Restorative justice can transform victim families into allies of their loved one’s killers
Evidence
The Biehls, who had established the Amy Biehl Foundation in the aftermath of their daughter’s death, asked Nofemela and Peni to work at the Guguletu branch of the foundation. Nofemela became an instructor in an afterschool sports program and Peni an administrator. In June 2002, they accompanied Linda Biehl to New York, where they all spoke before the American Family Therapy Academy on reconciliation and restorative justice. In a Boston Globe interview, Linda Biehl, when asked how she now feels about the men who killed her daughter, said, “I have a lot of love for them.” After Peter Biehl died in 2002, she bought two plots of land for them in memory of her husband so that Nofemela and Peni can build their own homes. A few days after the September 11 attacks, the Biehls had been asked to speak at a synagogue in their community. According to Peter Biehl, “We tried to explain that sometimes it pays to shut up and listen to what other people have to say, to ask; ‘Why do these terrible things happen?’ instead of simply reacting.” — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 301
Categorization
- QUESTION: Davis offers no critical examination of whether the Biehl case generalizes; worth probing what conditions made this reconciliation possible.
- XREF: connects to: A slain man’s surviving son can restore his honor through revenge — Homer; Robert Fagles; Bernard Knox, The Odyssey, 770; Parents of a murdered student supported amnesty for their daughter’s killers — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 299
Related
Broader Connections
- Parents of a murdered student supported amnesty for their daughter’s killers
#exemplifies(0.75) — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 299