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Transforming Justice Initiative


A purple and white striped background with no image.A purple and white striped background with no image.

A purple and white striped background with no image.

The Prison Studies Project’s Transforming Justice Initiative is in partnership with the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Office of Student Affairs. Through interdisciplinary conversations across Harvard University and beyond, we explore justice that transforms–our selves, our relationships, and our communities.

Since August 2016, we have hosted community conversations in three parts: public forums (often in jails and prisons), films, and a monthly student working lunch. Topics include: school discipline and mass criminalization; human dignity and storytelling; racial healing and restorative justice practices; child sex trafficking and trauma; the role of empathy and social/emotional learning in education, sanctuary and state violence.

Our understanding of transforming justice includes repairing harm in relationships and changing systems that cause harm. Whether justice is framed in terms of freedom or equity, opportunity or protection, collective responsibility or being made whole, it is a process that reveals itself in relation to our own and each other’s humanity. Transforming justice work as we imagine it is internal, relational, structural, and ongoing.

 

A poster with the names of speakers and a picture.
A poster with speakers and an image of the same.
Two posters of a person covering their face
A poster for the event, " beloved streets."
A poster with the words reimagining justice and a picture of hands.
A poster with a picture of a woman and the words " domestic sex trafficking and the fight for abolition ".
A street sign with directions to the dr. Martin luther king jr. Boulevard
A poster with a picture of dr. Martin luther king jr.
A poster for the conference belonging : the challenges of reentry.
A poster for an event with the date and time.
A poster with photos of people in front of the words " a transdisciplinary approach to criminal justice reform and restorative justice ".
A flyer for the circle and ciphers event.
A poster for the theater shows a woman 's head.
A poster with the words from control to connection
Two different images of a bag with the words " transformative justice working lunch series ".
A poster with hands and the words " disrupting the school to prison pipeline ".
A poster for the film screening and discussion.
A flyer for the nixers american hall.
A poster of whose streets ?
A poster with barbed wire and the words " education and transformative justice ".
A poster with the words " how is september 1 1 th significant ?" on it.
A poster for the event with a picture of a person.
A flyer for the free her justice advocacy conference.
A poster for the performance of dying while black and brown.
A poster for an exhibit of photographs and the words " justice ".
A poster of the central park five.
A poster of the house i live in
A poster with the words " the new jim crow : mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness ".
A poster for an event with the names of people.
A picture of cory booker with the words " race & justice speaker series : the wire ".
A poster of the speakers for race and justice speaker series
A poster of the harvard law school 's rack and justice speaker series.
A poster of speakers for the harvard law school 's race and justice : the wire.
A flyer for the race and justice speaker series.
A poster for the reading from dead man working.
A poster for the cast of the wire
A poster for the massachusetts conference on community, faith and policy leaders.
A poster for the musical " lyrics from lockdown ".
A flyer for the event with two people.
A poster for the harvard law school 's event.
A book reading and discussion with kala stern
A poster of the transformative justice series.
A close up of the closing of the opportunity gap logo

On March 26, 2015, Dr. Kaia Stern chaired a panel at the historic #BipartisanSummit for Criminal Justice Reform in Washington D.C., titled Justice that Transforms: Emotional, Social, and Mental Health.

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