Offenders Want to Make Right the Harm

5/23/2014

Each week that I go into prison to facilitate a "Dialog Circles Class" I hear the following, "Miss Judy, I can't believe that you and these volunteers care enough about us to keep coming back. Why do you keep coming?" I don't really have an answer. I find it easy to care about these individuals who want so much to make things right. All of us have made bad choices resulting in harm to someone else. But we got a second chance. Many of the inmates that I know committed their felonies when they were quite young. They are completely different people today. Do they deserve a second chance? What do you think?

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Judy Clarke

Judith
Tolleson Clarke, BS, MA, VCRJ Executive Director, completed
her Bachelor’s degree in General Studies at Radford University and her MA in Conflict Transformation with a concentration in Restorative Justice at Eastern Mennonite University. A former special education teacher, Judy wrote a
values-based, restorative justice curriculum, “How to Handle Conflict” and taught it to over three thousand male and female inmates. While managing her advertising agency, she was a member of the faculty of the Institute for Organizational Management, U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Judy served on the Board of Directors of the Richmond Chamber of Commerce, is a member of Leadership Metro Richmond and was chosen “Outstanding Woman of the Year”
by the Virginia Women Attorney’s Association. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the League of Women Voters of the Richmond Metropolitan Area and as a Deacon at Mount Vernon Baptist Church, Glen Allen, VA.

Offenders Want to Make Right the Harm

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Judy Clarke

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