A new restorative justice program is focusing on the needs of people who have suffered domestic and sexual violence in Arlington.
The pilot initiative, launched by the nonprofits Restorative Arlington and Doorways through a $1.5 million federal grant, offers more pathways to justice for survivors of intimate partner violence, stalking and dating violence.
Amid surging numbers of survivors fleeing abuse in Arlington, the project builds on ongoing efforts to provide victims with options outside of the criminal justice system.
“Many survivors do not want to pursue pathways within the criminal justice system,” said Doorways president and CEO Diana Ortiz. “Survivors often want accountability and repair from those who did them harm, but feel unable to achieve that through existing legal processes. Restorative justice offers an empowering alternative.”
Restoring a ‘sense of agency’
The new program, “Restorative Justice Pathways: Healing for Survivors and Accountability for Harm-doers,” will follow the same principles as Arlington’s first restorative justice program, Heart of Safety.
Like Heart of Safety, the initiative — funded through Office of Violence Against Women at the U.S Department of Justice — focuses on the needs and desires of people who have suffered harm. Heart of Safety, however, targets offenses committed by people under age 26.
Both programs are voluntary. Participants take part in facilitated meetings that emphasize honesty and focus on personalized solutions to address the harm caused.
“The first thing you lose when you experience a harm, is the fact that something happened to you that you didn’t choose,” Kimiko Lighty, strategic advisor of Restorative Arlington, told ARLnow. “You lose your sense of agency and your trust that your agency will be respected.”
Arlington Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, whose office partners with Heart of Safety, told ARLnow she has seen favorable outcomes for both victims and offenders since Heart of Safety launched in 2022.
“What we’ve seen is victims who are … using language like, this transformed my life — that this was the most positive experience that they’ve had, that we made them feel safe in the process, and they felt like the person that had harmed them had been held accountable,” she said.
In the past two and a half years, she could not recall a case of a perpetrator re-offending after going through Heart of Safety.
Many victims have said they “felt like they had closure after this process was over,” Dehghani-Tafti added.
While Heart of Safety receives case referrals from the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office for Arlington and Falls Church, Restorative Justice Pathways will not involve the courts at all, Lighty said.
Instead, she foresees leaning into the partnership with Doorways, which provides crisis services for domestic and sexual violence.
Dehghani-Tafti says this will especially benefit cases that her office wouldn’t otherwise be able to prosecute. Only about one in three sexual assaults are reported to police, according to estimates from the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network — and only a minority of these reports ever lead to an arrest or an eventual conviction.
“Being able to address a population that, for whatever reason, does not report to law enforcement, but does report to community-based organizations — because that’s what makes them feel safe — is, I think, extremely important to public safety,” Dehghani-Tafti said.
A growing need
This is Doorways’ first formal partnership with Restorative Arlington. Teams at the crisis center will receive training in restorative justice principles such as affective communication, conflict coaching, and circle keeping, Doorways spokesperson Linley Beckbridge told ARLnow.
The funding is especially helpful as the service provider has seen record numbers of clients amid reductions in some federal support.
After losing about $200,000 in funding this year, Beckbridge said the nonprofit has had to rely more on private donations in recent months. It is hosting a fundraising event on Wednesday, Oct. 30.
“Doorways will continue providing direct support and high quality of services to survivors and their families, and we will offer our expertise to Restorative Arlington [based] on our several decades of work, amplifying the needs of survivors, and providing comprehensive training and support in trauma-informed best practices,” Beckbridge said.
While Restorative Arlington is still figuring out some of the logistics for Restorative Justice Pathways, Lighty plans to hire additional facilitators and rely on models that have worked in other places.
She hopes the program will give survivors new ways to heal, find justice and move forward with their lives.
“Restorative justice asks victims, ‘what do you need to heal?’” she said. “To those who have done harm, restorative justice asks, ‘what reparative actions can you take?’ Together with Doorways, centering victims’ safety, agency, and desire for accountability, Restorative Justice Pathways will provide options that promote healing by repairing the harm done, strengthening the safety of survivors and our community as a whole.”
