Oyate Hotanin
Report date
February 2022
What has been most instrumental to your progress?
from last year, is the cornerstone of our progress this year. Motivated by the sea change caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the growing social awareness that followed George Floyd’s murder, our board and core partners took a hard look at where our organization was and where we as a community wanted to go. We began exploring ways to harness the energy from the inflection point the broader community had appeared to have reached and accelerate change.
We engaged community members around a strategy we call “Tipping Point” in reference to the dictionary definition: the point at which a series of small changes or incidents becomes significant enough to cause a larger, more important change. Our Tipping Point framework is a cohesive set of actions that, if collectively adopted by system partners, holds the potential to “tip” the criminal justice system into a new way of operating. These actions focus on three aims: ending destructive policies and practices, creating positive alternatives, and designing and maintaining new, aligned systems of information-sharing and accountability.
This initial framework was instrumental to our subsequent regrouping, described in #2.
We engaged community members around a strategy we call “Tipping Point” in reference to the dictionary definition: the point at which a series of small changes or incidents becomes significant enough to cause a larger, more important change. Our Tipping Point framework is a cohesive set of actions that, if collectively adopted by system partners, holds the potential to “tip” the criminal justice system into a new way of operating. These actions focus on three aims: ending destructive policies and practices, creating positive alternatives, and designing and maintaining new, aligned systems of information-sharing and accountability.
This initial framework was instrumental to our subsequent regrouping, described in #2.
We came to realize we must find ways to strengthen our position and raise our voices even louder in our dealings with system representatives and we re-grouped in small gatherings to redesign the “Tipping Point” framework and get to the heart of what feels real and meaningful. We have determined it is time to take a bold public position that we have held privately for some time: transformation is impossible in the absence of a broad-based acknowledgement of the harm the current system has inflicted. The foundational premise of this new framework is that we must hold truth and reconciliation hearings on the harm caused by aggressive policing and prosecution of Black and Brown bodies, families, and communities. Without that initial step, any transformation efforts will be ineffectual – particularly in an era in which those most impacted by the criminal justice system are disheartened and disillusioned by the absence of change in the shadow of last year’s protests.
Despite our skepticism about broader buy-in, we presented the new Tipping Point document to Tri-Chairs and have gained Tri-Chair support to present to the full Stakeholders committee in Spring 2022.
Despite our skepticism about broader buy-in, we presented the new Tipping Point document to Tri-Chairs and have gained Tri-Chair support to present to the full Stakeholders committee in Spring 2022.
Key lessons learned
We learned from our engagement in Ramsey County’s system-led Transforming Systems Together (TST) initiative, whose stated aim is community-system partnership c to effect change across all county systems, not only the criminal justice system. While on its surface, TST appeared to be inspired by IN Equality practices and successes, the model continues to center the County, which manages and funds the community-organizing work.
While we applaud the County’s intention, when the system pays for and oversees community engagement, its dominance is embedded, essentially co-opting community members and inhibiting true transformation. We have witnessed a lack of centralized leadership for this work as community members wait for County leaders to “grant” them decision-making power; essential true power-sharing is absent. Given the perpetual power imbalance and the limited possibility real transformation will result from old dynamics, IN Equality has decided to withdraw from TST and focus our energies at the JDAI table, where community voice has an established leadership role, protecting the premise that the community must control their own organizing to maintain a clear assertive voice.
While we applaud the County’s intention, when the system pays for and oversees community engagement, its dominance is embedded, essentially co-opting community members and inhibiting true transformation. We have witnessed a lack of centralized leadership for this work as community members wait for County leaders to “grant” them decision-making power; essential true power-sharing is absent. Given the perpetual power imbalance and the limited possibility real transformation will result from old dynamics, IN Equality has decided to withdraw from TST and focus our energies at the JDAI table, where community voice has an established leadership role, protecting the premise that the community must control their own organizing to maintain a clear assertive voice.
Reflections on inclusive, collaborative or resourceful problem-solving
Where true innovation happens, inclusiveness, collaboration, and resourcefulness are interwoven. While we can’t easily separate one element from the other in our work, “inclusiveness” may have the greatest impact. In criminal justice reform, system sectors (e.g., probation, police, and prosecutors) have historically worked together, intending to improve outcomes for individuals and increase community safety. These systems have also been resourceful in securing funding for their work. What they have lacked, however, is true partnership with community or a deep understanding of community needs. What we bring to the table creates the conditions for true innovation and meaningful, sustainable transformation: a community lens that shows how system-driven practices play out for individuals and families. Does a child return from confinement restored and rejuvenated, or more isolated, destabilized, and vulnerable? Typically, the latter. How is the child’s family doing? Typically, worse. The process of including, rather than discounting, impacted community inspires hope in our families and leads to real and long-lasting solutions being put on the policy table for conversation and funding.
Other key elements of Community Innovation
Beyond inclusivity, collaboration, and resourcefulness, IN Equality values skill development as a key element of innovation. In this past year, we have been working to name and strengthen our skills in collective leadership. We are honing the language we use to state our vision, using words clearly and carefully to motivate others to get on board. We are working to hear the diverse voices in our community and in government systems in a non-judgmental way to keep people talking and listening to each other. We are working to clearly capture in both written and visual ways the ideas we surface from our discussions to support a deeper level of agreement and commitment to action. We plan to repeat this cycle or re-direct efforts as needed to achieve clarity and inspiration. We observe collective leadership as a skill set emerging in transformation spaces – one that is not yet adequately named or taught. We will be working to capture our lessons and experience in this important area.
Understanding the problem
Something major is occurring within the arena of criminal justice transformation. A metamorphosis of understanding is underway. Elected and appointed officials now often join IN Equality’s vision of the change we seek. At the same time, action toward meaningful change stumbles and we struggle for a foothold. We have achieved significant successes through policies and actions we have helped shape over the past 15 years of our unique community-system partnership: We no longer funnel more than 3,000 young people a year through our detention center iron doors, pushing them into a harsh and flawed system. Our next level of work, however, involves stopping the flow of our community members into adult incarceration settings, ending long and inhumane sentences, and humanizing inhumane settings. The realities behind adult incarceration are stubborn and difficult to rectify. We sense we likely will need to restructure our approach in the next year to address these realities, although at this time it is not fully clear what the changes will be.
If you could do it all over again...
We believe the best path forward is our process: engage in continual conversation and exchanges, take action and reflect, and repeat. We stand by this process and our beliefs. There are always lessons learned, challenges we don’t expect, and sometimes dramatic changes in the landscape around any innovation. Allowing for relationships and insights from many directions will always help us continue to move forward. Our process has always included taking ongoing advice from each other, from our network, and from the people who disagree with us. We will continue to embrace that.
One last thought
Our planning team decided that our planned Participatory Defense Hub will be better implemented by an organization focused solely on implementing this national model of service, as Oyate Hotanin is not primarily a service organization. We were able to take the work we had completed and hand it over to a newly-created organization, We Resolve MN, which was formed by a key partner who chose to steward this new area of work.
We are making notable progress with our Reparative Community Circles model. We have accelerated planning, gained commitment from a solid team of experienced practitioners, developed a design-pilot-implement timeline, and begun intensive, monthly design meetings. Between Sep ‘21 and Mar ‘22, we developed consensus on the method; from Apr through Sep ’22, we will be and testing the method and creating an implementation manual. This “pre-pilot” phase will primarily include practitioner role-playing and a limited numbers of live circle experiences, as opportunities arise and come to our attention. We anticipate implementing a full year of piloting the model with a small number of cases, beginning Oct ‘22 and launching the full model in fall ‘23.
We are making notable progress with our Reparative Community Circles model. We have accelerated planning, gained commitment from a solid team of experienced practitioners, developed a design-pilot-implement timeline, and begun intensive, monthly design meetings. Between Sep ‘21 and Mar ‘22, we developed consensus on the method; from Apr through Sep ’22, we will be and testing the method and creating an implementation manual. This “pre-pilot” phase will primarily include practitioner role-playing and a limited numbers of live circle experiences, as opportunities arise and come to our attention. We anticipate implementing a full year of piloting the model with a small number of cases, beginning Oct ‘22 and launching the full model in fall ‘23.