Community Conversations about Restorative Justice

Wednesday, January 8, 2025
5:30 PM

When someone’s actions harm you, what do you need? What about when your actions cause harm – what do you need then? The philosophy and lifeway sometimes referred to as restorative justice helps individuals and communities address those questions and figure out what to do about the answers. As part of the Minnesota Department of Corrections Restorative Justice Program, people whose actions have caused severe harm can participate in an apology letter process that requires accountability, remorse, amends, empathy, change, and other practices that a lot of people say they need when they cause or experience harm. DOC Apology Letter Bank co-coordinator Chris Godsey will share some restorative justice and apology basics, answer questions, and do his best to foster dialogue that risks keeping folks too late.  

About the Facilitator: Chris Godsey has worked in the Minnesota Department of Corrections Restorative Justice Program since January of 2022. A primary part of his job is helping people write apology letters for actions that have caused severe harm. From about 1998 until 2019 he taught writing and cultural-studies courses at the University of Minnesota Duluth and the College of St. Scholastica. Since 2010 he has co-facilitated weekly change-based conversations among men arrested for using violence against women. And from the middle of 2019 until the end of 2021 he co-coordinated the Men as Peacemakers Domestic Violence Restorative Circles Program. He lives in Duluth’s Chester Park neighborhood with his wife, Shannon, and their super-mutt Mocha. He rides old, steel bicycles and secretly wants to be a fiber-arts folk artist.