When I was working out in the world and raising a family, I was automatically connected to other people. I volunteered at the kids’ school, baked brownies, chaperoned field trips, and helped raise the next generation. My work in a medical office connected me not only to my co-workers, but also to the community that we served. But it was my job teaching writing in a state prison that has in some ways proved the most lasting way of keeping me connected to my community, a connection that I find especially essential now that I spend most of my working days alone.
I started my teaching career at an Ivy League college, teaching freshman composition, and I’ve gone on to teach gifted children, curious adults, and wise seniors, but the inmates I taught in jail remain my favorite. For many of them, writing down their thoughts and reading them aloud to their peers was the first time they’d ever both clearly articulated their experiences and been heard. This was powerful stuff, and I loved the community of writers we created together inside an institution that otherwise seemed organized to break a man’s spirit.
Because I didn’t like what I saw, I sought alternatives, which is how I stumbled across Restorative Justice, an alternative to criminal justice, and practiced throughout Vermont with the help of volunteers. So when my work at the prison ended, I volunteered.
For the past five years, I’ve served on a Reparative Parole Board at the Brattleboro Community Justice Center. My commitment is only two hours 
a month, but they are an incredible two hours, filled with amazing stories where offenders take responsibility for their wrong-doing and where victims explain how they have been affected.
When successful, this process of personal narrative leads to reparation: the offender contracts to repair the harm done in a variety of creative ways, always individualized to fit the crime, and the victim receives satisfaction – not retribution. In the process, the offender is reconnected to the community. Unlike with people who are released from jail, people who go through the reparative process rarely reoffend.
What has this got to do with writing?
Restorative Justice uses narrative, and as a trained literary critic and a writer, I use my skills to assess the story. Restorative Justice teaches me again and again how important storytelling is to our culture, as well as how powerful a tool it can be. When I’m alone, writing a novel that may be years from publication, it is heartening to be reminded that storytelling is important.
It used to be believed that it was the ability to use tools that set humans apart from other species – until it was discovered that chimpanzees use twigs to gather ants. I believe it is storytelling that sets humans apart from other species, that we are a narrative species, and that the stories we tell play a critical role in how we operate in the world, from peace to war. Just look how venerated the world’s holy books are – and how much grief differing interpretations of them continue to cause. So, when I want to despair about the utility spending my productive time writing stories, I attend a Restorative Justice panel, and I’m reminded how powerful – and powerfully good – stories can be.
Restorative Justice is particularly well suited to a writer, since listening to how people tell their stories uses all my literary training, and teaches me so much about how to write. I listen for voice and point-of-view. For every transgression, there is a motivation, and in every successful case, there is a redemptive outcome. I listen to these stories, and I’m moved.
Sitting on a reparative panel is not the only way for a writer to serve her community; it’s the one I’ve found that suits me. It helps mitigate Solitude and Loneliness by connecting me to the world outside my writing studio, and it allows me to participate in community life.
There are other ways for writers to give to their communities: writing opinion pieces for the local papers, offering workshops, volunteering to foster literacy in schools, shelters, senior centers, reading aloud to the visually impaired – and more. These are important services, in addition to the stories we publish.
How do you volunteer your time? How does this work serve the writer in you?
Deborah Lee Luskin is a commentator for Vermont Public Radio, a Visiting Scholar for the Vermont Humanities Council and the author of the award winning novel, Into The Wilderness. For more information, visit her website at www.deborahleeluskin.com
criminal justice had always been my dream passion. I hope to hear more about your time at Brattleboro Community Justice Center. I hope to hear stories about the inmates you encounter 🙂
Tippy,
You might be interested in this piece I did for Vermont Public Radio about a former student. http://www.vpr.net/episode/53093/luskin-humanities-matter/
Restorative Justice is practiced – quietly – throughout the world.
Thanks for your comment, Deborah.
I participate in the Kairos Prison Ministry. An inmate at my table had come because he wanted to change his life. Each participant has the opportunity to say a prayer in that small group; he said that he had never prayed before. His prayer was just this, “God help me,” and he passed the cross. His prayer was answered, and he did change his life. That moment changed my attitude, too. In the “incarceration nation” there is plenty of opportunity to help people all but abandoned by their families, their communities, their country. If you aren’t volunteering in a prison, my question is this: why not? Most people have no excuse.
robertcdeming,
This is a lovely story, and affirms how powerful kindness can be, especially in a place as desolate as an American prison. But there are many ways to alleviate the pain of our penal system in addition to volunteering on the inside – which is not for everyone. The BCJC also runs COSAs (Circles of Support and Accountability) – which help inmates make a successful transition to life on the outside – not something prison life prepares them for. But there are other ways to help, like being a Big Brother/Big Sister, running an afterschool program, or simply taking a child/family at risk and inviting them over for dinner. Each person must find the right way to do what they can – starting with voting!
Thanks for your comment, Deborah.
Thanks Deborah, you continue to reach me across many miles. I was going to write to you today when i came across your blog. I served the prison population in a few institutions and spent a little time in jail myself.Today, i wondered about all that and wandered through memories of service and care and compassion and creativity when i read your piece. You’ve reminded me of the process and the required patience and the good people that still give like yourself. You blessed me today, you’ve helped inform me today and also reminded me today, Thanks! I’ll see you around these pages.From Pete James, Pete Waters, Pete Jacobs and the rest of us out here.
Hi Pete, Pete and Pete,
Always nice to hear from you. And always glad when my words hit home. Thanks for letting me know, Deborah.
I read a book by Wally Lamb that is called “Couldn’t Keep it To Myself…” The female inmates in Connectitcut I believe signed up for a what Lamb thought might last a week course on teaching women how to channel their emotions onto paper instead of outside of themselves with acts of violence. Lamb underestimated the power of teaching these women the only noninvasive tool, but most powerful, to communicate their stories. Some which redefined abuse and neglect and just plain bad luck. Lamb, I believe stayed for two years and published another anthology of other women’s stories. Very poingant and rewarding to read. I also read “She Comes Undone” 15 years ago, and the novel about the schizophrenic twins broke me…to close too soon. Never returned to it. Anyhow, when you mentioned your experience, Lamb obtained his Doctorate from Vermont College, I wondered if you read the two anthologies.—thanks, Jessica
Hi Jessica,
Lamb’s “Couldn’t Keep It To Myself” was hugely important in helping me figure out what I could do when I started working in Vermont prisons, first with women and then with men. I’ve also used some of those stories in a class I taught with health care workers in hospitals. They are very powerful stories. Thanks for reminding me of them, Deborah.
I’m glad my post brought some joy to your day.
J. Carnes
🙂 That is enlightened intervention if I ever have heard an example…healing is always possible…especially through telling our stories to ears that hear it exactly as we know it happened. Out of misery’s telling comes compassion. I love it. Yes, stories do matter.:) Thank you for this post.
-Jennifer
Your welcome!
Thanks for “enlightened intervention”
– and for writing, Deborah.
Deborah’s story really touched me, not only for the work she has done and is doing but also because of her message that storytelling is so important. I sometimes forget in the day-to-day writing why I am doing what I am doing. Stories form us, make us think and some stories leave an impression that lasts a lifetime. I was once told by a colleague that “everyone has a story to tell.” I would add to that “everyone has an IMPORTANT story to tell.”
Linda,
Yes, everyone has an important story, but not everyone has the opportunity to tell it. Sometimes, people don’t know their stories until they read someone else’s – and sometimes it’s a made-up story they read and gives them a new view of the world.
Thanks for reading the blog, Deborah.
I volunteer as a co-facilitator for a caregiver’s support group. Caregivers of people suffering from mental illness. It’s easy for most of us to give to people who seem down-and-out but relatively put together. We love the cute poster children, the television sob stories.
It’s another thing to give to those who travel the most difficult roads, who end up as outcasts rejected by society. RECOVERY is an important word – a key word at play in stories of redemption and healing. As I recently told someone whose family member was recently stricken with schizophrenia, the luckiest of us get to surf through life with nary a bump, some suffer immensely, and most of us are somewhere in between. When people don’t have to suffer through hardships alone, it can make a tremendous difference in their lives. It’s very easy to practice compassion and sensitivity when you are distanced from the ugly reality of life. It’s another to face it, bear with it, and let another lean on you for strength and challenge the negative stereotypes. That takes a very special person.
You, Deborah, are an extremely special person. And I haven’t even met you, but I’m pretty damn sure of it after reading this post.
And, yeah, these experiences make the most interesting stories because they add to our ability to portray the nuances of human behavior!
Thats awesome. This really gave me encouragement to keep writing. It does help to be able to write things down and then to verbalize wrongs done. I’ve learned to do myself and its renewing to my mind. Thanks for your article.
Donna,
Yes – I often discover what I think and clarify my thoughts by writing them down. And writing plays a big role in restorative justice. For instance, when someone’s been arrested for DUI, but there’s no “direct victim” (just the entire driving public put at risk!), the offender will write a letter of apology to the editor of the local paper.
Thanks for your comment. Keep writing! Deborah.
Wow. Excellent post. I am sorry to say my volunteer opportunities are limited, I once taught the ladies in the small town near us to do aerobics. I really enjoy your insights Deborah, thanks for sharing. Abby
Aerobics? Yes! There are so many different needs out there!
Thanks for writing, Abby. Best, Deborah.
Hi, this particular blog is quite different from your other sharing. Initially I admired your endeavor, and eventually your participation at the Brattleboro Community Justice Center. Your simple gesture helped those victims in reconnecting their lives with the community, especially as a part of “narrative species”.
Oh, Deborah, you remind me so very much of my grandfather and his work with inmates years ago. I too, volunteer to read in various settings and am working on a new connection to a local newspaper, for which I will be accepting no fees. I have taught poetry writing as a volunteer in middle schools in the past. I also teach adults at my church–Thank you SO MUCH for spurring me on to be aware of other avenues where I can connect and serve as a writer.
What a moving post Deborah. Truly inspirational philosophy and a great example for us all. I often search the blogosphere to see what others are blogging about (particularly in VT), and Im glad I found your site!
Thanks for sharing this.
Hi Deborah,
Thanks for writing. The Justice Center is an important place doing important work–I’m glad they’re getting some press! I sit on a COSA (Circles of Support and Accountability) at the BCJC. It’s a group that helps to reintegrate and support a furloughed/paroled offenders. I don’t know, I could go on and on but really the point is that it’s just right. It’s a small group of people helping out another person–to feel good and to be accountable for his/her actions. It just seems to me like a great example of a healthy community. I’m so grateful these opportunities exist for us!
Thanks!
Sam
Sam,
I know about the COSAs and admire you for serving. Partly because I’m not in Brattleboro that often and partly to protect my writing time, I’ve not yet been able to make the weekly commitment that a COSA requires. There’s no question in my mind that COSAs make a huge difference in helping offenders transition from prison to life on the outside, and that it’s in all our best interests to help make that transition a success. Kudos to you for your work!
Best, Deborahl
Nice work,I think this is a good thing to communicate and express ourselves in the best possible way; welcome to my blog.