Victims
Offenders
Families of Offenders
Chaplains & Volunteers

Hear the voices in the community involved in the criminal justice system, touch on the concepts of restorative justice. We hope these stories will spark a dialogue about the criminal justice system, especially in the eyes of the Church.

Victims

Rose’s daughter, Jennifer LeAnne, was fatally shot on the job as a meter reader for the Southern California Gas Company. It was November 10, 1996, just three weeks before her 21st birthday. Jennifer was the victim of a senseless drive-by shooting. After Jennifer’s death, Rose searched for support and a way to deal with her pain. “I was in limbo, sick with grief and anger. I wanted someone to tell me how I was supposed to act. My family avoided talking about Jennifer because they thought it was easier for me. It wasn’t. I held my pain, and it grew.”
Read Rose’s story >>
Learn about Friends and Families of Murder Victims >>

"Katina wanted to attend UOP—University of Pacific—in Stockton to follow in her mother’s footstep as a dentist.  We dropped her off on Labor Day weekend.  And at 11:00 Monday night we received a call and said, ‘This is the Stockton police department. Your daughter’s been shot.’ Little did we know that he had planned to murder her 6 months prior. He lured her to take a walk and to say goodbye to her when he shot her execution style and left her there to die. After that was all over with, I asked my husband, I said, ‘You know, in memory of Katina, I want to quit my job, and I want to volunteer the rest of my life as a victim advocate.”

“My daughter Connie was molested by a neighbor directly across the street, and as a mother I became very, very bitter, very, very hateful and didn’t trust God anymore. It took many years for me to overcome this, and it was only through my husband and my priest who had faith in me. My daughter is 40 years of age and she has joined this wonderful church that has brought her faith back into her life. It’s been a long struggle for her, but I think she’s finally learning to forgive.”

The Kool-Aid Bandit A Graffiti-Writing Ten-Year-Old Fixes His Mistake
Ellie Hidalgo
“Rushing out the door on my way to work, I was stopped cold by the expletive f*** large yellow spray-painted letters. The word screamed from the white fence separating my apartment building from my neighbor’s home.”

Victim Meets Offender
Edward Mugica
 “When I received the letter from the Youth Authority telling me that J.T. was possibly going to be released, I knew that I had to go to his hearing to see him. 

Offenders

Raul knew he wouldn’t live to be 18. All of his siblings had run into trouble—with drugs, pregnancies, violence and the law. By the time he was a teenager, Raul was incarcerated at the California Youth Authority, a minor charged as an adult. But Raul had his eyes opened when Chaplain Ted Harder helped him see that he had choices. With Chaplain Harder’s support, Raul began to build a bridge that would lead him out of prison, into college and onto show others that the door out of prison doesn’t have to be a revolving one. Today he is studying to be an architectural engineer and working as a project developer for Project Our Home. “I’m 21. I have a ministry to my brothers by simply being who I am.”

Read Raul’s story in his own words >>
Learn about Project Our Home >>

“I started hanging around the wrong people. I started doing crack. I started doing it probably once a weekend. Then often and more often to the point that I couldn’t help it anymore, I couldn’t handle it, so I started like robbing people, stealing cars—that’s why I got caught. When I was in jail, I starting thinking about a lot of things like what makes me go to drug rehab, so step by step I started thinking about my friends, people that I hurt, people that had confidence in me and I disappointed. I talked to my mom, I talked to my dad, and I asked them for forgiveness. You get to a point in life that you realize there is a God who can help you, who is always there for you. I pray every day now.  I go to church; I try to keep my relationship with God stronger than ever. I know there’s a lot of people out there who need help. They just need a little bit of attention. And you will see a lot of changes with the help of God.” 

“Brett’s biggest problem has been Brett. His first encounter with the prison system was when he was living with his oldest son’s mother. She accused him of raping her. He got sent to prison for a very long time and from then on it was just a revolving door.  Just visiting the system, you see the all the depression. You see a lot of broken down people, you see a lot of people that show signs of no hope.”

Mario was convicted and sentenced to life at age 16. He is now 26 years old, "living" in Calipatria State Prison. He wrote this letter to David, currently at juvenile hall, facing a life sentence for a crime he did not commit. “First of all, I know exactly what you are going through... you must search, the way I did, for hope...”

The criminal justice system fails to deal with the heart of a crime—the disruption of a whole constellation of relationships. The ripple of pain goes out through the community and never heals. An opportunity for restorative justice needs to be part of the system. I was so hurt and frustrated with my inability—because of the legal process—to reach out to the victim’s family. Two and a half years after my son went to prison for second degree murder, I contacted the mother of the victim through the victim witness coordinator. She agreed to meet me. I told her that I had felt her anguish from the bottom of my soul across that courtroom, that I was horrified by what had happened. After that meeting with her, I felt liberated. I pray for her and hope our meeting helped her too.

“It struck me that day, what the meaning of a penitentiary is; a place to do penance. Living in San Quentin is certainly that. But the value of that penance depends on a knowledge of God and his forgiveness; a knowledge of one’s value and the value of others; and a companion in Christ to give you strength for the journey.”

“Levi and Thu have not visited in over ten years. Immediately after his hearing, during which he had been found suitable for parole, Levi spoke to his family on the telephone, giving them the good news. His mother was unable to form a single word in response to the news.

“From a windowless bunker, amid a cacophony of daily movement, Mario, fists clenched, and trembling with tenderness, spoke into the telephone… ‘I am with you…mom.’”

Families of Offenders

Bringing children to visit their incarcerated mothers for Mother’s day: 
Michael: “It’s been 4 years since I’ve seen her, I’m so glad that I pulled up in here. She’s still in my heart even though she’s in here.”

Cynthia: “She’s helped me out a lot actually by writing me letters and everything. She’s been the most positive person in my life right now. We were coming over here it felt like it really wasn’t happening it was too hard to believe after so long.  It makes me very happy.”

Angelique: “I love her and I want to be with her forever. Let me see if Mommy is in there. Mommy, I love you too!” She then sings her mommy a song: “Some say love, it is a river…” 

Chaplains & Volunteers

Ted Harder believes in bridges. “Every day people are coming out of prison looking for a bridge to community that doesn’t exist. Usually, they only find the road back to incarceration. We can change that.” Harder has used his firsthand experience as a chaplain in California jails and detention centers to create a new approach to prison reentry. Project Our Home, bridges the gap between life on the inside and life on the outside. “I’ve seen what happens when young men have a chance to prepare themselves for life on the outside and are surrounded by mentors to help them stay out. People focus on numbers and violence because they don’t witness the great things that can happen in a young person’s life.”
Learn about Project Our Home >>

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San Quentin state prison is probably one of the more interesting prisons in the state of California in as much as it is run as a maximum security prison, and yet there are men here who are minimum security. My mission here is to try to bring hope to men who feel hopeless, and many of the men that I minister to are men who are going to spending probably the balance of their lives, if not all of their whole lives, in custody. And what has made this so meaningful is the men can relate to my journey—my alcoholism, my drug addiction, and my being locked up.”

“And men can change. And it’s helping them see that change is truly possible in their lives.  We have to find a way to restore men to the community. I think it has to start at the state legislator level because nothing is going to change until the legislature is willing to look at what we need to change. And the whole idea of restorative justice began way back with the early abbots, where the abbot if there was a monk who was having problems, would be sent to his cell. And at the time that the abbot felt he was able to spend enough time, say, in penance, the abbot would go and get him, put him on his shoulders, and bring him back into the community, restoring him to the community.  What a wonderful concept. And it would work if we would just give ourselves a chance to do that.”

“There is desperation there in abundance. There is desperation around their legal situation – say someone is appealing their sentence of death. There is desperation when someone loses a family member and finds out about it – It is regularly the job of the chaplain to bring that news.”

“The last time I was at San Quentin, I stood outside the East Gate to cover a protest of the latest execution. This time I was going inside to see the cell blocks.”

“So often I have seen victims of crime begin a healing process that only meeting with the perpetrator face to face can bring about...”