Restorative Justice and Visual Restoration in Philadelphia

I think the change of people is from the inside of each people. I don’t think its coming from the outside… justice is inside, the real justice.
—Roger Pin, community participant, Visual Restoration
project, City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program

Restorative Justice is a concept that involves the victim, the offender and the community. Around the globe, mediation and reparations trials are using restorative-justice practices that can be viewed as an alternative to incarceration and revenge, enabling all parties to hear each other out and attempt to understand what has happened to the community and then proceed to healing and wholeness. These tasks can be accomplished through various means, from traditional talking circles to formal victim/offender mediation conferences. This is not an easy process by any means, with the need for thoughtfulness, awareness and willingness to go through it being necessary ingredients.

It is a well-known and sad fact that the U.S. incarcerates more of its citizens per capita than any other country. The financial and social costs of this approach are well documented. Restorative Justice practices are being utilized in some communities and states as an alternative method of combating crime, allowing the offender to repair harm while giving the community and victims voices in the process and exhibiting respect for all.

Restorative Justice and the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program

The Mural Arts Program, as detailed on the program’s Web site began as part of the Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network and was initially developed to provide alternatives to young people who were engaged in graffiti and other minor crimes. “While the program has grown substantially over the years, this fundamental objective still applies — to use mural-making and art education as a means of combating and preventing crime and its impact on communities. For years we have taken a pro-active role in dealing with issues around crime and delinquency by increasing the programs available to adult inmates at local correctional facilities, ex-offenders re-entering their communities, juveniles arrested for minor crimes and in residential placement, chronically truant youth, residents of crime-impacted neighborhoods and victims of crime.”

In Philadelphia, the Mural Arts Program (MAP) has a longstanding history of utilizing restorative-justice concepts. MAP began as an anti-graffiti program, as noted above, putting young graffiti writers to work painting over vandalized walls and then creating beautiful murals on the walls with the help of artists. This simple process allowed the community to be cleaned up, the youth to repair harm the harm they had done and the local citizens to see the offenders in a positive light. This program grew into MAP, and Philadelphia has over 3,000 murals since its inception 25 years ago.

MAP continues to work in state and local prisons, along with facilities for juveniles. Inmates and adjudicated youth receive art instruction and workshops with visiting artists, poets and writers. Sessions are held with victims, citizens and inmates to discuss mural projects and themes. Using this process, MAP has created over 20 murals for the City of Philadelphia within criminal-justice institutions, beginning with the Healing Walls project. Inmates have designed and painted murals for schools, rec centers and local communities and within the institutions themselves.

Cesar Viveros, “Healing Walls: Inmates Journey, Victims Journey,” Germantown Avenue (2003, copyright City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program). Photo by Jack Ramsdale Click here to enlarge

The Healing Walls project was the first outdoor mural designed and painted by inmates at the State Correctional Facility at Graterford. Victim advocates and inmates held sessions within the prison, and the results of this dialog were two murals located on the same street, one entitled “Victims’ Journey” and the other “Inmates Journey.”  Following this project, an ambitious mural project was undertaken on the theme of Balanced and Restorative Justice, a concept that was written into the amended Juvenile Act of the State of Pennsylvania in 1995, and reads as follows, in regards to the juvenile justice system’s mandate.

consistent with the protection of the public interest, to provide for children committing delinquent acts programs of supervision, care and rehabilitation which provide balanced attention to the protection of the community, the imposition of accountability for offenses committed and the development of competencies to enable children to become responsible and productive members of the community.

Visual Restoration: Restorative Justice, Art and the Community

Recently, MAP received a generous grant from the Albert M. Greenfield Foundation to complete two murals on the theme of Restorative Justice. MAP worked with Howard Zehr, a leading expert in the restorative justice field, and local artists to create the murals. The project was entitled “Visual Restoration.”

Cesar Viveros, “My Life, My Path, My Destiny,” Lehigh Avenue near Aramingo (2005, copyright City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program). Photo by Jack Ramsdale Click here to enlarge

At the heart of the project was the ingenious, indigenous idea that entrusting people who have offended against their community with telling or portraying the stories and hopes of the community was the best way to make their reintegration important and vita…. It never lost sight of the commitment to creating sustainable healing and impact that was its foundation…
—Phoebe Zinman, photographer and writer

Year 1 of the project focused on creating lines of communication within the community. Juveniles being released from residential placements were involved through a local empowerment center (known as E3 Centers). The youth involved worked with a muralist and completed a muralist-in-training course, and in addition, took part in writing and oral-history classes, and interviewed local citizens identified as “community treasures” as part of the project.  Eric Okdeh, one of the muralists, said,

The project was ambitious in its scope and reach. The mural transformed a very dismal corner in a neighborhood across from a school and turned it into something vibrant… It really shocks them to learn that the work was painted by men (more specifically men serving life terms), in my prison class…

Dedication of Eric Okdeh’s mural, “Restoration,” Lindley Avenue (2008, copyright City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program). Photo by Michael Reali Click here to enlarge

Year 2 focused on a local community in West Philadelphia. The Bible Way Baptist Church housed a curfew center and hosted a yearly summer camp for local children. Major stakeholders in this project were two local poets, Frank Sherlock and Theodore Harris; local artists Katharine Clark Gray, Charlie Patterson and Eric Okdeh; and the Clay Studio, a program that focuses on ceramic works. In addition, the Pennsylvania Prison Society and the Juvenile Law Center held workshops throughout the summer for the local children, along with youth involved in juvenile-justice programs. The mural was designed and painted with the help of the SCI Graterford inmates, local residents and youth for the programs involved.

What was accomplished? First and foremost, two street corners of the city have received beautiful transformative murals. But deeper than that, when one thinks about the whole process, what is remembered is the touch, the voice, the face of someone that wrote a poem, painted a stroke, spoke at the prison rap sessions and took part in a collaboration face to face, word to word, in hundreds of quiet conversations, about life, death, love, mistakes and choices. It is difficult to describe if one hasn’t been party to the process, but it is about the true meaning of connecting and restoring a sense of humanness and respect to a system gone off track and purposeless.

New initiatives

From "Behind the Mask, " by Eric Okdeh, 2009, copyright City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program Location: 52nd and Master Streets, Photo by Jack Ramsdale Click here to enlarge

MAP has continued to use restorative justice as a guiding principle in its work. Last year, through the support of the Philadelphia Prison System, MAP was able to start a re-entry jobs program. Inmates at the Philadelphia County Jail take part in art instruction and mural-making classes while incarcerated, and those who exhibit the desire are hired to work on murals alongside muralists upon release. MAP is very proud of this program, and has been able to hire 15 ex-inmates, with only one re-arrest. This program epitomizes the values of personal relationships, treating all with respect and dignity, and above all, the importance of employment for ex-inmates. MAP continues to seek funding to carry on and expand this valuable program.  Re-entry workers are often paired with professionally trained artists as mentors, and murals have been completed at various sites, including schools, victim-advocacy agencies and community spaces.

MAP is currently involved in several mural projects with restorative-justice themes. One project involves working with females and the Asia Adams Foundation, begun by Shelah Harper after the brutal murder of her daughter Asia Adams by a male acquaintance. Another project will focus on safe streets in an area of the city plagued with the murder of young men. MAP continues to collaborate with local citizens, victims groups, offenders, ex-inmates and advocacy groups to shed light on this theme by utilizing art and the mural-making process.

MAP is committed to expanding and developing its work in restorative and criminal justice. Now in six Philadelphia prisons, a state prison, a major youth-detention center and a number of residential placements, there is a growing emphasis on re-entry, reclamation of civic spaces, and the use of art to give voice to people who have consistently felt disconnected from society. As critic Arlene Goldbard says, community cultural development practice "brings people into the civic arena with powerful tools of self-expression and communication, promoting democratic involvement in public life."

Robyn Buseman is director of the Restorative Justice Program for the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. She holds a B.A. in criminal justice and an M.A. in the administration of justice and she is a Master Gardener with Montgomery County Cooperative Extension. Buseman developed and was the longtime director of the Mitchell Program at St. Gabriel’s Hall, an innovative, short-term residential program that incorporated gardening and animal care to teach empathy and positive competencies. Contact: robyn.buseman@muralarts.org.

Links

City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program: http://www.muralarts.org

Restorative Justice Online, a service of the Centre for Justice & Reconciliation at Prison Fellowship International: http://www.restorativejustice.org

Original CAN/API publication: May 2009