Host Claire de Mézerville López speaks with RJ Maccani and Stephan Thomas from Common Justice. Topic points include alternatives to incarceration and victim services that face violent crimes in the United States.

 

RJ Maccani brings over fifteen years of experience in transformative justice responses to violence and trauma-informed leadership development to his current work as the Director of Training for Common Justice - the first alternative-to-incarceration and victim-service program in the United States that focuses on violent felonies in the adult courts. He is also a parent and a lead teacher for generative somatics. As a co-founder of the Challenging Male Supremacy Project and leadership team member for generationFIVE, RJ's transformative justice work has focused on addressing violence against women, queer andtrans people, and children.

 

RJ is an LMSW from the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College. His vocational experience reflects three complementary passions: transformative justice, somatic coaching, and the creative arts. RJ’s writing on these can be found in Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement (AK Press), The Politics of Trauma: Somatics, Healing, and Social Justice (North Atlantic Books), andA Moment on the Clock of the World: A Foundry Theatre Production (Haymarket Books).

 

Stephan Thomas is the Director of Partnerships and Replication at Common Justice, an organization that advances solutions to violence that transform the lives of those harmed and foster racial equity without relying on incarceration. Stephan is a former Senior King County Prosecutor and a national expert on leveraging the power of the prosecutor to implement alternatives to incarceration that hold people accountable for harm, break cycles of violence, and secure safety, healing, and justice for survivors and their communities. Stephan's expertise is borne out of his lived experience growing up on the South Side of Chicago where he learned firsthand that privilege and opportunity could enable him to overcome his childhood trauma.

 

In 2019, Stephan joined a national organization of fellow progressive black prosecutors to design and implement experiential learning opportunities for front line prosecutors throughout the county. The first of its kind training included empathy building exercises such as a visit to prison to participate in restorative dialogues with currently incarcerated individuals, a poverty simulation, a community mapping exercise and facilitated conversations on dismantling institutional racism.

 

For his commitment to public service and legal expertise, Stephan was awarded the 2018 Vanguard Leader of the Year by his alma mater, Seattle University School of Law.