Across the country, Black people are policed, arrested, tried, and convicted at a rate that is disproportionate to our population. In Georgia, Black people are 60% of the state prison population but only 32% of the state’s overall population, according to a 2019 report published by the University of Georgia.
This is almost the complete inverse for white Georgians, who make up 61% of the state’s population and about 36% of state prison inmates.
Criminal justice reform and prison reform have dominated local and national efforts to mold the existing system into one that does not produce these stark racial disparities.
However, there are also those who believe the existing criminal legal system is not capable of addressing the injustices that are baked into the way Americans and policymakers view public safety.
Where criminal justice reform seeks to make traditional punishments like prison, parole, and probation more humane, these people focus on alternatives to the criminal legal system — like restorative justice — that take an entirely different approach.
Often it includes restorative conferencing, where an offender and a victim, along with other members of their community and a mediator, discuss what the victim needs for justice and what the offender needs so they don’t repeat the same behavior.
The goal is to hold people accountable for their harm, which is what restorative justice advocates call any offense against a person, including but not limited to crime.
Capital B Atlanta spoke with three Black Atlantans who are imagining what public safety and justice look like outside the existing system by mediating restorative conferences, community building, and educating others.
They spoke about their work, why they believe it is beneficial for Black people, and why they focus their efforts outside the existing system as opposed to attempting to reform it.
Restorative Conferencing
Nonpunitive pathways to justice are limited, which is why Allison Bantimba, a co-founder of Restorative Conferencing Atlanta, works to resolve conflict and remedy harm outside of the criminal legal system.
“I think that on the microlevel, resolving conflicts is much more effective at having a long-lasting resolution, and on a macro level, it returns the skills that we’ve lost by not being allowed to resolve our own conflicts in the first place,” Bantimba said.
By having all or most conflicts go through the criminal legal system, she explained, people are deprived of the ability to solve their own issues in favor of a punitive solution that does not repair the original harm done.
The restorative conferencing process includes everyone: the person who created the harm, the person who was harmed, and anyone else who was involved or witnessed the harm.
“We essentially ask three questions: What happened? How were you affected? And how do we make this better,” with everyone getting an opportunity to explain their position, Bantimba said.
As a facilitator, Bantimba stressed the importance of conferencing on a localized level to ensure that everyone involved also has the support they need to move forward in a healthy way.
Right now, because most of their cases come from prosecutors’ referrals, the vast majority come from Fulton County Juvenile Court, but Bantimba would like to see it expanded further.
“The juvenile court is much more amenable to these sorts of diversions because we all want to help children and keep them out of the legal system. But once they turn 18, there’s just a different popular opinion,” she said.
For now, wider implementation of restorative conferencing is largely dependent on buy-in from prosecutors who are part of the foundation of the system that restorative justice practitioners seek to replace.
While restorative conferencing is one tool used after someone has committed a crime, a lot of restorative justice work focuses on ways to prevent crime.
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” said Natasha Johnson, a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Georgia State University.
Johnson recently co-authored a study that explored the barriers that formerly incarcerated people face when trying to get housing and suggested that policymakers prioritize housing support to reduce recidivism.
Many of the study’s participants ended up living with family members after their release, which Johnson said can lead to people ending up in the same situations that got them incarcerated in the first place.
Basic needs like housing and a livable wage are part of a public safety philosophy that also promotes community as a way to hold one another accountable.
Johnson said it can be especially important for adolescents to have consistent relationships not just in school or at home, but with their neighbors and local store owners.
“Every single person — member of the community — has a stake, not only in seeing lower violence, lower crime, but in seeing their values not be diminished,” Johnson said
Community Building
“We acknowledge the system of incarceration as something we have to contend with, but we don’t support the narrative that people are criminal in nature, and therefore we need that system,” said La’Die Mansfield, director of programs at Project South, an Atlanta-based regional organization that centers on cultivating community to address the social, political and economic problems of today.
While Project South is a membership organization, it seeks input from anyone who is part of the local community, regardless of their membership status.
“You might come just to get food, but we recognize you as someone that is part of the community,” Mansfield said. “We can’t talk about protection and defending without having your input or at least understanding what that means for you.”
Originally founded in 1986 as the Institute to Eliminate Poverty and Genocide, Project South defines public safety based on meeting community needs rather than through policing.
“We are an abolitionist organization,” Mansfield said, referring to the modern abolition movement that seeks to end the prison industrial complex.
For example, at an Alabama Mutual Aid Liberation Center, if a young person in the community gets in trouble or commits harm, they may be required to work on the community’s farm for a summer.
Mansfield noted that while that arrangement works in Alabama, their Atlanta community has not made that decision. Though there is a sharing of ideas and resources, local community members are the decision makers.
In 2023, Project South was one of a number of local organizations who joined the Coalition to Stop Cop City by canvassing to collect signatures for a petition that would allow Atlanta voters to vote on the controversial training facility.
“We were able to also use it as a way to organize,” Mansfield said. “And to also have a framework to talk to community members about state violence and state repression.”
Education
So often when a person’s violent behavior gets them incarcerated, it is the result of an interpersonal conflict that escalated, which is why Aaron Johnson, a community activist and intervention specialist, focuses on education.
His “holistic approach to violence intervention” means that in addition to connecting people with workforce training and GED programs, he also works on soft skills or people skills.
“Currently I have a consulting firm as well where I focus on healing communities and workforce development simultaneously,” Johnson said.
By conducting conversations about the harm Black people have experienced and how it affects the Black psyche, Johnson tries to expand his participants’ understanding about how trauma can affect an individual’s ability to address conflict in a healthy way.
“If someone is screaming at you, cursing you out, you understand that oftentimes they’re just in survival mode,” Johnson explained.
In addition to healthy communication and problem-solving skills, Johnson also uses breathing exercises, yoga and tai-chi to teach people to manage their emotions and reactions.
By giving people the tools to self-regulate, Johnson says, they can activate their own agency rather than reacting from a place of trauma.
