Gail Pendleton, co-director of ASISTA, which advises and trains advocates and attorneys who work with immigrant
survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, discusses some of the complex issues non-citizen survivors face. July
2012

SARAH SCHWEIG: Hi, I’m Sarah Schweig at the Center for Court Innovation
and today I’m speaking with Gail Pendleton about how issues around domestic violence become far more complicated
when they involve victims with pending immigration status. Gail Pendleton is co-director of ASISTA, a national immigration
law technical assistance project supported by the Federal Office on Violence Against Women. Thank you for speaking
with me today and welcome.

GAIL PENDLETON: Thank you.

SARAH SCHWEIG: Women
who are victims of domestic violence already face a number of hurdles, and women who aren’t citizens often face
a much more complex situation. Can you give a sense of these challenges and, you know, for instance, how does immigration
status factor into the sort of abuse patterns that they’re experiencing?

GAIL PENDLETON:
Well the first thing to think about is how is this similar to what you might see with citizen survivors? So for instance,
language might be an issue for deaf women, for instance, right? Language access and understanding what they’re
saying, and who’s information are you taking as true, if you’re not getting it directly from their mouth.
 Culture also could be an issue. Is the pastor or the religious leader telling people they should stay married?
That could be true for immigrants, it could be true for citizens. Economics, also an issue for citizens, but when
you’re talking about someone who may not be able to work legally, or is working illegally, that adds an extra
tool of power and control in the hands of—particularly a documented spouse or intimate partner. And in our immigration
family system, prior to the Violence Against Women act, the U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident spouse controls
the immigration process. And so that’s why, in the Violence Against Women Act, Congress created a special route
to status for victims of domestic violence by citizens and lawful permanent residents. So that control of the immigration
status is the one weapon that, you know, wouldn’t happen to a U.S. citizen. And the other thing that I think
is probably true for a lot of citizen survivors, but especially true for a lot of non-citizens is who is their source
of information? Because the isolation may be even more intense for non-citizen survivors than it is for citizens,
their source of information is going to be their perpetrator and what are they telling them? They’re telling
them, you—our court system won’t help you because you’re undocumented, or semi-documented. I’ll get
custody of the kids, you’ll get deported, you’ll get turned over to ICE if you call the police. All of
those are very effective tools for abusers to keep their spouses and their kids in violent homes.

SARAH
SCHWEIG: Right. And ICE, just for our listeners—

GAIL PENDLETON: Oh right. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement.

SARAH SCHWEIG: Okay. A victim of domestic violence, a domestic violence offender,
and any children involved may have all varying immigration status. Is that right? How does that further complicate
the situation, and how do you sort of deal with those differences in the court system?

GAIL PENDLETON:
Well, the crucial role that we have tried to work on is ensuring that there are routes to status that allow victims
of domestic violence to pursue immigration status without the control of their abusers. And so most of the system,
unless you’re the—what we call the principal beneficiary of an immigration benefit, which is usually going to
be the abuser, frankly, like say engineers who come over on high-tech visas or whatever. Their family members are
here legally, but if they leave them then they get deported. So you can’t—and in the family-based system, as
I mentioned, the abuser controls—for the most part—controls the process. So that was the initial attempt was—it doesn’t
matter so much whether, what status they have. It matters who c controls getting a permanent status. And the safest
permanent status, short of citizenship, is a green card, what people call lawful permanent residents. And that actually
takes a long time, even if you do self-petitioning. Or the U-Visa, which is the other thing I wanted to mention because
self-petitioning just parallels regular family-based process, but those of you who work in court systems will know
that often times the abuser also lacks a secure immigration status, or doesn’t fit our normal family base, like
same-sex marriages, for instance. Immigration law does not recognize same sex marriages, because DOMA trumps, like
Massachusetts state law, where I’m from. So—Oren Hatch, as I mentioned in the training just now suggested the
U-Visa as a tool to get people who are too afraid, victims who are too afraid to call law enforcement, give a tool
for law enforcement to reach out to those folks and a form of humanitarian relief for them. They do have to be helpful
to law enforcement and they have to have certification for law enforcement. So the hurdles are higher in terms of
proof, for getting that status, but it helps a lot of people who really wouldn’t be able to be helped in our
regular system.

SARAH SCHWEIG: Yeah. You mentioned that you’ve done a lot of reform work
with immigration issues and policy change, and I know policies are often shifting and making headway on this issue.
Can you describe some of the recent legislation Congress has passed, and what hurdles have been cleared and what
else needs to be accomplished?

GAIL PENDLETON: Well, one of the things I tell the impatient lawyers
and advocates is that getting the law passed is, in some ways, the easy part and then you spend a decade getting
it implemented the right way. And we’ve been fortunate in the Violence Against Women area to have basically
a series of incremental improvements in access to status for immigrant survivors of domestic violence and sexual
assault, and human trafficking. So you have the ’94 Violence Against Women Act, then 2000, the Victims of Trafficking
Act, 2005 again, but we’re still working—I also serve as a liaison at immigration services on how to implement
these laws since 1997, and so it takes a long time, you know? It’s the government, right? It’s the federal
government and there are a lot of stakeholder besides us who are involved. So we’re still working on getting
some parts of, for instance, the U-Visa implemented, even though it was passed in 2000. So a lot of what I do is
work with the advocates and lawyers, and with CIS trying to create that fruitful communication as opposed to adversarial
relationship. And like I just said, we also recently in the past year have developed the same kind of relationship
with ICE headquarters, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Department of Homeland Security, Civil Rights
and Civil Liberties. So we’re trying to find common ground and, you know, share agendas. We obviously don’t
all share all agendas, but we do share some.

SARAH SCHWEIG: And at least share the information
to help an act.

GAIL PENDLETON: Right, and I help inform them about what we’re seeing in
the field. So, for instance, in the past year—I can’t take credit for this—but ICE did implement some prosecutorial
discretion memos and one is designed specifically for victims of crimes. And the idea is they have priority, you
know, people with criminal convictions, terrorists, you know, there are other priorities they have for removal, so
if someone is the victim of a crime and is being helpful to law enforcement, it’s not a high priority for them
to remove them, and tehy should allow them to stay here and pursue status. So that just happened, so again, my message
to the field is—this is gonna take another decade to actually make it work, but we’re here to—we, at the national
level are here to help you try to work that out in as non-adversarial way as possible.

SARAH SCHWEIG:
As with any issue with sort of ever-changing policies, keeping court advocates up to date seems incredibly crucial.
How do you ensure that jurisdictions are kept informed, and all those stakeholders are, you know, trained? How does
that work?

GAIL PENDLETON: Well there are two ways that we try to do it. One is that we work with
organizations such as the Center for Court Innovation and the National Judicial Institute, that are sponsored by
the Office on Violence Against Women, who have special training for court systems, and that’s kind of the trickle
down, and then because we’ve been doing this since 1993, we have a large field of thousands of people who are
out there, actually out there doing this, right? And so the idea is give them the ability to go out and do this locally,
because there’s only so much you can do. You have to have a bottom, pushing from the bottom, us pushing from
the top. So, and it’s never gonna be perfect, but hopefully it will make our systems better. I would say a thing
to do in the next few years is pick a few models that seem to be working, you know? There’s no one model that
works everywhere, so like what works in Suffolk County, New York, is not gonna work in northwest Arkansas, right?
You know, you’ve got to take the principles, it seems, the most important principles and figure out how people
can apply them to the resources that they have locally.

SARAH SCHWEIG: And so for those jurisdictions
that maybe haven’t gotten, you know, the training, what can a court do to help advocates and attorneys work
with immigrant survivors of domestic violence and you know, what are the key things that you think they need to be
aware of?

GAIL PENDLETON: Well I’d say the message for judges is judicial leadership. That’s
the key thing is that they need to go back to their systems because there’s only so much a judge can do by the
time it gets to them, right? It’s got to be the advocates in the system, it’s got to be the police and
the DAs, and the domestic violence people out there who are really the first point of entry for these folks so that
they even get to the judge, right? So often what the judges will say, the main thing they realize is they’ve
got to take this back and encourage bar association trainings, and at the stakeholder meetings raising these issues,
that kind of thing. And then the other piece is to get all those other players in the system trained up. There are
trainings out there, we do trainings at the National District Attorneys Association. The FJC conference is the Sexual
Assault and domestic violence Conferences for advocates, and there’s lots of materials out there. That’s
the other message is, you don’t need to start from scratch. Lots of people have been doing this around the country
in lots of different context so we don’t—because we have this huge network, we can also find people who can
talk to you. I’m a big fan of peer training. So if the message is better coming from and advocate for advocates,
or a police chief for other police chiefs, we can work on that.

SARAH SCHWEIG: That’s great.
Thank you so much for talking to me today. I’m Sarah Schweig and I’ve been speaking with Gail Pendleton,
co-director of ASISTA, about domestic violence and its bearing on immigration policy. To learn more about the Center
for Court Innovation please visit www.courtinnovation.org. Thank you for listening.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS | More

David Adams, co-founder and co-director of Emerge,
the first counseling program in the nation for men who abuse women, discusses the inner workings, challenges,
and potential benefits of group counseling for men who batter. (July 2012)

SARAH SCHWEIG: Hi, I’m Sarah Schweig, of the Center for Court Innovation, and today I’m speaking
with Dr. David Adams. Dr. Adams is co-founder and co-director of Emerge, the first counseling program in the nation
for men who abuse women. He is one of the nation’s leading experts on men who batter and has conducted trainings
for social service and criminal justice professionals in 46 states and 18 nations. Dr. Adams has also conducted outreach
to victims of abuse for 35 years. Thanks for speaking with me today.

DR. DAVID ADAMS: Thank you.

SARAH SCHWEIG: Can you give us a little background about the kind of counseling you do? What kinds of issues
does counseling in this case seek to address? And is there a kind of model you use or promising practice?

DR. DAVID ADAMS: Well, I mean first of all, it’s small groups, and secondly the model that we use is
male/female co-facilitated. And the reason we do that is that we really want to provide a role modeling opportunity
for the abusive men to see women and men working together operatively and sharing leadership. Our program is divided
into two phases. There’s an educational phase, which is the first eight weeks where they’re exposed to
just really basic information about what is abusive behavior, broadening their understanding that it’s not just
the illegal behavior. How does it affect their partner, how does it affect their children, other alternatives and
so forth. But then the more interesting phase, you know, the second phase which is the remaining 32 weeks is more
of an interactive group. And that’s where we’re a little different as a model from other kinds of programs.
because we’re a psycho-educational model, not just an educational model, which really means that we’re
able to give individualized feedback to the men in the program, and to really kind of like focus more in depth about
each person’s history of abusive behavior. We actually do a very interesting exercise, which I call a relationship
history, where we ask each person 14 questions about every intimate relationship he’s had. And it’s done
right in the group. The other men ask the questions. And we do another interesting exercise where we really develop
very individualized goals for each man in the group, and the other men, again, are very involved in that process,
making suggestions about what goals make sense for that person. And so really the whole purpose of the goal of our
program is to really learn two things. One is respect, and how is respect communicated in relationships—not just
with your partner or with your children, but also empathy too. Because most abusers are very—kind of have a narcissistic
orientation and so the beginning stages, it’s really clear that it’s hard for them to see their own behavior
from their partner’s perspective. And so over time, we’re really trying to do that. We’re trying to build
that into the program so that even when men are giving each other feedback in a group, we’re asking men to try
to see things from the partner’s perspective. So when a man’s reporting an interaction with his partner,
for instance, we’re asking all the other men to say, okay, what do you think his partner’s perspective
was in that interaction? And in the process, they are learning empathy too. Because it’s easier, I think sometimes
to recognize another person’s abusive behavior than one’s own, you know? So we kind of take advantage of
that natural ability that abusers have. They’re very good at actually spotting other people’s abusive behavior,
not so much their own. And so we really kind of teach the men how to give each other constructive feedback, and how
to kind of hold each other to a higher standard. That’s really kind of the premise of our program.

SARAH SCHWEIG: So, as you know treating domestic violence offenders can be controversial. Some people say
that abusers can’t be reformed or treated. Can you talk a little bit about how this affects your work, and what
you have seen in your perspective?

DR. DAVID ADAMS: Yeah. Well, I think there’s been a lot
of misinformation about the outcome studies that have been done, first of all, and I also think it kind of reflects
that the outcome that has been done has a very kind of narrow definition of what outcome is, you know, too, because
I always say I’d like to get the same deal the substance abuse programs get. Because nobody ever questions the
value of substance abuse programs, and yet their outcomes aren’t any better than ours. And yet, somehow for
us to have the same outcomes, you know, there’s questioning about—are we worth it? And I think that what all
of the outcome studies have found is that program completers do a lot better than non-completers because of recidivism.
So that’s very reassuring to us, because just like a substance abuser program, it sort of is a given that the
more treatment they get, the better they do over time. I think that, however, when you have the expectation, this
all or nothing expectation that—do we cure? because some of the outcome studies have sort of compared program participants
with non-participants, but even program complicits who only get one session, you know who drop out and reoffend,
that counts as a program failure. And that makes no sense because he’s only had one session. But the other thing
is that we feel that we provide a valuable service regardless of the outcome, because we provide really useful information
to the courts about his participation, about noncompliance, for instance. And noncompliance is really a big deal
because that’s a predictor of his reoffending. We provide really useful information to the partners, to the
victims of abuse, and that’s a big deal because victims are really trying to make decisions, you know? Quite
often when he’s in the batterers program, you know, do I want to say in this relationship? Do I want to maybe
curtail his access to the children? And so, you know, they’re hearing back from us, and if they’re hearing
back from us, well you know, he’s still minimizing his abusive behavior. Or he’s still really blaming you.
That’s really useful for victims, because we want to make sure that she doesn’t just automatically conclude
that because he’s in our program, you know that naturally things are going to get better, you know too.

SARAH SCHWEIG: Those are some excellent points about the information sharing, and I wanted to ask about,
you know, in the court how your program sort of comes into play, and as you know domestic violence court emphasizes
holding offenders accountable for their abusive behavior. Do you see a tension between accountability and treatment
within the court, and how do those concepts fit together?

DR. DAVID ADAMS: Well, yeah, I think
that sometimes accountability is taken to mean punishment. Most of the men who participate in Emerge, they definitely,
when they start our program, think of our program as a part of their punishment. And yet, our understanding of accountability
is really much broader than that. It’s about recognizing the impact of your behavior on other people, being
able to really identify and talk about your abusive behavior, and to make changes. That’s all a part of accountability.
And so that’s very different from punishment. You know? Some abusers, they’d love to just be punished,
you know, because then they’re sort of off the hook. They don’t really have to change. So that really,
accountability, we try to sort of build that into our program so that just the process of having them describe their
abusive behavior, which they would never do on their own, right? I mean and also to put it on record too, you know,
so it really goes back to the court and so now he is on record as admitting, you know, in some detail, what his abusive
behavior, is—and has been. Another part of the accountability is being able to really be open to feedback too, in
the program. So really it’s kind of an aging process, accountability. It’s more than just punishment.

SARAH SCHWEIG: How do you think a justice system can be flexible enough to sort of fit the response to the
needs of the offender, in terms of sort of redefining accountability in that way?

DR. DAVID ADAMS:
Right. I mean first of all we love it when judges do more than just sentence abusers to programs, but also kind of
reinforce the goals of the program, to really kind of say to the defendant, you know, I’m gonna sentence you
to this program, but I want you to be an active participant in the program. In fact, I’m going to review your
progress in the program. And that’s one of the great advantages of domestic violence courts, is there’s
that built into it, so that a person knows that they’re going to have to be accountable in that way, they have
to go back before the judge, the court, and kind of review the process. And they take it more seriously themselves
too. And I think it’s just human nature, that people will do that.

SARAH SCHWEIG: So since
you established Emerge in 1977, how has working with domestic violence offenders changed, and do any new achievements
come to mind or any new complications or challenges that you might want to mention?

DR. DAVID
ADAMS: Well, I think it’s been a lot of trial and error over the years and we’ve learned a lot about how
to engage men. And certainly programs have become more culturally relevant too, over time, as well as programs specifically
geared towards abusers in same sex relationships, too. But I think that in the beginning, I think there was kind
of a consciousness raising, more of a sort of emphasis really only one set of issues, which was really sort of gender,
equality, and more of a kind of confrontative approach, sort of confronting them about sexist attitudes and so forth.
And I think what we’ve learned over time is that that can be really quite alienating, that people—and really,
I think we’ve kind of replaced that with more of an emphasis on respect, because respect is more of a universal
value, and respect definitely plays into gender equality in terms of relationships. And so we sort of try to keep
it focused on how much do you respect your individual partner? More than, you know, what’s your attitude toward
women in general.

SARAH SCHWEIG: And that also goes back to teaching, you know, teaching empathy,
which is a much more intimate experience. So you’re also the author of the book, “Why Do They Kill? Men
Who Murder Their Intimate Partners.” Maybe talk a little bit about how you sought to answer that question and
what were some of your findings in cases of homicide?

DR. DAVID ADAMS: Well, I mean when I started
working on that project, there had been a real spike of intimate partner homicides in Massachusetts, so much so that
our governor had declared a state of Emergency for women. And so it really kind of made me curious about what distinguishes
batterers who kill from those who don’t kill. What do we need to know that can really help us to identify these
cases in the earlier stages, though I did interviews with prisoners that all had killed their intimate partners in
Massachusetts, and I also did interviews with victims of attempted homicide. And it really identified that there
were, essentially, five different types of killers in terms of their motivations to kill, and so I think we need
to make it better in the system, in identifying those men earlier on, flagging those cases, you know, looking at
the mental health issue on top of the domestic violence issue. I mean I think the first really, duty in combating
terrorism, you know, is to gather intelligence. These are domestic terrorists, so you know, we really need to gather
better intelligence about the people that are gonna be causing the problem, you know, which is the abusers.

SARAH SCHWEIG: Well that’s fascinating and it’s been wonderful talking to you. I’m Sarah
Schweig and I’ve been speaking with Dr. David Adams, co-founder and co-director of Emerge. To learn more about
the Center for Court Innovation, please visit www.courtinnovation.org. Thank you for listening.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS | More

Peacemaker Administrator Anna Francis-Jack discusses tribal history and how The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Washington State have
launched and grown their peacemaking program. May 2012

ROBERT V. WOLF: Hi, I’m Rob Wolf, director of communications at the Center for Court Innovation. During
a visit to the Colville tribes in Washington State, I had a chance to interview a number of different people about
peacemaking, which is a traditional Native American approach to justice. In earlier podcasts, I spoke with two elders
and a client about their experiences with peacemaking, and in this podcast I talk with Anna Francis-Jack, who coordinates
the program. One of the first things we talked about was the building we were sitting in, which allowed Anna to talk
a bit about her tribe’s history.

Thanks for taking the time to talk to me.

ANNA
FRANCIS-JACK: Yes, of course.

WOLF: Why don’t you say where we are actually.

FRANCIS-JACK:
We are at the Nesperse Long (sp?) house, which is one of the very last living legend of the Nesperse that went to
war, and we were exiled here as—my forefathers were exiled here as prisoners of war.

WOLF: And
approximately when was that?

FRANCIS-JACK: Late 1800’s.

WOLF: Okay.

FRANCIS-JACK: So some of the tribes refused to talk to us because—well refused to talk to my forefathers
because they had blood on their hands, because some of the tribes here on the Colville reservation never went to
war. That’s one of the intergenerational family traumas that still goes on today.

WOLF: And
this was a war against the whites, against the government?

FRANCIS-JACK: Yes, yes. but because
of who the chief Joseph Nesperse were, when they came here they weren’t quite welcome, so at one point I called
myself an Indian without a country because you know, we are still here despite all the odds. This is the only Long
House on the Colville reservation that practices tradition. We chose our religion, we chose our language—well not
me personally but my family, my forefathers, ancestors, and the ones that came before me. It’s what I was born
into.

WOLF: Why don’t you tell me how did your program get off the ground? You found some
peacemakers and you trained them? You trained each other?

FRANCIS-JACK: They gave me a resolution
that authorized the creation of the peacemaking circle program, and a list of elders.

WOLF: And
this was from the tribal council?

FRANCIS-JACK: Yes. So I began from there and I did a mail-out,
of course. I managed to get like 15 people to inquire. We started having meetings. I went off to Green Bay to the
traditional peacemaking, and I went to one of Fillmore Blue House’s presentations there and then I came back,
and then I started putting together information and sharing it with the elders, and then they would come and they
would give me things. And so everyone was doing research on peacemaking.

WOLF: And trying to look
at traditions.

FRANCIS-JACK: Yes.

WOLF: A traditional way of resolving conflict
and dealing with criminal behavior or misbehavior.

FRANCIS-JACK: Yes, but first we had to figure
out exactly what peacemaking was, and then they could relate it back to their different tribes within this specific
Colville reservation, since we’re a confederation—we have 12 tribes. And as I explained earlier, it’s the
prayer, it’s the smudging, it’s the talking, healing circle, and it’s the elders coming together,
you know, with the best needs of the client in mind at all times, trying to make him feel welcome, trying to make
him feel equal, trying to make him feel at ease, trying to make him trust. They have to search within themselves
to find that place that they can say, okay, I did this. I can be responsible. I can stand up and I can tell the elders
yes, I did this, yes, I was wrong. And maybe initially they just may mouth it but somewhere later on down the line,
they actually start conveying it. It’s not just words anymore.

WOLF: So just to be clear,
what you said before and what you just reiterated was that it starts, there’s a prayer involved, and then there’s
the ceremony, the smudge ceremony if someone wants to do that, and there’s a talking piece which can be handed
around and whoever holds the talking piece then speaks?

FRANCIS-JACK: Yes.

WOLF:
So what are some, what are the typical issues or offenses that are brought to a peacemaking circle?

FRANCIS-JACK:
Peacemaking was originally formed to handle juvenile cases but we don’t have an active juvenile code. But the
peacemaker was still created so don’t ask me why.

WOLF: But you do work with juveniles, so
where do they come from? Or do you not work with juveniles?

FRANCIS-JACK: No, we work with young
adults. Our very first case was a juvenile just turning 18, so you could call it a cusp. When he committed the offense
he was a juvenile, but when he finally made it to court he was 18 years old. He had four offenses against him that
involved a person that found themselves with three other people, where they entered a house and eventually shot off
a gun, which has three or four adults and also some minors in the home.

WOLF: I know you’ve
also spoken about dealing with serious assaults.

FRANCIS-JACK: Yes. Majority of our cases now
are domestic violence and the last two that we had, they referred both the man and the woman because it takes two
to heal over this very serious offense. It goes against how we want to look at a person holistically, we want to
heal them inside out, but it needs to be both the man and the woman, because the offense was against one another.

WOLF: Is there a protocol for how long a session lasts or how many sessions you have, or is that something
fluid that is decided upon case by case?

FRANCIS-JACK: It takes its own life. It depends on where
the person is at in their personal life. Some of them are really into alcohol and you know, the dysfunction in the
home. Others have already been working on themselves and have only seen us four times and they’re on with their
life. Others have—I know one client who has been with us going on 10 months now. His attorney wrote me a letter saying
that he had known this boy, turned into a man, for over two decades, representing him in a court. He said I’d
like to really thank you for what it is that you and the elders do because I haven’t seen or heard from him
since he joined peacemaking.

WOLF: So he’s been staying out of trouble, in other words.

FRANCIS-JACK: He’s been staying out of trouble.

WOLF: So, it’s a very intimate
process, isn’t it? People—I mean what I’ve learned today is, you know, among the things that peacemakers
do, they’ll relate their own stories about their own, perhaps, troubled past or conflicts in the past, to offer
instruction or to offer some kind of model to the client, or example.

FRANCIS-JACK: I guess to
mirror. We mirror back what we’ve gone through, and a lot of them realize that they’re not in this on their
own. There’s somebody that cares for you. There’s somebody that prays for you. There’s somebody that’s
there for you. There’s somebody there that can listen. There’s somebody there that will pick you up once
you fall. If you fall down, and if you do your drugs or do your alcohol, pick yourself back up because we’ve
all been there. We’ve all—well a majority of us, some of us have never—I’m, you know, but it’s each
and every elder that has, like Matthew was saying, it’s each and every elder that offers their little piece
of information that makes it so much more full, that you know, that little pieces altogether make a much more impact
on the client. And we’re not there to preach, we’re not there to condemn, we’re not there to judge—which
is their biggest fear. I consider each one of them a success when they walk through that door, because they’ve
overcome all their fears and all their self-judgment, all their put-downs in their head, and all their old tapes.
And they say, I’m gonna try it anyway.

(SINGING)

WOLF: That’s the
voice of Ray Diel who is a peacemaker with the Navajo nation, who was with us on the Colville reservation. Towards
the end of our conversation, I asked Anna about the first peacemaking case, the one she’d mentioned earlier
about the 18-year-old charged for being with a group that had discharged a gun in a home. She said he dropped out
of peacemaking, but then returned awhile later, ready to serve both the jail sentence imposed by the court, and participate
again with this group of elders in peacemaking.

FRANCIS-JACK: And he tells me, I want to go back
to your peacemaking. I told him, well, you can’t ask me. He said why not? I said because it’s the elders
you have to ask forgiveness from. I said because they were there for you then. But I didn’t tell him I had already
asked them, and that’s what they told me to ask him. (Laughs)

WOLF: That’s good, right.
And so is he in now? Is he back?

FRANCIS-JACK: Yes, he’s in now and he’s about ready
to graduate. He’s taking care of everything now and he’s getting married. His significant other is coming
to his sessions and she was even sitting in my office Tuesday. It seems like she said he was in jail doing his time.

WOLF: Doing time that he owed previously?

FRANCIS-JACK: Yeah. So he’s taking care
of his business and clearing his path, which is what we asked him to do. You need to clear your path. If you’re
going to be starting on a road with this significant other and getting married, it needs to be clear. And he’s
also the one that asked one of the elders to sweat with him, because he wanted to have that as part of his healing.

WOLF: And to sweat is another, is a religious—

FRANCIS-JACK: To go into the sweat house
and pray, and ceremony, and ritual and do all the things that are significant. And they did, they did it. And I think
his, he’s gonna be a future peacemaker because Matthew’s always telling everybody, you know when you come
into peacemaking, after you graduate here you’re a peacemaker.

WOLF: So you don’t have
to be an elder, per se, you have to be an older longstanding member?

FRANCIS-JACK: No.

WOLF: You can be a young person, that makes you an elder as well?

FRANCIS-JACK: Yes,
it does.

WOLF: Or that makes you a peacemaker, I mean. I think I would have to conclude with that
happy note, that I’ve been speaking with Anna Francis-Jack, who is the coordinator of the peacemaking program
at the Confederate Tribes of Colville. So I’m Rob Wolf, Director of Communications at the Center for Court Innovation.
To find out more about peacemaking and the Center for Court Innovation please visit our website at www.courtinnovation.org,
and you can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes. So thanks very much, and thanks for listening.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS | More