Transformative Justice Initiative

Mission Statement

The mission of the Transformative Justice Initiative is to facilitate a paradigm shift within the Oregon criminal justice system from punishment to accountability and from current criminal justice practice to transformative, healing, and community-based alternatives.  We believe Oregon has the potential to serve as a national model for the transformation of criminal justice philosophy and practice, and we work to facilitate this shift in the following ways:

• Supporting the intellectual, artistic, and political expression of people directly impacted by crime and the criminal justice system
• Developing transformative programs and policies within Oregon prisons, as alternatives to incarceration, and during reentry
• Promoting the prevention of institutional and individual violence through engaged peace-building practices on the Willamette University campus and throughout the State.  
• Recognizing the myriad ways racial, gender, and economic oppression contributes to our current criminal justice practices.

Principles of the Transformative Justice Initiative

1. Belief in the potential for human growth and development. No one is expendable, certainly not whole populations—the poor Americans and people of color who are over-represented in prison.
2. Justice requires accountability. Offenders must understand the harms that are generated when someone commits violence and/or a crime.
3. Community involvement facilitates both belonging and accountability for survivors and offenders.
4. Healing requires opportunities to make amends for people who have committed harms and opportunities to have a voice for those who have survived violence.
5. Systems of racial, gender and economic oppression must be dismantled for all of us to experience justice.