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‘Peace Circles’ Instead of Prisons Lead to Shootouts in Chicago

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It’ll take a hell of a peace circle to raise the dead.

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

1,120 people have been shot this year in Chicago and 282 people have been murdered. Yesterday, four people were shot and killed in four hours in just another Wednesday.

Good thing the city has “peace circles”.

Police defunders have been tasked with coming up with “restorative justice” alternatives to the three P’s, police, prosecutors, and prisons, that ask criminals to apologize to their victims.

That’s the principle of the “peace circle” in which the thug meets with his victim, says “sorry” and then leaves a free man to shoot, stab, or kill.

Chicago’s pro-crime politicians eagerly embraced “peace circles”. There are peace circles in schools and a whole lot of “trained facilitators” have hung up their shingles. While pro-crime activists claim that peace circles come from Indian culture, they’re actually one of the stupidly disastrous ideas promoted by Howard Zehr, a white leftist who went to a black college on a minority scholarship, and helped inflict the concept of “restrorative justice” on the country.

The Circuit Court of Cook County has a salaried Restorative Justice Community Court Peace Circle Keeper. And dangerous criminals keep being diverted from prison to peace circles.

That’s what happened when cops caught Ojani Cruz with a gun during a traffic stop. Prosecutors wanted him locked up, but one judge let him out on his own recognizance while another sent him to have his arrest record expunged at a peace circle.

“They say, ‘Peace, peace’, when there is no peace,” Jeremiah prophesied.

A month after being enrolled in the peace circle treatment, Cruz opened fire on a couple sitting in a minivan. He “circled the vehicle” and “kept firing until he ran out of bullets”. When it was all over, a 20-year-old woman was shot in the back and left paralyzed from the waist down.

Prosecutors have charged Cruz with first degree murder and the judge denied bail, but it’s too little too late. Had the justice system been allowed to do its job, Cruz would have been locked up. But instead Chicago’s restorative justice and peace circles claimed another victim.

“We cannot prosecute our way out of the kinds of crimes,” Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans falsely claimed. “People who hurt people have generally been hurt themselves.”

Evans, a Chicago alderman for nearly two decades, has spent another disastrous three decades on the Cook County bench, and even Democrat officials have had enough.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot blasted Evans for “making Chicago neighborhoods less safe.”

“There is no dispute that people charged with murder and other crimes of violence are out in communities with zero supervision, both adults and juveniles.”

Klevontaye White was let loose with nothing more than an ankle monitor after 15 counts of aggravated sex assault with a firearm, he cut off his bracelet and then engaged in a shootout with police. The police didn’t bring their peace pipes. They shot back and won the fight.

And Newsweek put Klevontaye on its list of “black people killed by police”.

7-year-old Jaslyn Adams was shot and killed at a McDonald’s by a group of thugs, one of whom had been out with an ankle monitor despite being accused of robbery, manufacturing/delivery of cocaine, and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon. This has become typical of Chicago’s pro-crime policies where even the worst monsters can freely walk the streets.

“I have about 100 people on home monitoring who are charged with murder,” Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said.

“Two brothers who murdered a person 11 bullets into them, in front of witnesses,” Lightfoot argued. “And at least one of them was out on another gun charge, on electronic monitoring. This isn’t working. We need to have trials and we need to put dangerous people behind bars so that the community is actually safe.”

But Judge Evans still loves peace circles and restorative justice for violent thugs. “We thought, if somebody is on drugs or stealing television sets or cell phones or whatever it was, all we had to do was arrest them, prosecute them, convict them and send them to jail,” he rambled.

Now Evans preaches the gospel of freeing as many criminals as possible.

In 2021, Cook County had the most murders in almost 30 years. In May 2022 it was reported that downtown shootings were up 64%.

“This is just the start,” Evans announced to cheers, while opening a “restorative justice” court. “Englewood, we are on our way! Roseland, we are on our way!”

It was more of a threat than a promise.

Englewood has racked up 23 murders and 102 wounded this year. Roseland is lagging behind with 6 murders and only 29 wounded.

The peace circles keep growing and people keep dying because the justice system in Chicago, like those in cities where pro-crime policies prevail, stands on the side of the criminals.

Judge Evans claimed that in the new system, “we are focusing on punishment, but on healing”.

But there’s no healing for the family of Jaslyn Adams, for the woman shot and paralyzed for life by a peace circle alum, or any of the other victims being protected by the peace circles.

In Chicago, there’s no peace for the people, only for the politicians and the criminals, who are often one and the same.

Judge Patricia Spratt, who presides over the North Lawndale Restorative Justice Community Court, said that the court is about “repairing harm. Not being retributive and sending you to jail”.

How will Chicago’s pro-crime judges repair the harm they have caused to crime victims?

It’ll take a hell of a peace circle to raise the dead.

Comments

  1. I’d say the best peace circle is one that is surrounded by some very high walls — as with a prison. These “peace circles” in the cities are pushed by the same people who think that more people should be let out of prison because the crime rate has gone down. They fail to understand that the reason the crime rate went down is because more of the criminals were going to prison. They are also the same people who think that inflation can be controlled if the government just makes sure that people have more money. Somebody, bring on the clowns. What we need are more clowns, especially in our schools in the form of sexual deviants reading stories about the joys of sexual fluidity to our children. The insanity goes on and on.

    • For when they say, ” Peace and Safety!”, then Sudden Destruction comes upon them as labor pains upon pregnant women. AND THEY SHALL NOT ESCAPE. ( 2 Thessalonians 5:3)

  2. “They say, ‘Peace, peace’, when there is no peace,” Jeremiah prophesied.”

    Exactly. Criminology books have the “restorative justice” concept and it may read nice and friendly, but in actuality, it doesn’t work with hardened criminals. Perhaps with a little kid who takes a bar of candy, but not with murderers, rapists, burglars, etc.
    what is more, the victims of the crimes are supposed to have a *say* in whether they want Justice or will be content with a ‘sorry” from the perp. This evans guy and the other “judge” don’t seem to be asking the victims or their families how they feel about just letting the perp go free with the ability to keep on committing felonies.

    Chicago needs to get rid of these *judges* who see themselves as some kind of heroes.

    The woman sleaze who procured girls for j epstein to rape on his island, is claiming that she had a bad childhood and should get some leniency. How many other little girls and boys have bad childhoods and don’t grow up to be rapists and facilitators for rapists?

    If evans and the other fools in this no -justice program have their way, fewer kids will get to grow up at all.

  3. It all starts with a stupid question; why do repeat offenders keep on repeating offenses? And ends with a stupid answer: we must do something other than removing them from proximity to their previous and future victims. Let’s stop punishing them and instead spend money on planning to focus on considering other possible options that seem hopeful.

    • You have identified the problem. Criminals are not being punished and instead money is being wasted on plans that do not work because those plans reward criminal behavior instead of punishing it. So what is your plan again? I have a feeling it is for the government to let the criminals roam freely and to make all honest citizens barricade themselves in their homes – and arrest them if they dare to defend themselves.

      • This is the same kind of nonsense where governments tell young women to cover up from head to toe so mozlums won’t rape them, gang rape them, abduct them to pass around for raping and then maybe chopping up for a kabab.

        • I remember reading about a city, San Francisco maybe, that was going to give violent offenders something like $300 a month for every month they didn’t commit a crime. I wonder how that is working out. In my mind that is blackmail and a crime in itself. People should be punished if they do something bad and rewarded if they do something good. Simply not hurting other people is called just doing what is expected of a normal human being and normal human beings don’t blame others for their own failures and shortcomings. It does sound harsh but as Christ said, if your own hand constantly causes you a problem and you can’t control it, cut it off.

        • I recall that plan being floated, but didn’t know if they actually implemented it. Can’t recall which city it was.
          it’s akin to telling a bratty kid, “If you won’t hit your sister or throw a temper tantrum, I’ll buy you ice cream and new skates.” and the next day, the brat is promised a new bike and stay up as long as he wants to for not tormenting the dog.

          And the people doing right and working hard, get to see their dollars going to reward these criminals, while some cities set many up in luxury apartments because they are drug addicts and don’t work.

        • Yep, that was here:

          “San Francisco to Launch Pilot Program Paying People Not to Commit Gun Crimes”

          “This program, the Dream Keeper Fellowship, focuses on neighborhoods disproportionally affected by violence to help improve public safety. At risk participants would go through an interview process, assessments and then become public safety ambassadors.

          For all that, they’ll be paid a few hundred dollars a month…”

          https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/san-francisco-to-launch-pilot-program-paying-people-not-to-commit-gun-crimes/2645842/

          As you can imagine, there has been a great deal of concern over violent criminals and gang members becoming “public safety ambassadors”.

          I haven’t heard anything about this program since late last year, and can’t find any updates online now.

      • David, I apologize if I misread the final sentence of your comment as being your idea instead of that of misguided liberals. I’m bad at doing sarcasm and also bad at catching sarcasm.

  4. Joy Behar said during Wednesday’s episode of “The View” that gun laws would change in this country once Black people start getting guns.
    Trust me Joy, black people HAVE guns.

    • and in Chicago, Blacks with guns are killing little Black kids as they shoot at other Blacks with guns.

    • Joy Behar has shown that she thinks black people are too stupid to know how to buy a gun or even to get an I.D. card needed to buy a gun. She obviously thinks they are all poor, stupid morons. Her brain would explode if she ever found out that during the American Civil War black people were given guns by the army of the government that she hates and which she thinks doesn’t want black people to have guns. Black people have guns and they know how to use them and Joy Behar would be one of the first to take them away. She is not only a moron and a hypocrite but she is a racist too.

      • The group buying the most guns for protection: Black women. They recognize the dangers of defunded police, streets that aren’t safe, and the government isn’t interested in protecting them from the criminal mobs…like bm, antifa, and the gangs that have been around for years.

        • They should put a soap opera back into the time slot that Joy Behar and “The View” is using. The stories might be just as dumb but at least they would be more entertaining.

  5. ‘Peace Circles’ Instead of Prisons Lead to Shootouts in Chicago

    Police defunders have been tasked with coming up with “restorative justice” alternatives to the three P’s, police, prosecutors, and prisons, that ask criminals to apologize to their victims.

    That’s the principle of the “peace circle” in which the thug meets with his victim, says “sorry” and then leaves a free man to shoot, stab, or kill.
    …………………………………………..

    It’s even worse than that. Very few victims want to be in the same space with their assailants outside of a courtroom (and even that can be intimidating).

    Besides everything else, this brings the victim to their assailants attention again–and *not* from any position of strength. And often, as has happened in South Africa, many parts of the Muslim world, and schools in the West where they have had these programs for some time, victims *and* victimizers are *both* expected to apologize.

    This is morally sick stuff–and works just about the way you would suppose it does.

    Here’s a typical “Peace Circle” program, in their own words:

    “The process is never about “changing others”, but rather is an
    invitation to change oneself and one’s relationship with the
    community.

    Circles intentionally create a sacred space that lifts barriers
    between people, opening fresh possibilities for connection,
    collaboration and mutual understanding. The process works
    because it brings people together in a way that allows them to
    see one another as human beings and to talk about what matters…”

    https://www.ousd.org/cms/lib07/CA01001176/Centricity/Domain/97/PeacemakingCircles.pdf

    And yes–they claim this has roots in aboriginal and native traditions.

    Part of the demand is for consensus decision making–which in many cases means coercion of the weakest parties.

    This sort of thing can *only* work in cases where the individuals or groups are roughly equal in power and both have a genuine desire to come to an accord.

    Intrinsically this cannot work where one faction is violent and the other made up of their vulnerable victims.

    • It is nothing more than the re-victimizing of victims and the empowering of the perpetrator.

      It has always been BS and will perpetrate the decline of the society in which it is practiced.

      Left wing loons never think logically, they only react emotionally. That is why Democrat run cities and states are in such terrible condition and have most decline of standards.

  6. Maybe, instead of a “peace circle”, we should go back to a place where repeat violent offenders are executed with the male populations of selected middle and high schools watching. After all, if a progressive revolutionary regime can hold public executions as lessons in social justice, so can the USA.

  7. How much do you want to bet that leftist judges wont be part of those peace circles? I nominate their wives for peace circle volunteers. All liberal females and males should volunteer just to show they are down with the struggle.

    • When Native American tribes had those peace circles, neither side was considered a criminal element and the other side, victims of the crimes. They were basically considered as equals and while they talked, everyone listened and if no peace was found, they knew the fighting would begin again.

      These so-called “peace circles” are just a way to give the judges and those in charge a feeling of being ‘progressive’ and not subject to the regular feelings of wanting punishment to happen like the rest of us uncouth people. That way, they can pat themselves on the back and pretend that all is okay. If they have a brain cell among them, they know things are not okay and there will be more victims and they’ll see the same perps in their “circles.’

      • In our rule of law Republic a bargain was made. The people allowed judges prosecutors and police to enforce the law and keep the people who pay their salaries as safe as can be in their neighborhoods and businesses. In return the people refrained from forming posses and going out to kill the bastards that threatened their lives homes and businesses.

        The left hates justice, the right is beginning to understand that we don’t have real justice. If it all come undone I don’t think these people with law degrees understand the hell storm that will pursue them. No, I’m not advocating violence against them but I do know human nature and not everybody out there is as nice as I am. Man are these credentialed people dumb.

        • when my son was a teen, he decided he wanted to be a prosecutor so he could put the scum where they could do the least damage. He got his law license and was hired to be a deputy DA. and then the other people made his life so difficult, his heart couldn’t take it. The judges, the others in his office…so now, he paints in oils…landscapes, seascapes, animals and other stuff…and teaches kids about dinosaurs.

          There are a very few that really want to make their degree count, but so many work against them.

          I think that’s one reason movies like “Hang ‘Em High” are so popular.

          In the Law given to the Jews, they had “judges in the gate” for all of the cities who would hear disagreements, etc. If they heard that someone had accidently killed another, they would have the killer go to a city of refuge…there were six of those…and he had to stay there until the current high priest died. If he left the city before then, an Avenger could go after him and kill him. The Avenger of Blood was a close relative of the dead person.
          that was a workable arrangement for accidental killings. Of course, for the deliberate killings, there was a different punishment. And thieves had to pay back double what they took.

          today…who can say what will happen to those who are truly guilty?

        • “so now, he paints” Well good for him! You should post pics of his paintings on the internet. Who knows, perhaps he would become a renowned artist. After all, most art today is crap.

          A movie I watched and liked, Open Range. Not because it’s classic material although it is a fairly good modern western movie. I like it for the moral of the story as it pertains to modern times. The powerful riding roughshod over the not so powerful. The message in return, you kill or try to kill me or my friends, we will kill you back. So just don’t start anything and there wont be no trouble.

        • thank you. I gave him a watercolor when he was only three. He does have several pages on e-bay and sells some…not as much as he’d like, but all of his customers have given him the highest rating. One of the first works he sold was a portrait of a woman in a gondola on a Venice canal. He’s teaching his oldest ..the five year old…how to use acrylics and she’s really good.

          I see works not near as good sell for millions…and I agree… a lot of the art is really junk.
          I’ll have to look for that movie. If it’s free online, I might get to see it. A lot of movies I think I might like to watch, say buy it or rent it and I forego.

        • I see it was by Kevin Costner. I was in a movie he was in, but I didn’t get to meet him. saw him from a short distance away though, and I like Robert Duvall since “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
          thanks for the recommendation.

        • I never rent, mostly buy. Its cheaper and better that way. Open Range 5 to 10 bucks to buy, depending. The more you pay the better quality you get in content and packaging. Its probably the same to rent so in the long run why bother.

        • thank you, g. wish I could direct people to his work, but I am hesitant to do that….one never knows who comes to lurk for information and not for good.

        • Robert Duvall has a presence that kind of takes over every movie he is in. Not many actors can do that. Costner isn’t bad either. I guess acting becomes easier when your competition mostly stinks.

        • Yes, Duvall has a way to make himself the main guy…he was in a Fugitive episode and kind of overshadowed everyone else, even though it was a minor part compared to the others.

  8. Chicago, Jan 1st until June 19th.
    1120 people shot.
    282 shot dead.
    365 days in the year and we are in the middle of June so far.
    Do the Math.
    FYI… Chicago is a Gun Free Zone…
    Only some black lives matter I guess.
    Go figure…

  9. Peace Circles sounds just like Ilam the religion of peace, and a LIE. Why is it that these poor misunderstood bad people are more important to society than the people they KILl or steal from. The decision to commit a crime is on the individual no one else. If you commit the crime you need to do the time.

  10. Joy Behar defines the category of ignorant bigot. Her lack of reasoning follows the same idea that Blacks can’t be racists.
    Translation- Blacks don’t have the intellectual capacity to be racists.
    BTW- HAPPY FATHER’S DAY. We all know the importance a father plays in a child’s life, but lacking that (as in 75 percent of Black children’s lives), the left has an effective answer that serves as both a remedy and opportunity to once again place the blame on the White race.
    It’s called reperations (as if welfare wasn’t enough).

    • Yes, Happy Father’s Day to all dads here at Jihad Watch.

      Unfortunately, Father’s Day has been eclipsed by ‘Juneteenth’ this year.

    • Happy fathers day, that’s nice to say. Fathers day hasn’t been eclipsed. Lots of good fathers out there and they cant and wont be eclipsed by anything these leftists come up with in the future. Fathers day will still be there when Juneteenth is forgotten or changed to August 2nd or whatever.

      • I have yet to see a Father’s Day celebration turn to violent shooting and death as the so-called juneteenth…what a stupid name. (does that make me racist?)..celebrations did on Sunday.

        They …those who were never enslaved, and maybe not even distant relatives. of slaves.. want a special day of recognition, but they throw a fit when the companies around the country want to make a profit off the day.
        New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s, Memorial Day, Veteran’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, July 4, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas…some being religious, others not…but all have businesses making what profits they can…even if it’s only some ice cream, cake and hot dogs…..And who throws a fit?

        but when Walmart and other companies put out *special* products to mark the day slaves in Texas were told they were free, …that won’t go, no way…and they are ready to fight those who make such attempts.
        this teenth thing…just another day for the banks to close and the mail not to be delivered.
        On the other hand:

        Father’s….without whom none of us would be here.

        • Enslavement of black Africans came out of Africa long before the existence of the USA. Slavery still exists to this day in Africa.But yeah, as the left says, lets blame America. Will the whining about black slavery in the New World ever stop.Stupid people. If anyone thinks its that bad living here, move. A lot of Americans are fatigued by this crap.

          I’m pretty sure what is called native Americans were in to slavery long before any white people were here but they are celebrated. What a twisted world we live in.

  11. I was last in Chicago for a medical conference in 2019 prior to Covid. It was a large venue on the Magnificent Mile – the “safe” part of Chicago at the time.

    I felt safe walking alone over to Walgreens or down to Lake Michigan for a swim.

    I would not do that today…

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