A Brave Space

Maura Williams, guest writer for the Beloved Community Communications Team
Member of the Racial and Restorative Justice, Artist in Residence, and Art Teams

Fourteen inmates of the Minnesota Correctional Facility–Shakopee, the only women’s prison in Minnesota, enter the group room for a Restorative Justice Healing Circle. This will be their routine for the next ten Thursdays. The women, though dressed alike in gray sweatpants and sweatshirts, represent different ages, backgrounds, races, crimes and sentences. Each takes a chair in the circle, uncertain what this experience, for which they signed up, will require of them. I take roll and send the attendance sheet to the control desk. 

We talk about Restorative Justice (RJ) and the Circle process; about providing a respectful place to center on accountability and healing. And how, in contrast to the punitive consequences assigned by our criminal justice system, RJ seeks to restore wholeness to all impacted by a crime: victims and perpetrators and the broader community. 

My co-facilitator and I lay out expectations. This entire series will be conversation, we say. We then discuss as a group what values we wish to honor and uphold during our time together. Words like courage, honesty, respect, compassion are offered. 
There is coherence between the physical setup of the Circle, the quality of conversation that ensues, and building trust: 

• The talking piece designates the speaker and gets passed left from the speaker’s heart to the woman on her left. We ask people to speak from the heart in their sharing, and that emotional honesty evokes sympathy. 
• Echoing the shape of a circle, there is no hierarchy, no “boss” or intended outcomes so the conversation flows with emphasis on understanding. Everyone is equal in Circle. 
• What someone says in Circle does not get shared outside Circle. Confidentiality is the highest priority, especially in this place. 

I think of Circle as a non-white-centered way for people, both known and strangers, to engage in a slower, more attentive way to be together, in which we focus on who someone is rather than what they do. We remind the women that they are not their crimes, and then we ask them to tell their stories. All in the group feel respected and safe and, over time, the group becomes non-judgmental in their listening. 

When I think of my own experience of meetings, I am reminded of how dominant culture seems to be driven by productivity:

• Meetings are confined by time and agenda, focusing on moving the group’s business forward. 
• A few empowered individuals typically monopolize the conversation; all perspectives in the room are not usually solicited. 
• Data-supported objectivity often overrides personal insights; it is presumed that there is one right answer within an either/or approach to problem solving. 

Some have felt that the Circle process has at times been misappropriated when adapted to meet white cultural patterns. This happens when getting the work done supersedes relational values. See “White Supremacy Culture Characteristics” by Tema Okun for more on this.

I learned the Peacemaking Circle process from members of the Inland Tlingit Nation of Yukon Territory, Canada, who have been sharing “community-based justice” for years. Circle Keeper training confounded me at first. I had expected to be instructed on facilitation techniques, but training consisted of days of sitting in Circle, listening to people respond to questions about life experiences, personal challenges and aspirations, or just what was on their hearts. We were being trained to listen. 

Circles are used in a variety of situations from school to organizational settings, providing a respectful space to resolve conflict, determine appropriate amends, talk about wrongdoing, and to deepen relationships among people of differing backgrounds and experience. For example, I recently served as a Circle Keeper for Museums Advancing Racial Justice hosted at the Science Museum of Minnesota, with the Smithsonian. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) professionals from around the country attended, and I learned this can be lonely work. At the beginning and end of each of the three days, participants attended circles to deepen their experience and new relationships, that will support their important work. 

---

Circle has required me to be fully present, both in my speaking and listening. It has required that I share myself more authentically (challenging for an introvert). 

I have learned that conflict can be expressed considerately and without escalation, and to better trust my intuitive reactions. I credit Circle, at least partly, for my growing impatience with expert opinions, analytical explanations, intellectual grandstanding, and judgments, all behaviors commended in dominant culture.

I used to think that ending racism requires us all to interact more with people that don’t look like us, in order to dispel the knee-jerk racist perception of those people as “other.” This still seems true, but it is how we interact with people, no matter their race, that is critical. Recognizing that there is something to learn from other cultures about how to be together can catalyze the shift we yearn for towards Beloved Community.

Our Healing Circles at MCF-Shakopee are consistently comprised of mostly white inmates, and is demographically more in line with the state population, unlike men’s prisons. Written evaluations at the end of the series include statements like:
I feel better about myself; like I am willing to move on, and let go of what landed me here in prison. I owned my part even though I didn’t want to.

I am compassionate with peers because I recognize that it isn’t what’s wrong with her but more what has happened to her to get such action.

We never know if there are happy endings for the women we get to know. Though they speak of change and creating better futures for their kids, some return to the same neighborhoods, relationships, and lifestyles where old expectations do not support fresh beginnings. But most are resilient and resourceful survivors, empowered by the unique bond of Circle. They have laughed and cried together. They have seen themselves in each other’s stories and have been there for each other. 

I hope that this experience will help each woman pursue the long process of healing and forgiving herself; that she will hold in her heart the group of exceptional women who listened to her story attentively and respectfully, and that she will continue to source in herself the strength to speak her truth bravely. ​