wfn.org | Can Restorative Justice Really Bring Healing?

[NEWS <NEWS@ELCA.ORG>]

ELCA NEWS SERVICE

May 28, 1999

FORGIVING THE UNFORGIVABLE:
CAN RESTORATIVE JUSTICE REALLY BRING HEALING?
99-FE-01-MR

**Summary:  Restorative justice is a new concept for helping crime victims
cope with fear, anger and loss by meeting with the offender that disrupted
their lives.**

     Five years ago, on February 27, Ted and Pat Nelson were plunged into
horror and despair.   "It was a tough thing on Sunday morning to have the
sheriff come to our house and say, 'Your son is dead,'" said Ted Nelson, a
farmer in the small town of Letcher, S.D. Mark Nelson, who was 23, died
early that morning when a bullet pierced his chest.
     Mark Nelson and Travis Henjum were high school friends and worked
together at a welding shop.  They shared a trailer-house in Mitchell, S.D.,
but were in the process of moving out the weekend Mark Nelson died.  Henjum
planned to move back home, and Nelson planned to move to Sioux Falls for
another job opportunity.
     "Some friends, Mark Nelson and I went out partying Saturday, Feb.
26," said Henjum in an interview from the South Dakota State Penitentiary,
Sioux Falls.  "We did a lot of drinking, hung out until the late hours of
the evening and continued partying into the next morning."
     "I had moved most of my things home ... but I had left a few things.
I had a rifle," said Henjum.  "I was handling the rifle the morning of Feb.
27, allowed it to be pointed at Mark and caused it to go off.  The next
thing I remember was hearing it fire, looking up and seeing my friend with
a tiny red spot on the front of his chest."
     Mark Nelson died shortly after he was shot.  Henjum then fled the
scene.  Thirty days later police caught Henjum in Texas and returned him to
South Dakota for a sentence hearing, where he pled guilty to murder in the
first degree.  Henjum was sentenced to 46 years in prison for the death of
Mark Nelson.
     "During the sentence hearing I had planned to talk to the Nelsons and
tell them how sorry I was, but I didn't have the opportunity," said Henjum.
     "I wanted to hear what Travis had to say ... to know exactly what had
happened in his mind when my son died," said Pat Nelson.
     "So, life went on and we were coping until two years later, on my
birthday, I received a letter from Travis," said Pat Nelson.  "The letter
contained a brochure about a victim-offender reconciliation program in
Sioux Falls."  Henjum had requested to meet with the Nelsons in a process
called "restorative justice."
     Restorative justice is a new concept being circulated among
correction systems in the United States.  It works to bring together
victims, offenders and the community to discuss the facts and consequences
of a crime with the intention to work toward reconciliation.  Restorative
justice programs have been implemented in Illinois, Oregon, Minnesota,
Texas and several other states.
     Pat and Ted Nelson are members of Trinity Lutheran Church, Letcher,
S.D., a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
The ELCA is committed to bringing restoration and healing to victims,
offenders and communities affected by crime.  Through a social statement
adopted by the 1991 ELCA Churchwide Assembly, the church's challenge is "to
incapacitate offenders in a manner that limits violence and holds open the
possibility of conversion and restoration."
     "Victims have questions that need answering in order to heal," said
Lois Janzen Preheim, director for the Victim Offender Reconciliation
Program (VORP).  VORP is housed at East Side Lutheran Church, Sioux Falls.
     "Restorative justice provides the opportunity for reconciliation,
which is an agreement on some of the facts of a crime," Preheim said.
"Usually people have two different sets of facts.  The victim knows certain
things, and the offender knows certain things.  Reconciliation provides a
truer picture of what went on.  It is some level of acceptance about what
one can change and what one cannot change," she said.
     "I believe that reconciliation is a gift from God and a task that has
been given to us by God," said Preheim.  "Generally our legal system does
not care too much about recovery for victims and offenders.  I think the
church should be interested in helping people heal from the consequences of
a crime."
     Restorative justice offers also the opportunity for offenders to make
amends for the harm they have caused to both the victims and the community.
Rather than simply serving out a sentence, offenders take responsibility
for their action and take steps to repair the harm, as much as possible,
caused to the victims and the community.  These steps often result in a
face-to-face mediation between the victim and the offender.
     "After I read the Victim Offender Reconciliation Program brochure I
received from Travis, I immediately went to the phone.  I wanted to do
this," said Pat Nelson.
     Preheim led the mediation between the Nelsons and Travis Henjum in
June 1998.  "The Nelson-Henjum mediation was my first mediation that dealt
with a crime of severe violence," Preheim said.  "It was really heavy for
me, because I was overwhelmed with Mark Nelson's death and the
senselessness of it."
     "Part of what I do is to arrange the logistics for the meeting.  I
meet with each party to explain why such mediation would be useful.  After
I find out what the objectives are from each party -- the victim and the
offender -- I sort out what would really be the important items to say at
the time of the mediation.  By the time people come to the table, they are
clear about what it is they want from each other," said Preheim.
     "It was a very frightening experience at first, because I didn't know
what they were going to say to me," said Henjum.  At the mediation, "I
heard [the Nelsons] tell me how they were affected.  I heard them tell
their story, and they were kind and compassionate.  If I had been them, it
would have been something I would have found extremely hard to do.  But
they didn't show that kind of difficulty at all.  They were understanding,"
Henjum said.
     "I didn't necessarily ask the Nelsons for forgiveness," he said.
"Lois Preheim and I talked about it before the mediation, since it was one
of the things I was searching for, I guess.  Lois said that forgiveness was
something the Nelsons had to be ready to give on their own, if they were
willing."
     At the mediation, Henjum discovered that the Nelsons were willing to
forgive him.
     "I had to have him look at me right in the eye and say, 'Pat, I'm so
sorry for killing your son, or taking your son's life.'  I needed to hear
that before I could forgive him."  That was one goal for me during the
mediation, said Pat Nelson.
     "When we walked out of that meeting room, we were physically
drained," she said.  "We were going over everything -- his side, our side,
what we were doing, and what he was doing those 30 days he left town," said
Pat Nelson.  "After that, it was just like 500 pounds was thrown right off
my shoulders.  I don't have to live with all that anymore.  I had forgiven
him, and it was in the Lord's hands what was going to happen to him next."
     When the mediation ended Pat Nelson walked around the table, and gave
Travis Henjum a hug.  "I did not expect that," said Preheim.  "It was so
very moving for me.  It was just a very special moment because I knew
Travis Henjum was not expecting it."
     "It wasn't Mark's time," said Henjum.  "I don't believe that it was
God's will that Mark should die on Feb. 27, 1994.  He died because of what
I did.  He died because of my action.  He died because I had no business
messing around with that rifle."
     "Everyone thinks victims want revenge," said Dora Larson, coordinator
of victim services for the Illinois Department of Corrections, Springfield.
"Victims really don't want revenge, they want to be made whole.  And, they
want to have some kind of voice," she said.
     "In 1979 my little 10-year-old daughter, Vicky, was kidnaped, raped,
murdered and put into a grave that her killer had dug three days before,"
Larson said.  "We lived in a very small community of 500 people.  Her
killer was a 15-year-old chronic child molester that had been in our home
off and on; we had no idea that he was this kind of monster."
     "When I found out about his criminal background and what hadn't been
done, anger took over me.  Vicky's death should have never happened,"
Larson said, "so we held the state responsible.  No matter what I do, I
will never get my child back.  But there are other children at risk."
     Larson sought to meet with her daughter's killer but has not been
able.  The offender has denied mediation and does not feel remorse for his
actions, according to Larson.
     "An offender does not get to the mediation table unless he or she
admits to guilt," said Jane Otte, executive director for prisoner and
family ministry, Lutheran Social Services of Illinois, Des Plaines.
     "I think there are always questions about sincerity on the offender's
part.  The evaluation needs to made by trained people before victims and
offenders come together," Otte said.  "Restorative justice is a paradigm
shift.   Retributive justice -- our current system -- looks at laws and
sanctions, but restorative justice looks at people.  In fact, restorative
justice looks at the hurt and listens to the hurt.  It is about people
being made whole."
     "It is very important that offenders admit to guilt, and, from a
Christian perspective, that means confession.  I'm not saying that
offenders have to become religious and confess, but in a secular sense
offenders have to confess to the crime," Otte said.
     While end-goals of restorative justice are confession, reconciliation
and restoration, it can also result in forgiveness.
     "Forgiveness is an expression of grace given to us by God, and Jesus
Christ earned that grace for all human beings," said the Rev. Paul R.
Nelson, ELCA director for worship, Chicago.
     Lutherans believe that forgiveness is granted by God after the
confession or acknowledgment of sin -- confession and absolution.
     "I don't think we could have forgiven the offender if we didn't have
faith," said Pat Nelson.  "Our human nature tells us 'an eye for an eye,'
but if people do not communicate with God, death can hurt for the rest of
one's life."

[**Melissa O. Ramirez is assistant director for news and information for
the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.]

EDITOR'S NOTE:
MOSAIC, the video magazine of the ELCA, will feature an eight-minute
segment about restorative justice available in June.  The segment includes
interviews with Ted and Pat Nelson, Travis Henjum, Lois Janzen Preheim,
Jane Otte and Dora Larson.  To receive a copy of MOSAIC call 
1-800-638-3522, extension 6009.

Photographs of Ted and Pat Nelson and Travis Henjum are available upon
request.  Please call the ELCA News Service at 1-800-638-3522, extension
2956.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://listserv.elca.org/archives/elcanews.html