritual, if you have
spiritual base. They are an amazing discussion
course of getting those answers to questions, most offenders and that happens. Because what happens during the
victim suddenly see each other as more human, that there are
more aspects to them than the victim's mother or the offender who did this act, but there's a whole life behind them.
What happens, ultimately in those meetings is that even if, and we're going to talk about the forgiveness word, which
victims call that the F-word, by the way. We're going to talk about that. But that's not necessarily part
of it.
It brings victims and survivors answers, a sense of peace, and often, an ability to slightly
move on.
opportunity to do a little more So I'm jstorytelling.give you oThis is a woman I know fromd then hopefuTexas.ll have an
Her daughter, who had a little
side of the road. girl Many, many years ago.nant, When the little daughter grew up and murdered, and left on the
herself, I think in her late and became a young mother
teens early 20s, she and her grandmother decided that they were going to meet with one of
the offenders.
They wanted answers. They wanted to know what
moments of her daughter's or happened, what was the last
mother's life. You know, how did you get there and all other questions.
The rest of the family thought
that these two women were nuts. They absolutely thought no one should ever talk to this guy.
And the mother said to one of her sons, "Is there anything you
want me to ask him?" And he said, "Well,
actually there is." Seventeen years.
and I've always wondered if her car broke down, and that's the "I was responsible for tuning and fixing up my sister's car,
reason she got abducted. He was walking around with that
in his heart for 17 years.
When the meeting happened, among other things, and it went on for
The one question about did the hours.
car break down, the answer was no. They had been at a gas station,
there was an interchange and she
car. had volunteered to get in the car to help him find something, so it had nothing to do with her
The offender, who was very But as to the last seconds of life, and I'm going to end with this.
limited mentally, looked at them and said, "I'll never forget
She looked at me and said, what she said.
'I forgive you and God will forgive you, as well.'"
As much as you see film, Then she died.
arms, weeping at this answer. The mother said later, it brought her peace to know that kind of fall into each other's
peace when she died. her daughter was in a place of
So I'm going to end with that. You know, we decided because I'm
the global and international-- real specific, and Scott is more
and then after that, we'll have a chance to have a dialogue. ( applause )
Scott Straus: I'm incredibly
honored to have been invited tonight, and incredibly honored to share the stage with Janine.
That was an incredibly moving and powerful story that you just
heard. I can't wait to talk to you.
I'm going to switch gears a little bit and talk about the international realm.
to be addressing is, what is the The big question that I'm going
My research is principally on rolgenocide, on civil warnd accountability in the aftermath of major atrocities.
atrocities in civil war, and so forth.
What has happened over the last 15-20 years since the end of the
system, about the role of accountability mechanisms in Cold War, is there has been a real change in the international
healing and rebuilding after some time of terrible war, after
some type of atrocity.
I'll go through these in a little bit, but there are a number of different
accountability mechanism. You have, at the very highest level, the International
local justice initiatives in Criminal Court, down to very
communities and so forth. Often, people talk about this as transitional justice.
The notion is that justice, or
some type of accountability mechanism is part of a transition from some type of
terrible past with atrocity, to some political order, some
social order, that's better, and that justice and accountability
has a role in helping societies rebuild and heal after these
terrible atrocities. These are incredibly hard and
challenging questions.
I think even at the very local level, Janine just referenced that.
In the context of atrocities in war, you're dealing with huge amounts of suffering, suffering that can affect hundreds of
thousands, sometimes millions of
people, people who've suffered terrible traumas, people who've lost family members.
People whose livelihoods have been destroyed. Infrastructure has been destroyed, often the real
devastation of societies. It's a very difficult question, first of all, how do you try to rebuild the societies that have
been devastated.
accountability play in the And secondly, the more specific question that I'm raising here, what role does justice and
answer to that question. aftermath of these kinds of atrocities. I don't think there's an easy
What my sort of hummable tune, or my point that I want to make is I think that these different
justice mechanisms, which I'll
talk about in a second, are important. They're a step in the right
direction.
There are certainly some positive gains that we can
At the same time, I think that register.
different mechanisms can do. in the international community, anyway, we've tended to over-sell some of what these
The experience over the last decade or so has taught us to be
expectations. I think the second thing that I would underline, and this I athink goes directly to some of
what Janine was saying, is that we should not be presumptuous about what survivors and
people in communities, victims, even perpetrators, or
needs are of communities, rather bystanders, want. That we should invest in asking them and finding out what the
than presuming that we know what those needs are.
of mechanisms? So what are the different forms
I thought I would give you a sense first of what the different mechanisms are, what
the different objectives are
period, I can talk about some wexamples from my own researchn wand my own work in Rwanda. In the discussion and Q&A
today there are many different If you look around the world
Cambodia now, trials going on in forms of accountability mechanisms. You have trials going on in
Rwanda, trials going on in the former Yugoslavia.
there's an end to war, or some There's clearly a trend that if
past of human rights atrocity, the expectation today in the
form of accountability world is that there will be some
mechanism. At the very broadest level, as
International Criminal Court. This is a court that's been in I've said, you have the
It came out of the UN system. It's set up to try the worst existence for about a decade. It's a treaty-based court.
human rights atrocities in the world, genocide, crimes against
humanity, war crimes, and so
forth. They also have ad hoc,
also come out of the UN system, but are focused on particular cases. international tribunals, which
the former Yugoslavia, for You have an ad hoc tribunal for
Rwanda, for Sierra Leone, and now also for Cambodia. You have national trials where
you have governments that, in the aftermath of atrocities,
will set up domestic court processes to hold accountable
former dictators or people who
committed human rights abuses in the past, also very common, was especially common in the Latin
American traditions.
model, where you have a commission that's going to hear testimony from a wide range of This is a less-prosecutorial
perpetrators, sometimes people actors, victims, sometimes
It's seen as very important, the who witnessed various things, that tries to establish a historical record.
model being that if you have some kind of truth, that will help people heal.
Then there is a series of local justice mechanisms, where you have in different communities,
together, sometimes in a you have people trying to get
judicial context, but sometimes not, and trying to come to terms with what happened in the past.
So there's a real range.
I can talk about that and complexify that if you want in the Q&A, and so forth, but there
are a number of different approaches here.
different mechanisms to accomplish? Well, one of the most common What do people expect these
are a deterrent, they're a form of deterrence. claims is that these mechanisms
crime of some sort, the next If you have an accountability mechanism after a human rights
would-be perpetrator is going to think twice if there is an
place. accountability mechanism in
That's sort of a broad claim. The second claim is that these different mechanisms are
critical for reconciliation, for
social repair. That if you have some kind of accountability, you have some
kind of truth, it will help people heal their wounds. It'll help them move past what
That's, I think, another major happened, and so forth.
goal of these different accountability mechanisms. There's also, I think the goal
of ending a culture of impunity.
That is, if you have some kind of accountability, in a way,
that this period where people would commit terrible crimes, commit terrible human rights you're signaling to the country
And that in a way will help rebuild the society in the abuses is over.
thought to build the rule of future. These mechanisms are also
law, to help stabilize countries, to help put them on a
rights abiding future. path to a more democratic, human
down to the idea of building a Those are some of the kind of objectives, broadly speaking. I think they all, in a way, come
helping people, and helping societies move on, reconstruct, and have a better future. Justice and accountability plays
a critical role.
Do these things work? I think the answer to that question is, in some ways, we
don't know. It's oftentimes too soon to tell
whether or not there is true reconciliation and true durable
peace in some of these
communities. It's hard to know whether or not
because you don't know. It's invisible whether or not people who would've committed crimes didn't commit crimes,
because they knew that they would be brought to the book, because it didn't happen. There is some evidence on the
positive side that these
mechanisms of a different sort, in different ways, do help build the rule of law.
They do help countries improve
their overall human rights record. I think that in general, it's an
excellent principle.
But I don't know whether or not it works completely. At the same time, we've also
learned that there are some negative outcomes or negative effects of these different
They have often become highly politicized, and very important to different actors, and in some processes.
rather than helping people ways have deepened conflicts
resolve conflicts. The international tribunals are very remote, sometimes, from
where the atrocities occurred.
They're very foreign. They are formalistic legal procedures.
In some poor countries, where people don't have experience of formal law, it's a little bit foreign.
They don't feel attached to it. It doesn't have the effects that
They're slow sometimes. In the truth and reconciliation process, sometimes these They're expensive.
survivors who want to move on are forced to confront something mechanisms open old wounds, and
that there have been some negative outcomes associated against their will. Anyway, I think we've also seen
So just to kind of conclude, with this big push toward accountability after atrocity.
international politics. But we should be really modest a positive development in international affairs and
negative effects. I think, listening to Janine, really learn from some of these anrestorative justice models,he
which I think actually offer a
really interesting alternative to some of the more formal
describing. Thank you very much. processes that I've just been
Geske: Well, as I've ( applause )
indicated, I thought I would like to have you talk about forgiveness.
I'm just going to put that in the context of what it is that I
crime, forgiveness, first of all do. In talking to survivors of
is an F-word for a number of victims, because people have
forgive, you know, why don't you this expectation if you only
get better. You put it past you. Closure.
All those words.
Victims go "whoa," I'm in a healing process, don't ask me to do something.
So, I find as I work with survivors that word means different things to different people.
For some, it has a religious
connotation. For some, it's letting go of the
I think Desmond Tutu talked about that, withholding that rage and the anger.
other. rage and anger hurts the person who's hurting, as opposed to the
So we have a lot of discussions about it in the field. Victims, many of them, have
this desire to do it, but don't know if they can, or why they should. I'd be interested in what role
it may play in some of the
international or some of the national efforts of trying to get past atrocities or genocide.
Straus: My experience with it is at a much more local level.
burden on the survivors. What I've seen, the emphasis on forgiveness puts a really heavy
family members. BecaTheir property has beeno've oftdestroyed.d. They're the ones who've lost
if you could only forgive the people who did these terrible things, then it's a way of Then people come along and say,
They often, I think rightfully, don't want to forgive. healing, and so forth.
They don't want to forget. It's something that's really
powerful in their own experience. So that's at a very local level.
justice processes that I was Sometimes I think the formal
describing can sometimes interfere, certainly don't help these more emotional and
psychological aspects of
or a formal respect, which I healing, and make it very politicized, also make it about proving guilt in a court of law
with your experience. >> Geske: I want to follow up on these issues. I don't know if that resonates
that for a moment. You know, you talked about
justice in a court. That's another word that has
processes, when they're talking about justice, how is that meaning to a lot of people. When the TRCs or the various
defined? From who's perspective is it
justice?
>> Straus: That's a good question. Again, it varies a lot.
Maybe I used the term a little
bit loosely. I was really referring to, in a way, trials in their more formal
sense of a justice mechanism. >> Geske: But who are those trials serving, I guess?
community, the national community? Is it the international
>> Straus: That's a good question.
And partly what I meant by these
interests of rulers who wanted processes have become politicized is that oftentimes, the trials have served the
to legitimize the people who came before them or their political opponents, so it gets
part of the struggle for who has
power, and who's going to have power.
in Rwanda, where I spent most of I think one thing that I've seen
my time, is that the trials also felt very distant from people's lives.
That is, they didn't, the survivors in particular, would
rule of procedure. have to come and testify. They didn't understand all the
They'd never been in a court of It was inlaw before.stem that feIt wasn't something that wast context.
and so forth. I think that's one thing that I've seen. part of their family history,
question. Who do these serve? I think one criticism of the But I think it's an excellent
failed to stop these terrible atrocities, then they come in afterwards and have a palliative national community has been, it
that make everyone feel better, from their perspective, when in fact the harm is done. tribunal or court case, and does
that. That's a good question. One of the things I wanted to Andask you about as you werewith
talking, and not to put the focus back on offenders, but I
spent a lot of time talking to perpetrators of genocide.
That's in my research.
People often ask me, do perpetrators have remorse? Do they express remorse?
And do they humanize, this
thoughts on that, and your process of healing, will they humanize their victims. I just wonder if you have any
experience with that. >> Geske: It's been my experience, working with
offenders in lots of contexts on
this issue for a long time that many of them have this sort of intellectual sense that, you
know, I killed him on that day, and you know, I took his life.
But he was a bad guy and I'm a bad guy, maybe, so one of us had
to die. But what these processes do is
it humanizes the victim. I'm going to talk about the
offenders in the prison that
I'm using "bad guy" in terms of have tathe offender.nd that thOr the parents, or the othere bad guy's children.
years later, there's still an empty place at the Christmas relatives, or the fact that 20
table, because that person isn't there.
That changes their whole
perspective. There's actually a survivor in
at Columbia. this room that comes and speaks
We have survivors that come and talk to offenders, not their own offenders.
And the offenders are just in awe listening to victims' stories, because no one has ever, in detail, explained
through a caring way, not a judgmental yelling at them way
of all the implications, the depression, the rage, the
changing of the lifestyles that occur.
that they become more human. It is through victims talking and them hearing them, I think,
Then I think they express more remorse.
we've worked with, and I suspect The offenders, at least the ones
it's true on the international front, and I'd be interested in hearing from you, is that they
kind of understand when they
hear victims talking from two standpoints. One, their own victims, but also
their own victimization, you
know. When victims talk about all this trauma, you know, in my own way,
in my own life, I've had that trauma, and it was driven by
question that's a little rage. >> Straus: I have another
related. Listening to you, I wanted to know, in your experience, what
has worked and what hasn't? What have been the encounters that have failed? And why did they fail, versus
the ones that have succeeded? That's a big question.
In terms of the victim-offender dialogues that we do in crimes >> Geske: Yeah, and it can be answered lots of ways.
most. We're so very careful with those of severe violence, we probably only do around ten a year at
I've never had an offender or victim walk out and say, I wish that II'd never done that. ever a failure.
crime, so juvenile offenses and small offenses, where you can do Now, at the lower level of
In those cases, the victim similar kinds of dialogues, there is a lot of research.
satisfaction goes way up if they've had a chance to have that dialogue.
The juveniles get to know them
of the other person. and see them. The Native Americans talk about a realistic assessment of risk
At the high level, it really is just a matter of personal rjourneys, and you know, people are really good.
Most victims that go through impact other people.
that process are very satisfied. Certainly, there's no closure.
But you do get to a point where you feel like you can not be You don't "close" these events.
stuck, and more forward with your life.
One of the things, let me just
look at my notes here. I was going to ask you about the
I suspect, in my limited term reconciliation was used.
So, how is it, what kinds of knowledge, is it's not really a reconciliation, because there never was a relationship.
things are countries or groups trying to do to try to actually have people come together and
understand each other in ways they never have before. >> Straus: One of the things I
is, I think, the term reconciliation has proven to be not a very effective one. It implies that there was a past
that people could go back to, that was hunky-dory, and often
that's not the case. It often does, I think, put the
onus on the survivors who have
in a way, and so forth. I use that term, and that still pis the term that many people the ones that have to reconcile,
learned that that can be a use, but I think we've also
answer that question, I don't think there's a consensus in the ways. But the way in which I would
international realm. But one thing that I have looked
for is a durable peace, or even coexistence.
The possibility. Sometimes maybe repair is too
strong. What people can do after a
someone who killed their family, terrible atrocity, is they're living in the neighborhood of
is live and not expect to be attacked, or live and not expect
poisoned. You know, not waking up in the that their well is going to be
middle of the night and remember what happened and afraid that
it's going to happen again. That, in some ways, is a little bit in my mind less than repair and less than reconciliation.
Maybe just people living
Straus: Right. together at some level. >> Geske: A little bit of reassessing the risk.
>> Geske: What kind of processes work? I know you said you don't know,
but what kind of research is
there that some processes on a local level have had impact in
live? >> Straus: I've often seen that it's the informal mechanisms allowing people to be able to
mechanisms that work. It's the initiative, maybe, of a local religious authority, who gets together families.
Sometimes, it can be outside of a courtroom or outside of a formal process, it can be a perpetrator going to
a survivor and saying,
perverse outcomes where a perpetrator who killed the In Rwanda, you have sometimes these, often to the outsider,
Oftentimes, when I do this, is husband of a widow is helping her rebuild her house.
making sure we listen to the survivors.
community. Listening to the people in the
Sometimes what people want is help harvesting their crops, and planting their seeds, and
weeding their fields, because that's their livelihood.
It used to be that their husband and sons helped them, and they
don't have that labor anymore.
It could be, you know, re-tiling their house or something like that, or re-roofing their house.
You know, really simple.
>> Geske: That kind of repair, or at least move forward. >> Straus: I've often found, and
I don't have the research to
back that up, but in my own observation and experience, it's those more informal processes
that are most effective.
>> Geske: talk about informal processes, a few years ago I gave a talk in Nigeria, and I
was having dinner with a number of dignitaries, and there was this Nigerian woman who had been
She was talking about having an ambassador to Sweden.
come to my talk, and she said, you know, I really thought I was
The ultimate compliment. going to sleep through it.
( laughter ) "But actually, I didn't." And she said, "That was
really interesting."
You know, I'm trying to say, you know, a lot of
African traditions these traditions come from
and tribal traditions. She said well, yeah, you know,
Are you ready for this? She said, there's an American television show that really depicts how my village handles
conflict. And you know, I'm thinking, okay. You know what it was?
Jerry Springer. ( laugher and groans )
there's this explosion I almost fell off my chair. But she said, you know,
( laughter ) and people attack each other, and then there's peace. And I thought--
You know, we can -- these processes, too, to a certain extent.
I always love that story. I thought, okay, next time I'm
trying to think, okay. But it really is interesting.
When I was in Nigeria, I was
helping a priest who was trying to deal with an issue. There had been a young woman in
the parish who had been raped by
another parishioner. There was not going to be a criminal prosecution for
whatever reason.
You know, so I talked to him The whole parish community, which was very large, was divided.
about talking to the young woman and her family as to whether or not they would like to have a
dialogue with the young man who admitted that he did it.
would fly in the United States, I mean, none of this. But you have to decide None of what I'm telling you
the environment. culturally if it works, and in
Anyway, he went through all the processes and he wrote me later. He said it was actually a
wonderful meeting.
She had an opportunity to talk about the devastation to her, the impact on her family and her
father, about the shame, and
and apologized to each one of them, and that that was such a And the young man who was there with his family got on his knees
profound moment. They agreed that he had to stay
away from the parish for six
weeks, which again, in our culture, well, oh, my gosh. But he said that brought peace.
So that's really an example of
listening to the survivor and letting them be able to have a say, and then adapting to the
culture.
>> Straus: Yeah, absolutely. >> Geske: Go ahead. >> Straus: You talked about this
in your opening remarks, but I'm
wondering if there's any pattern to what survivors often want
It sounds like knowledge was one when they have these encounters.
thing. >> Geske: There are lots of different themes depending on
the meeting.
the person who did it and say this is what you've done to my are, one, they really do have a desire to look in the face of
a table and we have an 8x10 picture of the victim sitting on life and my family. In the homicide cases, we sit at
the table. I recently did one, a homicide
by intoxicated user case, that
the autopsy report to the offender, and how her son had Bubled out completely at thet meeting, the mother read from
There was no blood in his body scene.
when he got to the hospital. She also shared pictures of him in the casket, as well as his
baby pictures.
and really deeply understand the To be able to have the offender look at those pictures, sometimes crying, some react,
harm is really, it's a truth and reconciliation in a very
Victims that want to do it often different context.
want that. Sometimes they were 14 when they
they're 28, and they'll say, committed the crime and now
who is this man, and what's he been doing? A lot of them really want to
know that it really did impact
the offender. They'll say, what do you do on the anniversary of the murder,
because I go to the cemetery, what do you do? And it's interesting, because most offenders, murderers will
say I'm very aware of the date. I know it's coming. I don't want to look at the clock, because I know the time.
Just that expression of him recognizing the harm he caused
helps the victim with some healing.
Straus: Fascinating.
The more I listen to you, I wish there was space for these kinds of encounters, let's say
in Rwanda, that I know well,
where it's been so formalized, a lot of the processes, that these
being able to say the things kinds of encounters and people
that they want to say to the face of the perpetrator, or people learning why it is the
perpetrators did what they did, just hasn't happened. I think it's really created an
more informal ways. >> Geske: I really think there obstacle in some ways to these
whether the treaties, or the has to be both. There has to be the national,
agreements, or the major justice processes.
the village and the people in the village. But that won't necessarily help
there's much dialogue between people that do this work and the >> Straus: Right. >> Geske: I don't know that
Straus: I think that's right. One other thing, and I guess people that do the national work.
this may not have come up in your work, but I'm curious if it
did.
When I spent time with perpetrators, and I'm talking about genocide, so you know,
full state apparatus devoted to the extermination of a
perpetrators, people in villages, you know, people who population. But when I'm with low level
killed their neighbors, and this kind of thing, one of the things
that they often say is look, I
made a choice, but it was not my initiative. It came from the top, our
political leaders, and they're
somewhere else and doing just the ones resfine.ble, and now II'm just wondering if that jail, and they are a refugee
up, and degrees of question of hierarchy has come
responsibility. >> Geske: Well, it's not the same context, but many offenders
that you encounter believe that they're the victim. It's not necessarily the victim of being ordered to commit the
crime, although you can have
that in gang activity, but the victim of the system, or the
That's one of the things, until they have an opportunity, and if victim of the police.
then they suddenly think, you know what, I really hurt they're willing to have the opportunity, to hear a victim,
somebody else. It changes their frame of mind.
I think people often think, you know, if you trip on a sidewalk,
you're looking to who's fault it is and who you can sue.
I think that we have that culture that we try to look to
blame somebody else. That's not uncommon, it's just a
different context.
>> Straus: Interesting. I wanted to say maybe we can take questions at some point,
but on the question of
tradition, one of the things I saw in Rwanda is that what
traditional mechanism of justice happened is that there was a
called Gacaca, and the notion of it is justice on the grass, meaning that you come to a
public setting and people get together and talk about what
happened, determine what happened, determine who was a
victim, and come up with a
remedy. Now when people talk about Gacaca, they point to Rwanda and
say look, it's a form of
traditional justice. But it's not. It was taken over by the
government and made into a
about. formal, national process that didn't allow for these more informal exchanges we're talking
But one thing I would say is that to be on guard against when
how it may have started out as people say this is traditional,
traditional, but in certain contexts it can change can serve certain interests, and so forth.
Geske: I think it gets back to listening to survivors.
Each community, each area of the country, each nation has a
different way of looking at, you
who was doing a lot of work kstudying the TRCs, and one off the things she remarked is, you Iknow, some nations really want
to forget.
They don't want it in the history books. They don't want to talk about
it. People don't want it. It's just sort of culturally, I mean, not everybody agrees with
that, but culturally. There are other countries that
everything. Have you seen that? h>> Straus: Yeah, I've seen-- statues and museums, and
scientist. I mean, I'm a political
Sometimes, you know, I think, in politics, I've seen different ways of instrumentalizing memory.
the memorials and these kinds of things can be used as a way of driving home a political
message, unfortunately. That's what I've seen.
awful. In Rwanda, for example, some of the memorials are really
They are rows of skulls and bones that basically the state has put together.
You talk to survivors, and they find it terrible that they can't
bury their dead. So I would say, you know, some
of it may be cultural.
in which the memory can be used I dofor political purposes.that That does vary. BEven in Cambodia, there ares
stacks, and I think they still
exist, the last time I was there, of skulls. The Vietnamese, when they
invaded Cambodia, through the Khmer Rouge, put them up as a way of signaling how bad the
purposes. But I don't know that that was Khmer Rouge were, for their own
helpful for helping Cambodians heal in some ways.
Geske: Is there a good
example that you've seen, in terms of the policy of a country
host TRC, or a process, tries to really work toward justice, that tries to, you know,
or reparations, or whatever it wants to be called, for some of
the survivors of the atrocities?
Is there a good example of something that looks better than
Straus: It's a good question. I think from what I know, the experience in Sierra Leone has maybe the others?
places. Maybe not on the question of been better than in some other
reparations. But one of the things that
people learned from the International Criminal Court in the Rwanda and Yugoslavia tribunals was how distant and
remote these processes were.
So the first thing that happened with Sierra Leone was they put
the atrocities occurred. the court in the country where
Then they invested very heavily in outreach. That is, the court processes
were publicized.
They really made the court-- Spent a lot of time, energy and money on making sure the people
in the country knew what was
happening. I also think in Sierra Leone, a different kind of conflict, but
there was really accountability for all sides to the conflict.
It wasn't that the accountability mechanism became
simply a way of de-legitimizing one party to the conflict.
I think that was very important. I'm sure there are problems with
it that I'm not aware of. And I don't think it handled the
there's been some gradual progress of learning on the rinternational level. But that's one that I think
teaches in El Salvador, and they >> Geske: I have a friend that
TRC hearings. People can come, and people all over the country are listening. The government didn't want to do
it. So it's another opportunity for people, just even with
long time ago, to be able to atrocities that happened a long,
share. >> Straus: I think it's very
Sometimes these TRCs, Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, for those of you not familiar. important.
Sometimes they can be part of a process that can lead to, you know, very targeted trials, in You've got to know the lingo.
the past, you determine that the process of accounting for
there are some leaders who are especially responsible, that can
I think that, in my experience, the more targeted trials are the lead to the trial of them.
better option let's say than having maximum justice, and
everyone who was responsible has
to pay in some way, particularly if it was mass crimes.
Straus: Yeah, I'd love to take questions. >> Geske: Any questions? >> Geske: Should we?
Hi, I'm Nancy Young. There's a question over here.
I spent a couple years working with Dane County victim-offender
I appreciate what you're saying. conferencing with teenagers, so
It was all voluntary, so that made it difficult, actually, because sometimes they didn't
show up.
However, my question for you is, have you ever thought about bringing a perpetrator with you
to do a presentation? A perpetrator and a victim to do
firsthand from them what this has been like for them? a pr>> Geske: The answer're doing tonight, so we could hear
The reason it's sort of no is that in my course, when I teach law students, there is a young is sort of no.
for a homicide, and who now has actually graduated from Cardinal man that I met who was in prison
He was convicted as an adult Stritch with a 3.9 average, and is a teacher in Milwaukee.
at 14, and spent time in the institution.
But that's a good idea, to try to bring a matched pair. The problem is that on those And I do bring survivors.
offenders aren't out and are not violent crimes, most of those
getting out for a long time. But you know, there certainly are some that would be
remarkable. I'm just going to share another story about that. We did one on another homicide
by intoxicated user.
her friend, coming back from the The victim actually was a student at UW, a lovely young woman who was in the car with
Twin Cities. They slowed down on I-94 because
It was a clear day. A young man who had been smoking there was an accident.
some marijuana, fell asleep, didn't look and crashed into
them at 70 mph and killed the young woman.
It was really interesting. It kind of goes to listening to
victims, because one of the questions, the parents of the young woman came and wanted to
year or two years after it meet with the offender about a
The answers are very different. The father said, and I will We askenever forget this. to do this?
He said, he's a professional It still gives me chills.
in Milwaukee, he said, "Almost the minute she died, I decided
better, so there was meaning to make this young man's life
to my daughter's death." You know, I'm just in awe of people.
It's really just an awe.
The mom was probably more where I was. She was, "I don't know why
I want to meet. My husband wants to," and I'm going with him. We went on a long journey
that took well over a year. At some point,
some correspondence went back and forth.
She was so moved by his letter
that he was so remorseful. She wrote the most beautiful
comparing grief and guilt, and letter to him, talking about
how she learned to get through her process, and she was
They had a wonderful meeting. In fact, Jerry Hancock who's encouraging him to do it.
They met. They had a wonderful meeting. here They went out to lunchthat meeting.
Just about a week ago, we got a letter from the young man. afterwards.
we never know if they want to get another letter, just talking Very sensitive that he didn't send it to the victims, because
He has a picture of the young woman he killed next to his acomputer in his office, so hes never forgets.
Yeah, it would be good if at
some point we could do that. Other questions?
I'm Gil Halstead. I just wanted to mention one
raised it. quick thing about Cambodia, and then ask a question because you
I've been to Cambodia a couple of times and talked to some Cambodians about specifically
this, those piles of skulls.
There was a proposal, I believe, at one time that I was told about that I think
Prince Sihanouk proposed. It never happened because of the
basically, and gather all of government, which was to have a national cremation ceremony,
those skulls, because people are cremated at death.
back to have them in their Since they could never take them
villages, this might be a kind of not reconciliation, but a
Unfortunately, it didn't happen for political reasons. move towards healing.
But the question I have, you talked about the formal and
informal structures.
I wonder, the boundaries of both of these structures are different, but they all have
boundaries. Even this restorative justice approach, you have a structure. It may be informal.
What are the possibilities, and is it happening at all that there is some margin or impact
processes on the more formal of the restorative justice
trials and other justice processes?
I've noticed, I'm part of a group of some scholars, I'm not a scholar, I think I'm the odd >> Geske: One of the things that
we look at negotiation and duck that they brought in, but
mediation. They've written, you know,
There's one from MIT. There are number of people. They have always focused on the national mediation model.
We'd have this annual meeting,
But I have noticed, in the last andseveral years, there's add work, and you know, they were always interested.
field, at least in the crossover, and that's answering your question, of that whole
alternative dispute resolution field in the United States, and the negotiation, all the
research that's been done on it.
only they're going to do the And they are being called in to countries to say, are there processes we could set up, not
sort of political solution, I think it's just brand new. But I it was interesting,
because suddenly, all these scholars are really being called
to travel around the world and consult with groups about trying
to set up some processes, so I
think we're getting there. I think it's going to take a
Straus: I would second that. long time.
One case I would maybe point you to would be northern Uganda.
atrocities of the last 20 years, Here you have terrible
where you have an organization called the Lord's Resistance
people of northern Uganda, Army, which has been terrorizing
capturing kids, taking them into captivity and making them into
The government of Uganda child soldiers.
referred the case to the International Criminal Court, which in turn started to
investigate and issue indictments, if I remember
correctly. Now, in northern Uganda, there
was such a backlash against that, because they said what we need are for these boys and girls to come back and stop
fighting, and give up the Bush, the language of it. And the ICC and the threat of prosecution, you know, may in
fact be an obstacle to them coming back into the communities
What spurred in northern Uganda were more local based, I and giving up the fight in some ways.
wouldn't necessarily call them informal, but local ways of
trying to have repair and reconciliation, or some of those
I don't know the details of it. But that, I think, was where you terms, a hearing, even some kind of accountability.
had an international process, very folocal response.g a more
I'm Bill Williams.
I have been very much interested, for all these years, in Germany and --.
I have studied in some detail the people, and what struck me, having read about all of
me after having studied this, is Hitler's henchmen, what struck
it's the only instance I know of in history where almost every one of the people who were
responsible for the atrocities
committed suicide. It was part of the procedure. They manufactured their own--
( inaudible )
Straus: I didn't know that. I just used the example of
Germany to make two slightly related points, but different
points. I didn't know that. That's interesting. I don't know why that would be
the case. The model for the international trials was Nuremberg. The difference with Nuremberg
and the tribunals for Yugoslavia
and Rwanda, and so on and so forth, has been to have some
justice process, rather than a kind of impartial international
So, when all of these mechanisms process that would be set up by the winners to the conflict, as Nuremberg was.
at the international level, when these mechanisms were crafted,
people's minds as a really Nuremberg was very much in
are many things to admire about iNuremberg that I think wea shouldn't move over too quickly. Now they're looking back, there
It went after top-level people. There was a clear decision. And even though it was a form of It was fast.
accomplished things, I think, in victor's justice, it also
commonly held view. The second thing about Germany That's my view. I don't know if that's a
is that I am struck at the social level in Germany, and
again, I don't study Germany, so
I'm just going to give you an impression from a distance, at how much willingness there is to
recognize the crimes of previous
generations. That is, if you go to Germany,
people want to acknowledge the and what's happening in Germany,
Holocaust, and what caused the Holocaust and so forth, particularly maybe my
generation, or two generations
too soon, but I haven't seen downstream of the perpetrators. I have not seen that elsewhere. I haven't seen, and maybe it's
this country, terrible that this whole scale recognition, adoption and acceptance that we committed, in
atrocities, and we're sorry for it, and we don't want anyone else to do it, either.
I think in some ways, Germany has lessons that are
some lessons for other potentially, or its healing and its recognition of the past has
countries. That doesn't exactly address
would make those points. your question, but I thought I
>> Hi, I'm Ally. I'm a PoliSci major here. You've been talking a lot about
restorative justice after conflicts.
have ICC and -- while he's still But I was curious about a situation like Sudan, where you
committing atrocities. I was wondering, Professor
it makes sense to continue to work toward arresting him while the conflict is ongoing, or as Straus, your opinion on whether
there is a longer lasting peace after the upcoming elections, to some people say, to wait until
work on justice. >> Straus: Good question.
So for those of you not familiar
with Ally's question, the ICC, the International Criminal
decision to date is to hand down Court, its most controversial
an indictment of a sitting president.
Al-Bashir of Sudan, for crimes This would be President Omar
It's been controversial in a committed in the Darfur region, crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity in particular.
number of ways. I'll answer your question. It's controversial because,
first of all, for an
international organization, for an international court to hand down an indictment of a sitting
president is a very drastic move
that poor countries around the world look at and say this power
control in some ways, that they can hand down an indictment for a sitting president. of this court has gotten out of
a way it comes back to something I think the question is what, in
we were talking about earlier, what is the purpose of these
Is the purpose to try to get mechanisms?
And I don't know that handing down an indictment of a sitting president, the head of the army, conflict?
that process. On the other hand, you know, effectively, is going to help in
these terrible crimes that have been committed, and it makes probably the president is responsible at some level for
Darfur, it makes sense to go to the top. sense if you are going to investigate the crimes in
It's a great question and I don't know the answer to it. So I don't know the answer to that question.
I guess, that's what I have to say.
It's a good question. >> Geske: I'm just going to add,
the Parents Circle out of Palestine and Israel. wThat group, Palestinians and much, but there's a group called
lost loved ones in the conflict, Jewish, Israelis often, who have
you know, sons, daughters, spouses.
stories, meets. Sometimes they meet with the This particular group shares
One of the women from Israel murderer of their son's family. They go across borders.
Israeli not in uniform, and to talked about going into a Palestinian school, and the children never having seen an
They attempt not to take a try to break it down. They are trying, in their own way.
position other than they want peace, that all families don't want to have your family torn
apart by the violence.
So there are those things that happen while it's going on, trying to work.
It's very difficult.
It's very challenging. A lot of people are critical of it, because, you know, you're
not, they're not the enemy, whichever the enemy may be. But I think that those are
try to build the peace in the important first place., to help
Esther Heffernan. I'm thinking particularly in
terms of something that you said about when the offender sees
himself as a victim, and then blames any number of people.
forth, what can occur when you I kept thinking as you were talking about genocide and so
are basically involved in what can only be described as legitimating violence?
It's legitimating violence so that the violence you commit is in one sense perceived as not yours, but a reflection of power
and politics of the state.
they said. >> Straus: When I interviewed perpetrators of genocide in Rwanda, that's basically what
And we can criticize that, but I think they have a point at a certain level.
Christopher Browning has a
really powerful story of the Holocaust called
That is, you know, what you're "Genocide: Atrocity By Policy."
saying. It's legitimated violence. It's the state authorizing its
citizens and its different wings
That's what the state is telling of the military or paramilitary organizations to go out and commit these crimes.
accountable for the choices that people to do. We can hold people accountable, we should hold people
they make, and hope that they will be able to say no, that's not right, I won't do it.
But in my experience in Rwanda, that's a lot to ask of an ordinary farmer up on the hill
very little social power, when who earns $100 a year, and has
the force of the state comes crashing down and says this is
come along. It's hard to resist. what we're doing, you need to
It's doable, but it's difficult. It's doable but difficult.
For genocide crimes, I think
that is worth taking seriously, and why I think a maximalist approach, that is, prosecute
everyone who was involved is
responsibility, but the pinitiative for it came fromw people tsomewhere else. want to doI think that's valid.ke
That would be my position.
Dave Leeper here. What I'm wondering is, usually
we hear about situations where people who are in power, have
taken power from someone else and are demanding some kind of
justice or reconciliation. And I'm struck by the idea of I
think it was McNamara in the
"Fog of War," when he was talking about the air raids on Tokyo, and he was saying, I
suppose if we'd lost the war, we'd have been tried as war criminals.
We know the United States has power. What do you think?
We know that we've done a lot of bad things, from Native American
genocide, slavery.
Couldn't we set a whole new example of how a person in power can take some initiative?
Straus: I think it's a good question, and I don't have all
One thing just to say is that the idea of setting up a court the answers to these questions. They're good questions.
have a neutral party, or the like the International Criminal Court, in principle, is that you
United Nations setting up a court, is you have a neutral party that adjudicates, so it's
not a victor's justice. That is part of the lesson from World War II, whether it be McNamara's point, or the
Nuremberg example I gave
earlier. In practice, however, politics
was sort of one of my points. I can give you the concrete example of Rwanda. always plays a role, and that
genocide committed by a Hutu led In the Rwandan case, there was a
It was also true that the govrebels, who were Tustis,si civilian population, but it occurred in the context of war.
also committed atrocities. They weren't genocide.
But the tribunal that was set up
should have investigated crimes on all sides, and only investigated the genocide
crimes. Part of the reason for that is, and I'll come back to the United
make the point, is that Rwanda, the government, threatened to withhold any cooperation if the Statetribunal proceeded tost to
investigate the people in its government. By threatening any cooperation, it meant no victims, no
witnesses, no investigations in the country.
They effectively threatened to shut down the tribunal.
In that sense, even though these
are set up theoretically to be neutral bodies, they're often not immune to political
pressures and power balances in the world.
One is, other people, a student of mine came up to me the other day when I was talking about the points.
is it that it's always poor countries that are investigated? ICC and he said, you know, why
Why isn't it that the United States, or Britain for the
terrible things that happened in
Iraq, why isn't the International Tribunals, why aren't they investigating the
United States?
And I can give you a technical answer to that question.
these systems are set up to kick The technical answer is that
in only where domestic remedies have been exhausted. So if you have the possibility
of domestic remedy in the United
States or in Britain, it won't bump up to the International
On the other hand, it's impossible for me to imagine Criminal Court.
that the ICC would ever hand down an indictment of George
Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, it's just
not going to happen, for some of the reasons that you indicated. So to get to your other
question, could the United
States set an example? I think it could. And I think in the human rights
community, one of the things
that's so hard about the debate around torture in this country was that the US, which for many
people around the world, is a symbol of freedom, really took a
step backwards on questions of human rights, and said look,
human rights in a way is really secondary to questions of security. I think that sent a very
powerful message to the rest of the world about the value and place of human rights.
opportunity for the United I think that was a real missed
States. I hope that gets to your question.
Geske: I'm just going to give an example, again little pieces of it.
researcher and a scholar, and and expert on truth and reconciliation commission, and A friend of mine who is a
been asked, and I'm not going to another colleague of hers has
name the state, but an eastern state, like the Bureau of Children Affairs for the state
has agreed with Indian tribes to
My friend, the scholar, said, I'm not so sure the government Native American children were treated.
knows the road that it's walking down, and what's going to
happen. But anyway, she's just starting that process. There's often discussions of
trying to do those. There is a community that did one in the south on a variety of
But there's resistance, political, for the most part. But it really does provide a issues.
be recognized and heard about the harm that's happened to them healing process where people can
This may be a very offbeat and their families.
question, but it follows up what this gentleman asked. Professor, do people in your
field of study ever look to the American Civil War and its
aftermath for any lessons on rebuilding after terrible war
and casualties? >> Straus: That's a great question. I think probably they do, they
might.
I can tell you that in my direct field of study is sort of the causes of violence, why do these
things happen in the first
place. And I would say there, there
There's even new research now coming out on the Civil War that answer is clearly yes.
I think is informing other students, other studies of other
Civil Wars, and so forth. Just today in a graduate
seminar, we were talking about the end of the Civil War, and
the way in which the northern generals were using coercive
But anyway, that's a point. I think in terms of vunderstanding the dynamics ofe conflict, people actually are
going back and studying the American Civil War. But your question was about reconstruction.
I haven't seen it that much in
the literature, but it's a good insight, and I imagine someone out there is looking at it, but
it's not often talked about.
Usually, the points of reference are World War II forward.
Hi, I just have a question
about the triangle you discussed, about how it's the victim, community, and offender.
I know for many cases,
especially sexual assault, the victim is unaware of who the
still very alive in their mind. So how do you address those situations? offendDo those come up?rson is
Geske: I can tell you, at least what we've done.
survivors to meet face to face. Sometimes they just don't want There are a number of times where it's not appropriate for
it's not that. to. They want to do something, but
For some survivors, they've never been arrested. And for some, you know, they
would like to make a difference,
some healing, what we've done, and Jerry Hancock and I have
do basically a talking circle. done in a Columbia prison, is we
kinds of crimes, but are not Survivors, who want, can come and tell their stories to offenders who committed those
their offenders. That in itself is very healing
Most of those speakers come again and again. to most of those speakers.
Men in a batterer's treatment program, and bring in some We've done that in the domestic violence field as well.
that whole power thing going on and risk, but come in and share survivorstheir stories.iolence, not theirs, because they've got
years ago, and I'll never forget. The three survivors all talked We did one a number of years of
transmitted diseases from their partners, and being convinced it about getting sexually
was their fault by their partners.
One of the men got the talking
piece and looked at the group and said I want you guys to know they're telling the truth,
because that's exactly what I did.
an offender in itself is And for a survivor to hear that she has that kind of impact on
healing, and yet not having to confront the individual.
question is that when I first was setting up our project, I went and talked to people at the The other answer to your
services for sexual assault, and Healing Center, which is victim
I talked to survivors about, you know, just to tell them about the process, and no one should
ever do this if they don't want to. And you know, what would help?
would like to do a face to face with the arresting officer. That's who we'd like to talk to, And some of them said we really
he questioned my clothes, he questioned why I was there. because he gave us a hard time,
It turned out to be a serial rapist, and I would like to go
back and have that discussion.
But you know, it isn't always I'vethe direct offender.at. I've had discussions with the police department.
offender. So that's again where you get back to listening to survivors. oWhat is it that they need?
And what is it that's going to
help them most in terms of healing?
Thank you so much to our two
guests for joining us today. I think we ended on a nice note,
lessons from what you've taught us tonight, about how we can because there are so many good
resolve conflict in our everyday lives as well.
So I hope you'll join me in thanking our speakers, and that you'll be back with us again
Please feel free to take a very soon.
sciences, arts and letters. We do try to integrate those. I know there are members here tonight that also attended a
members-only tour of the gallery
that's up on the third floor here in the Overture Center.
in thanking these very special So please join us, and join me
contributors tonight. ( applause )