Sharing the Burden of Repair

Sharing the Burden of Repair: Reentry After Mass Incarceration describes a six-year listening project on reentry that took place at the crest of an unusual wave of bipartisan criminal justice reform in Georgia, one of our most punishing states. Its primary intended audience is common citizens, like us, concerned about the reality of mass incarceration but unsure how to engage. Its aim is to expand, individual story by individual story, our understanding of the importance of successful reentry after an age of mass incarceration and help us take on those difficult questions: Where and how do wefit in? What can wechange?

         We listened to over 200 people: formerly incarcerated men and women, families, defense lawyers, activists, employers, chaplains, juvenile courts and justice officials, diversion courts, prosecutors, judges, community supervision officers, commissioners of corrections and community corrections, and legislators involved with criminal justice reform. We heard stories people within our adversarial criminal justice system rarely share directly with one another, each with a wisdom to it that we all need. 

         By bringing them together here, we hope that new stories—more complex, compassionate, inclusive ones—can come into being, stories that acknowledge the lasting harms of both mass incarceration and crime andour capacities for remorse and change as individuals and as a society.