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What Is Restorative Justice? An Alternative Approach to Addressing Harm.

The criminal punishment system allows no real path forward for healing. Restorative justice offers a better way.

What do successful alternatives to policing, prosecution and prison actually look like? And how would they work? A group of Chicago’s leading community safety, health and justice innovators gathered at the DePaul Art Museum last summer to provide much-needed clarity on these crucial questions.

Artists, survivors of violence, entrepreneurs and business leaders, public defenders, policy experts, restorative justice practitioners and system-impacted people sat down for a series of conversations while exploring Remaking the Exceptional, a groundbreaking exhibition on torture and incarceration.

The conversations expose common myths about crime and punishment and explain a range of critical issues and innovations, including restorative justice, violence interruption, copaganda, pretrial detention and the criminalization of survivors, among others.

This short film — the first in a series named after the exhibition and produced by Zealous — focuses on our current, failed approach to violence, what “restorative justice” means, and how the practice offers a path forward for healing, accountability, health and safety.

The film features artist and activist Bella BAHHS, health advocate and entrepreneur Tanya Lozano, entrepreneur and trauma specialist Johnny Page, and restorative justice practitioner Jenny Viets.

Click here to read more on restorative justice.

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