Justin Terrell: Reimagining justice by ‘pivoting from problem to possibility’

Every year the Minnesota Justice Research Center hosts the “Re-Imagining Justice” conference, bringing together stakeholders who want to see a more effective, humane criminal legal system that communities trust. Lawmakers, policy experts, advocates, researchers, members of law enforcement, legal professionals, victims/survivor advocates, formerly incarcerated people, young people, elders and more, joining together to imagine what is possible.

Dr. Shawn Ginwright, a best-selling author, Harvard professor and the leader of the Flourish Agenda out of Oakland, Calif., spoke on the conference theme of “Pivoting from Problem to Possibility,” which came straight from his recent book, “The Four Pivots: Reimagining Justice, Reimagining Ourselves.”

Dr. Ginwright taught us that when something bad happens, the first question we ask is “what are we going to do?”

But this is the wrong starting point. The first question we should ask ourselves is “who do we need to become?”

Our movements over the past 15 years have continued to ask, “what do we do?” Watching the murder of George Floyd on video, reading story after story of wrongful convictions, and knowing so many victims are not adequately supported in restoration and healing, we understandably focus on and often argue about what we need to do — people have every right to be angry when they can see what needs to be done.

Yes, we must look for and fight for solutions, but if we haven’t done the hard work of becoming who we need to be, as Dr. Ginwright calls us to do, we will make little or no progress.

At the JRC, we believe we need to become people dedicated to establishing a system responsible for administering justice that is a model for the rest of the country. We see ourselves as bridge builders, so our conference highlighted  presenters who typically don’t speak in the same spaces to the same audiences. Police officers reporting on accountability efforts, advocates unpacking labor standards in prisons, practitioners advocating for an expansion of community-first response models, a discussion on overhauling the bail system, and a panel on the experience of BIPOC women who complete the complaint process after a sexual assault. This is just a sample of the larger conversation around reimagining what is possible in Minnesota.

Since the murder of George Floyd, in a lot of ways Minnesota has displayed leadership in police accountability, passing sweeping legislation that overhauled standards of conduct for every licensed peace officer in the state. The Minnesota Department of Human Rights took immediate action during the uprising to ban chokeholds and investigated the Minneapolis Police Department for patterns and practices of race-based policing. This investigation produced the only legally binding settlement agreement in the country that sets a much higher bar than the U.S. Department of Justice. Minnesota is leading, and the goal of the Re-Imagining Justice Conference is not to pat ourselves on the back, but to continue to do the hard work of imagining what is possible and creating space for a broad set of stakeholders to recognize and build on each other’s efforts.

So, who do we need to become?

People who understand that justice is not a destination, but an ongoing process that requires a cultural shift in how we build relationships. Relationships are dynamic; if you neglect a relationship or cast off responsibility, that relationship falls apart. We need to accept that our criminal legal system does not have all the answers and, frankly, neither do the people. Not yet, anyway. Until faced with a particular situation, the average Minnesotan is not concerned about Minnesota Statute 609.066 (use of deadly force by police officer). Rather, people want to live their lives and trust that if something bad happens, there are fair, equitable, effective and humane systems in place to respond. This is a fair expectation for taxpayers to hold, but this expectation is not a current reality. So it falls to all of us to ensure that this expectation is met.

We have to become a people who are willing to do anything to advance justice. Even if that means working together across differences to affirm our shared values.

Treating justice as a process means we as a community must understand that people are going to cause harm, that people who cause harm need to be held accountable, and people who have been harmed need to feel supported. Our processes to hold people accountable and to support people who have been harmed must be fair and equitable. Our systems require consistent evaluation to make sure that we are not just locking people up or just letting people out, but that we are learning as much as possible from interventions, especially when we are suspending the liberties of people who have or have not been convicted of a crime. In the case of those who have been harmed, we must be committed to having better structures to offer support and bring the community together.

This is how we become a more just Minnesota — a Minnesota that responds to the problems in our communities with values and a commitment to what is possible. We need to become a Minnesota that is dedicated to evaluating public safety efforts and ensuring the community learns from those efforts. What is the system doing that is a validation of commonly held values and what is it doing that is a violation? This is the work we do at the JRC. Whether it be educating the community on what a consent decree is and how they can be used or evaluating community-first response programs, we do our best to help people concerned about these issues digest what is happening and equip them with tools for change.

The Re-Imagining Justice Conference is one place where the JRC is leading this conversation. But every day, the JRC works to advance our mission to transform the criminal legal system through research, education and policy development. We invite you to join the conversation.

To anyone reading this who is concerned about the current discourse around our criminal legal system, please consider this an invitation to get to know the Minnesota Justice Research Center.

Justin Terrell is executive director of the Minnesota Justice Research Center (www.mnjrc.org). A 2021 Bush Fellow, 2014 Facing Race Ambassador and member of the Peace Officer Standards and Training Board (POST), Terrell has worked on criminal justice issues for a dozen years. He has a masters degree in advocacy and political leadership from Metro State University. He lives in Richfield with his wife and two young children.