(people talking indistinctly) - Welcome to the North Lawndale Restorative Justice Community Court.

We're here today on a joyous occasion.

These nine young people have completed all the terms of their repair of harm agreement, which means they've come through the restorative justice community court successfully.

Some years ago when I was new in this court, and we had a person being dismissed, he welled up and started to tear a little, and said, "I just want somebody to be proud of me."

That touched me so much.

I can't tell you how proud I am of all of you, congratulations.

(audience clapping) My view is that our young people are our most valuable non-renewable resource.

And when we lose one, we and they lose the opportunity to develop and exploit their potential for doing good, for helping in the community.

And I tell you when you come into the court, it's not like the criminal court where you don't have an opportunity to tell your story until you're being sentenced.

You have the opportunity.

Restorative justice courts return offenders back to the community as fully participating productive members of the community.

(light music) Be proud of yourselves of what you've done, you created a whole new life for yourself.

We're typically dealing with gun possession cases.

Names, as I'm speaking.

- I had went through a little situation, I'm not going to get into too much detail, but I had caught a firearm case, and I ended up getting a punishment for it 'cause I didn't have all the proper cause, to all the proper things I was supposed to have when I had my firearm on me.

So lesson learned, basically I just got a lesson learned.

- Crime doesn't happen in a vacuum, there's always a story behind it.

And I tell them, "At the moment "you were brought to the attention of the police officer, "there was something going on in your life.

"It might've been urgent right then, "or it might've been something "that's happened in the last two weeks, "or it might've been your entire lifetime, "you've been traumatized."

And North Lawndale is a deeply traumatized community.

(vehicles whirring) - Lemme tell you, walking down the street, random people just start shooting for no reason, you be like, "Damn, okay."

God forbid, I don't want to die on no middle of the street or no sidewalk with no bunch of people just looking on me, I don't want, I don't want I feel.

If I didn't get into the the program, I was gonna go to jail for a year-and-a-half.

But by the grace of God, (Tyshun laughs) I had caught a second chance, yeah.

- The state's attorneys from the branch court or the criminal court are told to identify young people between the ages of 18 and 26 who are charged with a nonviolent offense, and who are willing to accept responsibility for the conduct that got them arrested.

(light music continues) We don't hold court in any courthouse, we're at the UCAN Center here in North Lawndale, we wanna be in the community that we're serving.

- You're not supposed to be over here, he in the wrong courthouse.

- [Judge Patricia] What we do on a court day as the court stakeholders, that's the state's attorney, the public defender, or the private attorney meet in a confidential meeting to discuss how their participants are moving along in the process.

- [Man] Your honor, I'm here because of-- - So when we're doing that sort of thing, the participants come into this separate room.

(door squeaking) - As the process was going on, I had to come every month, when I had court, to participate in a circle, 'cause they wanna make sure that they keeping up with you.

Tyshun Rule for court.

(people talking indistinctly) - [Judge Patricia] They come into what we're calling the icebreaker circle area.

Some of 'em come wrapped up in layers and layers and layers of emotional body armor.

- All right, okay, so we got one, two, three, four people here for the first time.

This is a safe environment and no judgment zone, you don't have to worry about nobody saying nothing crazy.

You come out here, you talk crazy, we you gonna all laugh, we gonna all cry.

And once you in this circle, this for everybody, you're part of the circle.

You'll learn how to change a process of thinking, man, the world is yours, this is gonna be a great opportunity for you, you just gotta make it happen.

Oh Lord, the party's over.

Would you introduce yourself, sir?

- Good morning everyone, my name is Robert Calhoun, senior, I'm safe, sane, and sober, blessed by the best, ain't sham-er, and don't care who this guy go tell.

(people laughing) I am a case manager here for the honorable (Robert talking indistinctly) judge.

- [Judge Patricia] They are assigned case managers.

The case manager stays with them from beginning to end.

- Since I-- - This is the person you can rely on anytime you have a question, anytime you feel the need just to talk to somebody, that's the person to call.

- But this program is very beneficial to those who come into it.

Not everyone makes it, but those that make it, and they made it 'cause they stick with it, didn't quit it, and they get it.

- Thank you Rob.

So, (Jimmy claps hands) this is is good, this is good, we got new people, we got people that's preparing to graduate, wow.

So, I'm gonna go to you first.

- Well, I didn't really know about this program, so it was kind of new.

And I honestly was expecting like 26th Street, I didn't think they gave chances like this.

- [Jimmy] So how is it working for you now?

- It's going great, I got a job.

- [Jimmy] Okay, congratulations, congratulations.

Mister Tyshun.

- It made me stay focused at working.

I got a lot of stuff competed by me focusing a lot on work, I made decent amount of money, so I just started me up the business and all that.

So, I could say this kinda helped me stayed on the right track and stuff like that.

I say take advantage of it, 'cause they giving y'all a lot of opportunities to become something better than y'all life.

So, start to y'all, y'all want a better life in the end.

- [Judge Patricia] You have a circle of maybe 20 total strangers, answering questions, they're getting to know each other, (participants laughing) they're forming relationships.

That's the point of restorative justice.

- [Jimmy] What kind of person do you wanna be right now?

- I wanna be a better father.

- So get this, check this out.

How many fathers in this room, raise your hand.

Look all the people that you can talk to right here.

You see all these men that raise their hand?

I guarantee they have ran across some issues that you will run across and that you have ran across.

So I don't think either one of these men that have a problem with you pulling to the side say, "Look, I need to ask the question."

One of the main thing that hurts us man, we keep our mouth closed, we don't ask for help, we think we got everything, we think we know everything.

I'm not saying just you, I'm just saying men, period.

Because we men, that's just part of our DNA, but we don't have all the answers.

So it's nothing wrong with us opening up mouth saying, "You know, I'm struggling in this area.

"I need some assistance in this area."

So, okay, what ways do you want to grow in the next year?

- I know I just wanna be better than what I am, be something greater than what I am.

(light music) I know I wanna, achieve something.

- [Judge Patricia] All right, Tyshun Rule.

- Tyshun, he's maintained gainful employment with verification and also, he's required his LLC, and he's completed his 24 hours from community service.

So he's completed, all I gotta do is to transition plan for him.

- Wow.

Just since May, wow, he's on fire.

All right, I'll let everybody in and we'll go into open session.

Thank you everybody.

(people talking indistinctly) All righty.

(door opening) - We just, we do what we do.

Hey Your Honor.

(Judge Patricia laughs) How are you?

- I'm well, how's everybody here?

- All right, all right.

So the question is, what kind of person do you want to be right now?

- [Judge Patricia] Who I am.

- I knew that one.

(participants laughing) (light music) - I started to practice law in 1991, and in 2014 I ran for judge the first time.

It's nine or 10 years now, good gravy.

(Judge Patricia laughs) On Mondays I do civil, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, traffic and misdemeanors, Thursday, North Lawndale Restorative Justice Community Court, and Friday landlord tenant, so I kinda do it all.

The regular court system is retributive.

We know you did something, we're gonna find you guilty, or we're gonna try to find you guilty, and having done that, we're gonna sentence you, we're gonna impose a penalty on you, and that penalty isn't intended to do any repairing at all, and the person doesn't get a chance to tell you their story.

In the restorative justice court, we wanna know who they are at the beginning, we wanna know what was going on in their life when they were arrested, what's your backstory, what do you need to make you whole, and what can you do to make the community whole?

That's the process that takes place in the circles.

- So to be honest, the only goal I got for a year is be out my mama crib.

I got my-- - Once they're finished with their circles, they write a repair of harm agreement where there's certain goals that they're gonna attain, and also put them on track for doing something other than committing a crime.

And it's anything they want, I mean, we have people who wanna open a barbershop, but they need an LLC first, we help them do that.

They maybe need training to be a barber, we can show them where they go to do that.

Maybe they wanna be a long haul truck driver, we help 'em get their CDL license.

This is all goal oriented.

- What ways do you want to grow in the next year?

- Oh dear.

(participants laugh) If it were under my control, I would like to grow more restorative justice courts in Cook County.

- [Jimmy] Okay.

- There are members of the judiciary who think that this is all seventies lovey-dovey stuff and it's not gonna work, and I don't know how to handle them, they're dinosaurs from another era.

So come on back into the room.

The tribute of court is just not working, we can't just lock people up and throw away the key and forget they're there, because we don't want them in our society anymore, it's our obligation to help them.

Well we're gonna have to take a little break here because our public defender has to meet with his new clients.

So you know what that means.

(Jimmy laughs) - [Jimmy] Dad jokes.

- Dad joke day.

I expect audience participation, all right?

What did one knife say to the other knife?

- [Man] You're a knife.

- Knife, K-N-I-F-E. You're looking sharp.

(men laughing) What kind of medical professional is Dr. Pepper?

- [Man] Doctor who?

- [Judge Patricia] Dr. Pepper.

- [Man] (man claps hands) A fizz-ician.

- You got it.

(participants laughing) (people talking indistinctly) Lost my job at the bank on my first day.

A customer asked me to check his balance, so I pushed him over.

(participants laugh) Anybody in the room got a dad joke you wanna tell?

- So y'all wanna hear about peanut butter?

Yeah, go ahead.

No, y'all might spread it.

(participants laugh) - Oh, you're a natural, you get up here.

(people talking indistinctly) All right.

Putting the dad jokes away.

(Judge Patricia laughs) Good morning everyone, welcome to the North Lawndale Restorative Justice Community Court.

I'm Judge Pat Spratt.

I have here with me at the table, to my left is our court reporter.

Around the table from our court reporter, we have.

I am the judge, although I try not to behave like the judge.

I don't sit there with my robe on, I'm not sitting on a bench high up, you know, I'm not trying to make it as imposing as it is in a courtroom.

But I see myself as an MC.

Alright, next to Jay is Audrey Dunford, she is the court coordinator for the court.

She also acts from time to time as the circle keeper and a case manager.

I believe everybody in North Lawndale knows her, she's everybody's auntie, and she can be a tough cookie.

- Some of these kids I really do know.

So, when we see our clients in the neighborhood, like when they see me they be like, what?

Yeah, I live here too, yes.

- As you can see, we have a-- - When we first opened up the court, you know we was getting too many gun cases in, even if it was possession, I'm like, we gotta do something, we gotta get 'em some kind of education.

(vehicles whirring) Wanna do it?

Go ahead.

- Alright, so we gonna go around and just say the question is, do you believe guns keep you safe?

And also do you believe guns make your community safe?

So who wanna start off-- - So.

(people talking indistinctly) - Do guns keep me safe?

Hell yeah, they keep me safe.

And I ain't gonna hide, I'm peaceful, I'm laid back.

I ain't, but just don't, you know, cross them lines, you know what I'm saying?

You'll be good.

Will it keep my neighborhood safe?

It keep my home, my household safe.

- Stick talk, everybody know if you street stick is a gun.

So, so stick talk is a, it is a gun education program, but it's not the kinda program that say, oh you know how back in the day you had DARE, don't do drugs.

Stick talk is like, we know they gonna carry guns, so how can we educate them in a way that if they do carry guns, that they gonna be safe?

Giving them that kinda education, like what the gun laws are, when can you carry your forward card, what's your conceal and carry?

You know how to keep, if they got a gun in they house, you really should have it locked up, it should not be accessible to no little kids, period.

So if they keeping the community safe, they wouldn't be shooting unarmed people.

So I would prefer you take somebody in then to kill them.

'Cause now you just like the other people in the community who don't got no visits carrying guns, you just shoot people for no good reason.

We telling them the truth around it, 'cause we also tell them, "You know if you get caught with that gun "you going to jail."

- But I'm thinking the places like, I think it is Japan or something, they got no guns, no gun thefts and no stuff like that.

And I've been thinking like damn, how can they get along?

Even though it's not, they got other deaths and stuff, but they death totals and gun totals, they don't have the stuff that we have.

So I'm like, I guess it can work.

But for me, guns definitely keep me safe, especially at this age, 'cause when I have a gun I'm more relaxed.

- But I feel like why do so many people carry guns in communities?

- I'm just gonna say it right, I think it's because-- - I mean everybody.

- Everybody else got gun, like to the point like when you say if everybody else ain't have guns, I probably like using we younger, I ain't need no gun.

I ain't feel like I needed a gun when I went out because I knew it could go down with some knuckles and like that.

But now how it is nowadays, most people feel like they need it for protection.

I be telling people we don't be out here.

- [Audrey] I think we teaching them how they voice, how to you know talk instead of always blowing up, we teaching them how to see things in themselves.

You know, like some of our clients, they need therapy.

They've seen people be killed in front of them, they lost a lot of family members to gun violence.

You know, and in our community therapy is a, you know, is a contentious conversation.

So, to me that's the biggest thing of peacekeeping, is getting an understanding of each other, and you know, putting that back out into the community.

- I say, guns do keep the community safe, it all depends on the training.

That, each person get training or some type of expression of how to use the guns.

Now do the gun keep me safe?

I mean kinda do, kinda don't, 'cause I don't really need no gun 'cause I don't have no officer or nothing like that, so.

But then again, it kinda do keep me safe from other individuals, 'cause ain't no tell them what a person that do or wanna take from me.

So, I say it kind of tricky both ways to me, so.

- To see those kind of changes in them is what really opens up and move me.

13-year-olds, 12-year-olds.

Tyshun, he know he messed up, but when I talk to him I see that he learnt from that really.

He understood what he had to do, and, the way he talk, now he got a maturity to him.

- [Judge Patricia] First case this morning will be Tyshun Rule.

How have you been since you were last here?

- [Tyshun] I've been cool, it's been, I've been decent.

No complaints, I've been blessed.

- You are, that's a great attitude.

Your case manager reports that you've completed all the tasks on your repair of harm agreement.

- Yes ma'am.

- They create a repair of harm agreement in the circle process.

It's a contract with the community, and it usually has five or six goals on it, and then they work to fulfill those goals.

And, what is your goal once you're done with us?

- I just started my company name, so I'm finna start going to business, started going to real estate.

- [Judge Patricia] Yeah, I heard you got your LLC.

You know how hard that is to do.

You got it in-- - Yes ma'am.

- [Judge Patricia] Rapid fashion.

- Yes.

- [Judge Patricia] Once they have attained all the goals, the state's attorney dismisses the case.

Well good for you.

I think the state's attorney has a motion here this afternoon.

- I have a motion to move this case to next Thursday so we can graduate him.

(man in purple tie talking indistinctly) - [Judge Patricia] Do you come back next Thursday?

- [Tyshun] Yes ma'am.

- [Judge Patricia] Alright, well we'll see you next week.

- All right, thank you.

- Great job.

- Thank you.

(light music) (people clapping) - I tell them, that occasion, you're not gonna have a record of conviction, but you will have a record of the arrest and we can help you get that expunged.

And then they come out with no record, and they're imminently hire-able in the community.

And we have a really good success rate, Or people who come through the court have a 16.3% recidivous rate.

The people who come through the criminal court, 65% recidivous rate.

(vehicles whirring) (sirens beeping) That's the hard fact, it's working.

All right, well it's time for you to see the faces of the future, the young people who've come through the court and are starting on a whole new journey.

Audrey, you wanna call their names?

- [Audrey] Jaquan Ambresia.

(audience clapping) - Alright, here you go.

Would you like to say some words?

- No.

- Okay.

(audience laughs) They get shy all of a sudden.

- Alright.

- Jashaun Ruo.

(audience clapping) - Jasaun.

You'd like to say some words, wouldn't you?

- I know he deserves to say some words, congratulations to you.

- Come on over here.

- All I want say is thank all the organization that's part of you can, and thank for the second chance.

- All right.

(man next to Patricia talking indistinctly) (audience clapping) - [Audrey] Angel Gomez.

(audience clapping) - The young people who come into the court are not accustomed to having people listen to them, they're accustomed to having people talk at them, especially in the courts.

Oh, look at this face.

(audience clapping) We listen to them, we show them how they can have a better life.

- [Audience] Carlos Torros, DeCarlos Torro.

(audience clapping) - [Woman] Love you Carlos, I'm so proud of you!

(audience cheering) (audience clapping) - [Judge Patricia] I think we have family in the room.

- [Woman] Oh yeah.

- [Judge Patricia] Oh, you got a great support system.

Come on here for a picture.