In this interview, host Scott Levin (Chief Peacekeeper) speaks with Ian Ragsdale, director of the San Diego Restorative Justice Mediation Program (SDRJMP). Ragsdale explains that the program began in 1993 as the Victim Offender Reconciliation Program, founded by Pearl Hartz, to facilitate victim‑offender dialogue for juvenile crimes. The organization now offers a range of services: traditional victim‑offender mediation, the Safe Spaces Dialogue for intimate‑partner and domestic‑violence survivors, prison‑based victim‑offender dialogues (highlighted in Van Jones’s Redemption Project), and re‑entry support for people leaving jail. Referral sources include public defenders (pre‑adjudication cases), district‑attorney diversion agreements, and probation or outside referrals. Over 90 % of the core VAWD cases involve juveniles, aiming to intervene early and reduce the school‑to‑prison pipeline. Ragsdale outlines volunteer needs—community advisory committee members, professionals to refer cases, and especially male facilitators for prison dialogues—and describes a five‑year grant‑funded initiative to expand capacity. Funding can be provided via the program’s website (www.sdrjmp.org) or by contacting the office directly (619‑280‑1993). The conversation ends with gratitude and holiday wishes.
Chapters
Hey everybody, this is Scott Levin, Chief Peacekeeper, and today I have a really cool special guest, Ian Ragsdale. How are you, Ian?
I'm doing great today. Thanks, Scott. Good.
So I am a volunteer at Restorative Justice Mediation Program of San Diego. I don't know if that's the official title. Ian looks like he's about to correct me, so I will let you correct me in a second, but I just want to kind of introduce what— it's an incredible program for anyone that's looking for a volunteer opportunity. I think you have to have the right set of skills, obviously, but I want to introduce my followers and people that watch these videos to one of the programs that our society creates that really makes an impact on people's lives. So With that, Ian, can you kind of give us some background about you, where you, how you got involved in restorative justice and, and, and what the program, you know, the big picture of the program?
Yeah, absolutely. So the program itself is originally the Victim Offender Reconciliation Program of San Diego County. It was started in 1993 by a lady named Pearl Hartz. And the, the goal was really to provide victim-offender dialogue, which is an opportunity for mediation between the perpetrator of a juvenile crime at the time and the victim of the crime. Allows them to— it allows us as an organization to be a neutral and really put those 2 parties together and help them work out between themselves the best way To make things right. It follows a traditional mediation model where the facilitators from our team meet before with the person who is a victim or survivor, as well as the person who caused the harm, and really just hear from them about what happened. They're not really investigators, but just there to assess whether the person is willing to be accountable and be truthful in a setting where Mediation confidentiality in California protects us all, and we can have an honest conversation about what happened. And that's what our facilitators are focused on doing. I came to the program about 7 years ago as a volunteer. I was a real estate mediator here in San Diego, and I was just looking for some pro bono work, something to do that was different. I came into the program and started taking juvenile crimes cases and a couple of adult cases through the DA's office. Yeah, I just really enjoyed it. Over the years, I started to enjoy it a little bit more than what I actually do for a living, and so I came on board full-time a couple of years ago. Since then, we've added our Safe Spaces Dialogue Program, which you're part of, Scott, which is— it gives an extra level of security and safety to survivors of intimate partner violence and domestic violence. Gives them some private caucus and some tech-based solutions to provide a more safe and secure environment and respect those protective orders that might be in place. We also have been selected by the California Department of Corrections to do victim-offender dialogue in the prisons throughout Southern California. Some of those cases that have happened within the CDCR You can be seen on Van Jones's Redemption Project, so you can take a look at what those cases are there. They're not really mediation, they really are a dialogue. They're focused on healing and transformation. In addition to that, we do some reentry work in the San Diego County jails and some reentry facilities, and that everything that we do is focused around restorative justice, the idea that We need to be trauma-informed and sensitive to the populations that we're serving and really offer pragmatic solutions for people to put these incidents behind them and end up as whole as possible. So—
Would you say that, like, what percentage of cases would you say, if you're allowed to say, or just generally, are you dealing a lot with juveniles? Like under 18?
Yeah, so it depends on the program. So, um, in the Safe Spaces Dialogue program, it's a minority of the cases that are juveniles, maybe 1 in 5, 1 in 7. There's a lot of workplace harassment and, um, dating violence cases that involve older individuals. But in our general VAWD program, uh, more than 90% of the cases are juvenile crimes. The idea is that if we offer an alternative early on to minors, that, you know, they'll be less likely to be incarcerated as an adult. And so we're kind of looking at providing accountability and a safe place to address the outcome of what happened, give them some accountability in making things right, and doing that kind of intervene in that. school-to-prison pipeline.
So, and where do the cases come from? Like, not the, not the, the prison cases, but like, do the cases come from— are there active prosecutions? I mean, I know the answer, but I'm just trying to relate.
Yeah, so, um, defender— how— actually, this will be posted soon on R Jump's website, but, uh, we receive the majority of our cases from the public defenders. So that is in when the case is in a pre-adjudication But there has been charges on the case, and the public defender looks at the case and takes a look at maybe the relationships between the parties, the nature of the charge, the previous charges that the defendant has, maybe lack thereof, and might refer the case to restorative justice as an option as diversion. In about a quarter of our cases, we're receiving them pre-charged through an agreement with the district attorney's office. So The district attorney is choosing not to file charges if they're offering this restorative justice process in lieu of filing charges. And so there's a restorative agreement made. It's kind of like a settlement agreement, and as long as the, the youth follows through with what they promised on that agreement, then maybe the DA will withhold filing charges. Another third or so of the cases are going to come from probation or outside referrals. Those cases have already been adjudicated, but maybe there's an existing problem with a relationship, like maybe the victim and offender are cousins or siblings or something like that, and the probation officer is looking for an option to their case plan that can be a little bit— add some healing. So those are really our referral areas.
Well, that sounds great. You know, one of the reasons that Ian's in his car is because that's where he can find some quiet space I unfortunately did not live up to that, so you're just hearing chaos over here. So I apologize for, for that, Ian, but COVID, man. But so how can people— like, what sort of people are you looking for to get involved, and how can people help you with your funding? Or do you take donations?
Absolutely. Yeah, we take donations directly at our page at www.sdrjmp.org. That's San Diego Restorative Justice Mediation Program dot org. You, if you are a community provider, meaning that you're clinical or legal assistance provider and you have a case, you can also submit a case through that page. We are available to talk about cases. 619-280-1993, you can call us. But as far as getting involved, our biggest initiative right now, we have a 5-year grant-funded initiative to recruit a community advisory committee. We want to recruit professionals and people that work out in the community to identify cases, refer cases, and generally make services like this available to people because we're underutilized as an organization. And we have the capacity to handle a lot more than we currently do. So we're really looking for community advocacy volunteers. There are a few other areas where if you have some direct experience, like if you've worked directly in prisons and you might be interested in being a facilitator in a prison VOD case, we're short on male facilitators in prison VOD cases. So I'd be willing to entertain some training for the right person in that area. And generally, we are just available to answer your questions about restorative justice and what it means and how you might be able to use it in your home, community, family. So—
Yeah, it's an incredible program. And it's just like, it's pretty awesome that like you guys exist, that it's existed so long, that it's so impactful. I've volunteered just a short time, but already have gotten cases and have interacted with, you know, other volunteers. And they're— it's just a pretty incredible group of people. So thank you, Ian, for heading it up and, and moving things forward for our communities throughout San Diego and Southern California. And I'll put up the link to your site for the donations and to get involved. So happy holidays, my friend, and I'll see you in 2021.
