Restorative Justice and Lasting Peace

re·stor·a·tive jus·tice

noun

1. a system of criminal justice which focuses on the rehabilitation of offenders through reconciliation with victims and the community at large.

(Oxford Languages)

I want to expand upon these words, in looking at a future vision of the United States.

The victims are many! George Floyd is a clear example. A young Black man was murdered through the choke hold of a white policeman, while other policemen stood by. Matthew Shepard was murdered because he was openly gay. Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry and Ashley Judd are all rape survivors.

I often hear the words: “racism was a major problem that was ended by the civil rights legislation of the 1960’s. Now, we have a few bad apples, not a systemic problem.”

Rape, sexual abuse, domestic violence and child abuse were huge problems, little talked about until the 1970’s and 1980’s. Many women, children, and men continue to be victimized.

I’ve not heard a single case of a famous man “coming clean” about his past exploitation, until he’s been “outed” by others (usually some of his victims). Some examples of men “outed” are: Matt Lauer, Senator Al Franken, Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Spacey, and Bill Cosby.

Inequality is both a racial and class issue in the U.S.

A Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis report shows this clearly.

Wealth inequality in America has grown tremendously from 1989 to 2016, to the point where the top 10% of families ranked by household wealth (with at least $1.2 million in net worth) own 77% of the wealth “pie.” The bottom half of families ranked by household wealth (with $97,000 or less in net worth) own only 1% of the pie. … In 2016, the typical white family had about 10 times the wealth of the typical black family and about 7.5 times the wealth of the typical Hispanic family. https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2019/august/wealth-inequality-in-america-facts-figures

Another source: Second quarter 2019 Total Family Asset Figures by Percentiles: (trillions):

Top 1% = $35.5 = 28.2 % of Total

90–99th% = $46.2 = 36.6 %

50–90th = $36.9 = 29.3 %

0.01–50th = $ 7.5 = 4.7%

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-09/one-percenters-close-to-surpass…