On December 14, 2005, approximately 50 crime victims, along with corrections professionals and victims’ rights advocates, entered Vacaville’s California State Prison – Solano for a day-long symposium on victim/offender reconciliation. A prison would seem to be an inhospitable venue, but the location was necessary to permit the attendance of the symposium’s hosts. Of the one hundred attendees, half were inmate members of the Victim/Offender Reconciliation Group (VORG). 

Organized in 1988, VORG is a victim-centered inmate program founded in direct response to recommendations made by the State Task Force on Victims’ Rights. VORG members meet weekly with crime victims and with victims’ rights agencies to hear about the profoundly negative impact of crime, to actively take responsibility for their own crimes, and to make tangible amends to the community. Since 1998, VORG has been hosting annual symposiums to foster dialogue, networking, and healing with victims, offenders, and organizations committed to restorative justice for both.

Symposium guests received a mini-tour of the institution and were then welcomed with a continental breakfast in the prison visiting room. Chief Deputy Warden Robert Horel welcomed the symposium participants and then remarked upon CSP-Solano’s support for rehabilitative programs, like VORG, that have a strong emphasis on community reconciliation and on victims’ needs.

One of the ways that VORG works to make amends in the community is by raising funds for community-based victims’ services organizations. Mike Brewer, the primary staff sponsor for the program, noted that the 60 inmate members of VORG have raised over $300,000 for such agencies, like Oakland’s Bay Area Women Against Rape (BAWAR).

Marsha Blackstone, Director of BAWAR, has participated in VORG programs since the beginning. BAWAR operates a crisis hotline in the Bay Area for victims of sexual crime and it also provides training to law-enforcement personnel. “VORG has given about $30,000 to BAWAR and is one of our biggest contributors, often giving more than our corporate and foundation sponsors,” says Blackstone, whose organization teaches VORG members about the trauma of sexual crimes. “More than once, the money from VORG has helped us to meet our budget.”

The money is raised from the prison population itself through food sales conducted by VORG members. Some of the other groups supported by VORG are Vanished Children’s Alliance, the Vacaville battered women’s shelter, Special Olympics, Christmas Wish Foundation, the Vacaville senior center, and other non-profits that serve vulnerable citizens. In 2005 alone, VORG raised over $20,000 to help fund such groups.

In 2004, BAWAR staff began a new training program with the VORG members: “Victim-centered/Offender-sensitive Mediated Dialogue Training.” This long-term training, which involves extensive introspection and painfully honest group discussion, is designed to prepare offenders for meeting face-to-face with the victims of their crimes, should the victims ever desire it. Inmates are taught to empathize and be accountable. Membership in the VORG program and participation in the Mediated Dialogue training require that the inmate first fully admit guilt for his crime(s). This is a significant shift from the denial syndrome, where many inmates mitigate their actions or shift blame to others.

“Victims want offenders to be held accountable,” says Jennifer Shaffer, “but that doesn’t necessarily mean lock them up and throw away the key. There is a small group of very vocal victims who purport to speak for all victims. Most victims want offenders to be punished and reformed.”

Shaffer is the new Assistant Secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDRC) in charge of the Office of Victim and Survivor Services (OVSS). Under the leadership of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and State Senator Gloria Romero, the reorganization of the prison system placed a high emphasis on victim services along with the renewed focus on rehabilitation. Ms. Shaffer is the first person in charge of victim services to be placed at her level in state government.

Attending the symposium with her staff, Secretary Shaffer addressed the gathering concerning her work in the Office of Victim and Survivor Services. Shaffer’s office, under the new CDCR organization, consolidates victim services that were originally spread across multiple departments. Crime victims may connect with her office for a variety of advocacy services, including: coordination of victim participation in parole hearings; notification of the release, escape or death of an inmate; help with restitution collection; and referral to local victim/witness counseling and crisis intervention. OVSS handles three to four thousand victim contacts per month and collects 1.2 million dollars per month in restitution from CDCR inmates.

“Our mission is public safety. But we must also recognize that 95% of all inmates will be released. Will they be better, worse or unchanged? It is in the interest of public safety and in the interest of victims that we do what we can to return inmates to society better able to function within the law than when we received them,” said Shaffer. “We are advocates for victims and these rehabilitative programs need to be victim-driven. Our job is to give victims a voice.”

One of the victim-driven programs is the training provided by BAWAR for Victim/Offender Mediated Dialogue. This pilot program is moving carefully but is preparing to facilitate face-to-face meetings between victims and offenders who are adequately prepared to do so. A first such meeting, officially facilitated by CDCR, may happen in the coming months. Through different channels, one such type of meeting has already happened.

A meeting between a victim and an offender can be frightening. It can also be healing. Since 1981, Russ Turner has produced films for the Executive Staff at the Office of the Attorney General. He felt that he knew a lot about how crime victims felt. And then, in 1995, Turner’s son, Peter Jeremiah Turner, was killed by Steven Lesley, who hit him while driving under the influence. Lesley was convicted of second degree murder and was sentenced to serve fifteen years to life in prison. After nine years, Turner and Lesley met face to face at CSP-Solano.

The meeting between Russ Turner and Steven Lesley was documented in a film that was presented at the symposium, “Dead in 5 Seconds: A Father Talks with His Son’s Killer” (film available from www.turnerandassociates.com). Turner explained the devastation that his son’s murder had upon the Turner family. In the time after Jeremy’s death, “I ran to the clothes hamper. I knew his scent was going to fade and that his image was going to fade.” In the decade since the murder, Turner has battled with depression. “Each day we remember,” he says. “Each day it has an effect on my family.”

The time came when Russ Turner was ready to face Steven and to forgive him. A breathless quiet came over the symposium participants and Turner explained, “I wanted to look him in the eye and tell him that he is forgiven. You can hug the man that killed your son and not feel hate. I would have been a prisoner if I had gone for a pound of flesh rather than forgive.” Mr. Turner takes his story, now interlaced with Lesley’s, to high school students around the state. Out of his tragedy has come healing and hope for others.

Russ Turner concluded his remarks with a quote from Steve Ortberg, author of Everyone is Normal Until You Get To Know Them: “The miracle of forgiveness, even when an offender doesn’t ask for it or deserve it, is that it offers freedom from bitterness and resentment that can imprison the victims year after year.” Russ Turner is one of only two victims who have met with their offenders. “It will take a group of courageous victims and offenders,” says Jennifer Shaffer, “but things are slowly moving forward.”

The success of the VORG program is seen in its participants and in its graduates. VORG members who parole are not returning to prison; except, perhaps, to encourage others on their redemptive journey. Tow VORG alumni, James Harris and Emery Hanson, returned to the prison to speak to those gathered at the symposium. Both have been out of prison for more than a decade; both are making positive contributions to the community. “You have to be free inside yourself,” says Hanson, “before you can be free from prison.” True freedom comes from genuine redemption. Harris and Hanson are now helping the next VORG members to succeed on parole by continuing the reconciliation work in the Inside/Out Program, a VORG group in the community for VORG members who parole from prison.

The work being done in VORG is the work of reconciliation, the work of the Gospel. There is no cheap grace, only free grace coupled with the long work of being accountable for one’s offenses and making just amends. This is the kind of work that is supported by the Church, resurrection and new life out of tragedy and death.

The 2004 VORG symposium was cancelled for lack of funding. The 2005 symposium was saved from the same with a $1,000 grant from the Episcopal Diocese of California. The contribution from the Diocese was given in memory of Michael Craig Stephenson, a 1985 victim of murder, who will never be forgotten.