"Restorative Justice"

Summary

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Concrete Mama: The Podcast

Episode: "Restorative Justice"

Date: July 22, 2026
Hosts & Participants: Rachel Cech, Chris Gates, Eugene Youngblood, Aaron Faltolo, Stanley Phillips, Vic Chopra, Abby Pierce

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Overview of the Episode

In this profound and emotionally honest episode, Concrete Mama explores the concept of restorative justice through deeply personal stories and reflective dialogue between those who have both caused and survived harm. Recorded within the Washington State Penitentiary, the conversation centers on cycles of violence, the complexity of healing, accountability, and how restorative justice offers an alternative to the traditional criminal legal system. Rachel, a survivor and community leader, and Chris, an incarcerated individual who committed serious harm, act as proxies for each other in a powerful exchange about reckoning, growth, and what real accountability can look like—for both those who cause harm and those who suffer from it.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Rachel’s Personal Reckoning & Introduction to Restorative Justice

• Rachel recounts growing up in Walla Walla, a prison town, and being personally touched by violence and trauma.
• She shares her struggle with compartmentalization and the impact of new sentencing laws bringing “boogeymen” from her past back into her life.

  “I have a deep need to forgive and I have a deep need to heal.” — Rachel Cech (05:30-06:15)

• Learning about restorative justice has forced her to confront her own healing and the complexities of forgiveness.

2. Restorative Justice: Definitions & Approaches

• Restorative justice is presented as a victim-centered, healing-oriented alternative to punishment, focusing on restoring harm as much as possible in a way led by those most affected.
• Stanley Phillips describes the Department of Corrections’ approach:

  “We follow a victim-centered model. This is a victim-driven process. They're the ones that were harmed. ... And when these dialogues happen right...they’re transformational.” — Stanley Phillips (10:03-10:36)

• The “Letter Bank” allows incarcerated individuals to express accountability through written letters, leading to possible dialogues if victims desire.

3. Taking Accountability: Chris’s Story

• Chris Gates, from inside prison, reads and reflects on his accountability letter—a message to the family of his victim.

  “I killed somebody. I took somebody’s life. That’s something that I can never take back, something that I can never fix.” — Chris Gates (11:42-11:58)

• Chris shares the difficulty of facing what he did, the lasting impact on the victim’s family, and the ongoing nature of true accountability.
• He expresses both guilt and the need to move forward, acknowledging the harm done and the impossibility of undoing it.

4. The Proxy Dialogue: Healing for Both Sides

• Rachel (as survivor/proxy) and Chris (as person who harmed) engage in an honest dialogue, each facilitating healing for the other.
• Rachel describes the trauma of never receiving acknowledgment or answers for the harm caused to her and her family.
• Chris and Rachel discuss the limits and power of accountability letters and the need for honesty:

  “I feel like because of my experiences in the world and in the streets and then now ending up where I’m at now...if I’m able to...bear my truth and tell you my experience and my stories...it might resonate a little more with you, because you know me as a person. ...That could help you see yourself in your own story.” — Chris Gates (22:06-23:17)

5. Context and Accountability: Why People Harm

• Eugene Youngblood & Aaron Faltolo discuss how cycles of trauma, unaddressed needs, and self-worth issues lead to harm:

  “What happened in your life that made you believe that this was the right choice for you to make?... All actions we take as human beings, we’re just trying to get our needs met. Sometimes we use a bad strategy.” — Eugene Youngblood (17:39-19:03)

• Both stress healing for the person harmed and the person who caused harm.
• Accountability is distinguished from merely correcting behavior; it’s about ongoing, internal reckoning and change.

6. Real-life Examples and the Healing Process

• Stanley shares a powerful example: a two-decade-old homicide incident where a heartfelt letter began a victim’s healing.

  “The position that he took was: I accept full responsibility for all of my conduct, and part of my conduct resulted in the death.” — Stanley Phillips (30:35-32:25)

• Discussion of how the system’s adversarial nature prevents understanding, inhibits healing, and makes transformation difficult.

7. Intergenerational Trauma & Cycles of Harm

• Participants explore how trauma shapes identity, decision-making, and the perpetuation of harm:

  “Hurt people hurt people.” — Aaron Faltolo (45:13-45:16)

• Aaron shares about holding his dying father at age 14 and later becoming the monster he feared, illustrating the devastating ripple effects and the long road toward self-worth and change.

8. Gender, Privilege, and Compartmentalization

• Rachel addresses her own privilege and coping strategies, noting the ways trauma leads to dissociation and anesthetizing behaviors.
• Both she and Chris reflect on addiction, risk-taking, and how “survival modes” dull their sense of what’s normal or healthy.

9. Barriers to Forgiveness and the Limits of Restorative Justice

• Chris expresses that even deep engagement with restorative justice can’t guarantee forgiveness.
• Rachel highlights that what survivors often crave is acknowledgment, not retribution:

  “The only thing that would have made me feel better is if he would have acknowledged what he did. Like, it changed my DNA.” — Rachel Cech (50:26-50:35)

10. Public Takeaways—Ongoing, Not Linear, Healing

• Both hosts stress that healing is layered, uneven, and never complete; it must be chosen repeatedly, often uneasily and before one feels “ready.”
• Restorative justice is presented as a journey—not a cure—for breaking cycles of harm, requiring empathy, accountability, and radical honesty.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. And we have to remember that.” — Eugene Youngblood (42:22)
• “Trauma is an assault on your biology. That means it changes everything internally in you.” — Aaron Faltolo (50:46)
• “You can’t punish anybody into correcting themselves. That doesn’t work. ... The best thing we can hope and pray is that we put people in an environment where they want to hold themselves accountable.” — Eugene Youngblood (54:45)
• “Correcting behavior is not the same thing as taking accountability.” — Chris Gates (63:06)
• “Healing is not something you arrive at all at once. It’s something you have to keep choosing. And usually it’s before you feel ready.” — Rachel Cech (71:50)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Rachel’s Intro/Reckoning with Restorative Justice: 03:49–06:28
• Defining Restorative Justice & Letter Bank: 08:41–11:07
• Chris Gates on Accountability Letter: 11:42–16:15
• Dialogue on Recidivism and Healing (Eugene, Aaron): 17:15–20:12
• Victim-Offender Dialogues & Real-Life Example: 30:24–32:25
• Cycles of Harm & Trauma’s Impact: 45:13–49:17
• Barriers to Forgiveness: 55:53–59:21
• Closing Reflections on Healing: 70:35–71:50

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Episode Tone & Language

The tone throughout is raw, honest, and frequently vulnerable—with a spirit of both accountability and compassion. Speakers avoid clinical or legal jargon, instead favoring plainspoken personal storytelling and mutual support. The hosts and guests acknowledge their scars, the complexity in perpetrator-victim dynamics, and the urgent need for new frameworks of justice and restoration.

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Key Takeaways

• Restorative justice creates space for both accountability and healing but does not guarantee resolution or forgiveness.
• Both those who caused and suffered harm require community, honesty, and support to truly heal.
• Compartmentalizing pain and normalizing trauma is common—unpacking this is necessary but extremely difficult.
• Systems designed around punishment create barriers to transformation for both sides.
• Real justice and healing require seeing each other’s humanity and breaking out of the “good/bad” binary.

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For Listeners

This episode is for anyone whose life has been touched by violence, trauma, or the criminal legal system—whether inside or outside. Rachel and Chris’s dialogue, along with the wisdom of Eugene, Stanley, and Aaron, offers language, permission, and practical vision for beginning or continuing the long—sometimes lifelong—journey towards healing, accountability, and restoration.

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“We are inextricably linked as human beings on this healing journey…whatever place you’re listening from—inside, outside, harmed, ashamed, angry, grieving, numb or just tired—I hope this episode gives you the courage to begin.” — Rachel Cech (74:40–75:59)

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Transcript

[Vic Chopra]

Hey, fam. It's Vic and Rachel here. And before we start our episode, we just wanted to take a moment to talk about the Justice Media Film Fest we recently held in Walla Walla, Washington. This was an unprecedented dual film festival with events both inside the Washington State Penitentiary and at the Giza Powerhouse Theater. We partnered with the San Quentin Film Festival to screen a slew of their amazing shorts, including the hit film so Boom, and premiered our first short film, Lockdown, which was created by our own incarcerated students at the Washington State Penitentiary. They wrote the screenplay, acted, directed, operated the cameras and lighting, built the sets. They did it all.

[Rachel Cech]

We also want to talk about our amazing local sponsors who made this all possible. Now, y' all know we're called Concrete Mama, but can you believe Walla Walla also has its own set of Concrete Papas? That's right. We want to shout out our incredible premier sponsors, the Concrete Papas. And every town has businesses who believe in the communities that they serve, but these guys really went above and beyond. So to Ryan from Concrete Industries and Cruz from Moreno and Castillo Construction in Walla Walla, we just want to say we're so grateful for your partnership and helping us bring this very special film festival to life. We'd also like to thank the rest of our amazing supporting sponsors. Price Computers, Foundry Vineyards, and visit Walla Walla, Port of Walla Walla and Sharon Martin with Windermere Real Estate.

[Vic Chopra]

And let's not forget the incredible boutique hotel the Wesley. It's set in the beautiful downtown of Walla Walla, which has been voted top Main street and friendliest small town in America. It's known as a great outdoor destination for its local culture and most especially for its wine. The town also has a cool emerging film community with so many great locations for your next project. But back to the Wesley. Don't take our word for how amazing this hotel is. Let's hear from Abby Pierce and Tiny Cruise, the filmmakers behind so Boom, to tell you all about it.

[Abby Pierce]

Tiny, should we take a trip down memory lane? Yes, we should. Let's talk about Walla Walla. The Wesleyan Walla Walla. The nicest hotel I've ever stayed in, bro. Me, too. It was beautiful. It was in that big, like, Victorian house. And then who decorated that place? I don't know, but we got to give that person their flowers because it was so beautiful inside and out. And they had one. How many hot tubs did they have? I think it was two. But all I know is we stood in the biggest one because it was it set the tones. It was hands down the biggest hot tub I've ever seen. And then it was in this beautiful green backyard. And the people that worked there were so nice and kind. The hospitality was on point. They had bikes that they could offer us. I mean, it was just like such a nice space. And for two New Yorkers, those brooms were like the size of our apartments. Yo, for real.

[Rachel Cech]

Oh my God.

[Abby Pierce]

Yo. I loved it so much. Oh my God. Bring us back. Bring us back. We loved it. We love you, Wesley. Yes, we do. We can't wait to see you again.

[Rachel Cech]

So if you're in the local area, please support these businesses. And if you're listening anywhere else in the country, we hope you put your dollars into the local businesses that invest in communities. And if you own a business yourself, consider this your invitation. Stories have so much power when the local community chooses to invest in getting them told.

[Craig Jackson]

This program contains mature language that may not be suitable for all listeners. Discretion is advised.

[Rachel Cech]

This is Rachel Check. You know me as one of the people behind Concrete Mama. But today I need to introduce myself a little bit differently. Some of you might remember from earlier episodes, I grew up in this prison town called Walla Walla. The town is a lot more than that now. But back when I was coming up in the 80s and 90s, the prison was really what we were known for. And since this is a small town, when shit happened, it got around pretty quickly. Honestly, with went down in that era, I don't think I fully understood how not normal it was. So what you're about to hear is part of my reckoning with that. So let me start again. My name is Rachel Check. I'm a survivor of domestic violence. I've also been one degree of separation from multiple murders in my community, including one that impacted my own brother when his girlfriend was killed. I'm telling you this not because I've ever really identified as a victim, but because over the course of my life I have learned how to compartmentalize. I've learned to pack things away, just keep on living. It's part of my survival instinct. I just don't look too closely at what my experiences have done to me. Then recently there were some juvenile justice resentencing law changes here in Washington state. And so people who were tried as an adult or got really long sentences were allowed the opportunity to be re sentenced. And some of those people have gotten out. What was crazy is I found myself face to face with not one, but two of the boogeymen from my childhood because of what I do professionally, working in and outside of prison, you might think I'd be prepared to handle these situations. The truth is it's only been very recently that I've started exploring a new concept for me called restorative justice. You're going to hear more about what this actually means, but for now I'll just say this. Restorative justice is really making me look at my own healing in a way I think I've avoided for a very long time. I'm not ready yet to talk directly to the people who've caused harm to me and my family. I still have a lot of my own unpacking to do. But what I am doing is sitting with friends and colleagues from the justice impacted community as helpful proxies. And through that I'm beginning to understand a lot more about myself and maybe even why I've been so drawn to doing this work in the first place. I have a deep need to forgive and I have a deep need to heal.

[Craig Jackson]

Welcome to concrete mama.

[Eugene Youngblood]

My name is Eugene Youngblood, but most people just call me Youngblood by my last name. I work for an organization called look to Justice.

[Rachel Cech]

Can you tell a little bit about your story and your background and how you came to be free?

[Eugene Youngblood]

At 18 years old I was sentenced to a de facto life sentence. I was sentenced to 65 years in prison, which was more time than my life expectancy at that time. So my Release date was 2059 and here we are right now in 2026 and I'm sitting with you. I'm free. I'm out. I did just under 30 years before I was released on clemency by Governor Jay Inslee.

[Aaron Faltolo]

My name is Aaron Faltolo, also known as Big Time, and I am currently now working at Restorative Community Pathways, which is a pre filing diversion program for juveniles in King County.

[Rachel Cech]

So we were talking a little bit ago about my current situation with an individual that committed a crime when I was in high school. I think just coming out of high school and wanting to have a restorative conversation with him. And I'd love for you to just share a little bit about some of the things that you already said to me when we weren't recording.

[Aaron Faltolo]

I was incarcerated at 16 auto decline on tried and sentenced as an adult and spent 25 years inside of Washington State DOC. I was released in 2021 on the Juvenile ISRB Restorative Justice. It's essentially at its core very simplistic, being able to try and restore harm to an individual as much as possible and in a way that the individual who has been armed and experienced that harm would like.

[Stanley Phillips]

So my name is Stanley Phillips, and I'm the Facilitated Communication Coordinator with the Washington State Department of Corrections.

[Rachel Cech]

Let's just start by talking a little bit about your origin story. I want to hear a little bit about the backstory related to, you know, how you got into this work.

[Stanley Phillips]

Prior to this, I spent 23 years at a county prosecutor's office as a victim advocate and a senior victim advocate. So I've worked with thousands of victims of crime, hundreds of survivors of homicide, a lot of families affected by all sorts of different crimes. Over my career, I was involved in a pilot program in the court, and it involved some of our judges, defense attorneys, prosecutors, folks from the local dispute resolution center, and our treatment courts. What we were trying to do was see how a restorative justice facilitated dialogue program could work on non traditional domestic violence crimes, because we knew that there's an established relationship. Because of that relationship, there was harm to be repaired and a relationship to be mended if the victim was interested in that. And so then this position became open at the Department of Corrections and I was recruited to apply and the rest is history.

[Rachel Cech]

There's a big difference, I would imagine, between like a community based restorative justice program that's doing work in schools and working with youth and diversion and stuff like that versus post conviction Department of Corrections perspective. Can you just talk a little bit about what the differences are?

[Stanley Phillips]

We follow a victim centered model. This is a victim driven process. They're the ones that were harmed. They're the ones where there's restoration to take place. So that is our primary focus and that's really what guides this work. Now, having said that, what we have seen is an immense amount of healing take place on both sides. That is a very important kind of North Star for us is to create these healing moments and to create safe spaces for that to take place. And when these dialogues happen right, and they're vetted properly, that is what happens. They're transformational.

[Rachel Cech]

Can you just explain what the letter bank is?

[Stanley Phillips]

Our accountability letter bank provides an opportunity for incarcerated individuals that have caused harm to write a letter to either the victim or to the victim's family. Folks that decide to participate in this don't get any type of benefit from the department or special treatment. They write the letter because it's something that they want to do. The most important thing is that they're taking full accountability for their behavior and their actions.

[Rachel Cech]

The core of this episode is My conversation with Chris Gates, who you've heard from earlier this season and who is a new member of the concretemama podcast. When Chris told me he was working through his own process of taking accountability, I knew he was the perfect person to be in this with me. You're going to hear us talk as proxies for each other. Me as someone who has been harmed and Chris as someone who has caused harm. And I'll share more about what this meant for me later in the episode.

[Chris Gates]

This is Chris Gates and I'm in prison right now because I killed somebody. I took somebody's life. That's something that I can never take back, something that I can never fix. I'll never be able to make that

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

right for the family of the man I killed. I know that your lives will never be the same. I know there are parts of you that have been frozen in time since the moment you got that call. I took your loved one away. Your son, your brother, your father. And I'm sorry.

[Chris Gates]

I'll be sorry forever. What you're about to hear contains pieces of a conversation between Rachel and I. During this talk, I read her the accountability letter that I wrote to the family of the man that I'm incarcerated for killing. This was done to help facilitate a healing dialogue between someone who had been harmed Rachel, and someone who's caused harm myself in Washington State. These types of conversations are called Victim offender dialogues out of respect for the man that I killed as well as his family. The letter will not be read and the details of the incident will not be shared in this podcast. But first, it's important for me and the team to speak on a few things. Concrete mom of the podcast recognizes that restoration is always a victim centered process, and we also realize that we can never fully repair the harm caused by our own actions from those who have caused harm to those who have been harmed by the acts of others. We won't let the world continue to move on without you. Words can't do your pain justice, and nothing can right the wrongs that you've experienced. Out of respect for those that we've impacted and to avoid retraumatizing the survivors of harmful acts, Concrete mom of the Podcast will not mention the names of those harmed. We recognize that there's no right way to talk about experiences that will forever continue to cause harm. So we promise to do so with intentionality and with the purpose of becoming better people. We hope that this podcast helps to support your healing journey.

[Rachel Cech]

So before we get into the letter, what made you Willing to share it with me.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

I think, for one, I trust you. And you and the team specifically have been a really big part of my transforming and, like, trying to get past a lot of my emotional issues and my emotional blocks and, like, my closeness issues, my trust issues. So I'm really grateful that I have the opportunity of people around me that I know is a safe space to kind of do a lot of things that don't feel safe for me and don't feel comfortable. And because I already have that foundation, like, getting into my thoughts and feelings about my case and taking accountability and, like, trying to repair some of the harm that I've caused. I've wanted to do that for a long time. And to be honest, I felt really guilty. The fact that it's been eight years since I caught my case, eight years since this incident happened. And I feel like I've moved on, not moved on with my life, but I've moved forward in my life. And I have no clue of whether the people that were impacted by this have been able to. And they haven't heard anything from me, as far as I know. I was thinking about this person's daughter who was in elementary school at the time and has to be in high school by now, and I'm like, damn. These last eight years were, like, the formative years of their lives. And they've gotten to where they are now without their father. And knowing that they haven't heard anything about the how, the why from the person that they know is responsible for this. And, like, that fucks me up. One of the things, when I first got to the county and I was sitting in county jail, I called my dad because he grew up without his father. And he told me, before he even knew about the story or anything that happened, he just told me, like, you gotta reckon with this, because these kids now have to grow up without their dad. And I grew up without my dad. And I know how that feels when he said it. At first, because of my position on my situation, I got upset that he would say something like that to me without hearing my side of the story or knowing what was going on. But I've never been able to forget that since he told me that. And I've been thinking about those kids and his family every single day.

[Rachel Cech]

I don't know if it's the time that matters as much as it happening. You know, in my case, it's been a lot of years, like 30. You know, the more time goes on, the more it becomes a new normal. But at the Same time, there's always that part of you that wants to know and, you know, would it have made a difference if it was at a younger age? Maybe. But also developmentally, when. When kids are young, they don't have the ability to understand things, so you could tell them whatever you wanted, and they wouldn't, you know, wouldn't make the same impact as it would when they're at a certain developmental stage. So it happens when it happens, you know, and you got to be in the right place for it, for sure. You know, so you needed some years to get to the, you know, place that you're at now to be able to do that. And it's all. You know what. It's also layers of the onion. This is just another layer. There's probably more layers, you know, down the road.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Absolutely.

[Rachel Cech]

Like, if you ever have your own kids, for example. So can you talk a little bit about the connection between recidivism and restorative justice? Because I think that from the. I don't like the word offender, but, you know, from the side of the person who caused harm, what are some things that are happening in restorative justice?

[Eugene Youngblood]

When it comes to restorative justice, there's a person who caused harm, there's someone who was harmed, there's the community, and then there's restoration. Like, what can we do to restore, to get things back? Right. And it's about accountability. There's a concept in restorative justice, and it's called 200%. You're 100% responsible for. For any action you have taken and for all actions you have taken. Right. But there's also 100% context that comes with that, and that's also important to understand why something happened. Is one of the things we have to do is ask instead of what did you do? Or why did you do this? Instead, we have to ask what happened to you and what happened in your life that made you believe that? Especially when we're talking about causing harm to someone. What happened in your life that made you believe that this was the right choice for you to make? All actions that we take as human beings, we're just trying to get our needs met. Sometimes we use a bad strategy about how to get that need met. And most often what happens is this person who commits this harm just doesn't realize that there are a whole bunch of things from A to Z that they could have done to get those particular needs. Needs met. But dealing with emotion, dealing with trauma, dealing with societal issues, all these things compound. And you don't get a chance to think. And when you're not thinking before you act, you just act out. And most often you act out in violence. And what I like to say is that the restoration has to be not just that the person who was harmed or got something taken from them or was physically harmed in some way, not only do we need them to come back to full health, to get back to being the best version that they could be, but we also need the person who caused harm to be able to come back and get back to the very same essence that we want the person who's harmed to be.

[Aaron Faltolo]

You still have all these traumas, these baggage, these compounding issues that led you to the place of where you were making the choices that you were making. And if you haven't dealt with that, if you haven't come to a settled place with that in some way shape or form, and you haven't started healing with all those things, what's going to happen? The majority of the time, most folks are going to go back to exactly what you know best and were doing before, and that's hurting more people because you don't know no better.

[Eugene Youngblood]

When I finally was able to meet with somebody I wasn't able to meet with originally my victims families, I had a surrogate, if you will. And so what happened was there was a woman I met in the restorative process, says who her son was killed in gang violence. Her son was killed like 10, maybe 15 years after I was already in prison. But when I met her and I talked to her and she shared her story, I cried real tears. And I told her I'm sorry and I owe you an apology. And she's like, why? And I said, I feel like I was partly responsible for your son's death. And she was like, what do you mean? He was in prison like 15 years. And I said, yeah, but the person who killed your son was following these gang rules and his gang philosophy. And I helped to perpetuate that for a number of years. And I helped to keep that alive for a number of years. And so I just feel like I played a role in that some kind of way, even if it was offhandedly. And she gave me a hug and she told me how much better it felt for her to be able to talk to me as if I was the person who committed the harm to her. And then I told her how much better I felt just having the conversation with her and her, her telling me she saw my humanity and she could see that I was a good person. And that was what was really needed.

[Rachel Cech]

What was going through your mind specifically with me sitting here as a proxy for someone that's been impacted by a similar loss? I mean, it wasn't, you know, my parent, but it's not like I've just been party to one crime. I've been the direct victim of domestic violence, and that person tried to kill me.

[Eugene Youngblood]

Right.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

I never considered doing something like this beforehand. I didn't even really know it was a thing. I guess I was stuck, like, thinking inside my own box of what reconciliation or taking accountability or making amends might look like, and was focused on what that meant about how I need to show up for the people that I've harmed. But I didn't. I didn't really think about how doing something like this could affect me and, like, be so impactful to me, because doing something like this is not. It's hella hard. It's not easy. And I have had a lot of thoughts and feelings about my situation for the last eight years, and I haven't really had that many opportunities to share or process that stuff with other people. And so I was really grateful for having this opportunity to be able to do that. But I think through listening to the different interviews that I was listening to during the editing and cutting stuff up and talking with you, this is my. My feelings or my perceptions. I felt like you were having a time processing the stuff that you had been through also. And that if I can kind of help you shoulder that and carry that a little bit and help, like, break through some of that stuff, I felt honored to be able to do that. And I don't know, I feel like because of my experiences in the world and in the streets and then now ending up where I'm at now, and we know each other, right? Like, we have a personal relationship. And so if I'm able to. To really bear my truth and tell you my experience and my stories, that it might resonate a little bit more with you, because you know me as a person. And so despite what I've done and despite what led me here, that you. You'll see the person through my story, no matter what it is. And so I thought maybe that could help you see yourself in your own story and then see the other people that are involved in your story, too.

[Rachel Cech]

100%.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

When you brought this idea to me, you clearly had this inspirational thought and was like, oh, we could do this thing. This would be dope. So what gave you that idea and made you think, like, this could be A really powerful thing.

[Rachel Cech]

It came to me because as I was talking to Aaron and Eugene and Stanley and they were talking about the letter bank or various versions of accountability conversations, I was like, I've never thought about this before. Why has no one ever told me, not once in my life? Like, no one's talked to me about restorative justice. No one's told me that this is a thing that can be really healing ever. And I've been in therapy a lot. And so for them to talk about it from their perspective having been people who caused harm and now doing work with youth who have caused harm or who are on the verge of going down a path, they were both like, who better to do it than us?

[Abby Pierce]

No,

[Aaron Faltolo]

what I love most about the dialogue accountability process, besides the fact of the healing with a family member of the individual that I caused such an egregious harm to it, was the intentionality aspect of it. And that's the process that actually leads to the process of first, foremost, sitting down with each side of this situation that happened and getting to know the individual, building a relationship with the individual, and identifying what it is that you actually want out of the process prior to bringing both sides together so that we don't cause further harm.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

I'm curious to know what you were feeling walking into this conversation and maybe what you were open to in having this conversation.

[Rachel Cech]

To be honest with you, I think that I'm really good at compartmentalizing. And I have had so much shit happen in my life. And what really made me think about that is talking to my brother and realizing how much he has compartmentalized, because I was trying to get him to go there with me on a different night. And, you know, he was dealing with his kids and. And whatever. And so I just chalked it up to, like, he's busy, you know? But then when I talked to him last night and he wasn't busy, he was like, I really haven't thought about this stuff in a long time, really. He's also had a lot of other crazy happen to him. So we were just talking back and forth, telling some of these stories, and I go, you know, it makes me feel less alone to realize that this shit's not normal. It's not an accident that I do this work. It worries me sometimes that, like, it's like, with trauma, the same thing could happen over and over and over again, and you've built up a wall and you don't react to it. And then one time you do, and it's. And I Always worry, like, is the floodgate gonna open? I'm not gonna be able to shut it down.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cech]

Because I'm really good at shutting it down. Yep.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Me too.

[Rachel Cech]

I relate to that part with you.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cech]

So I don't know exactly how I feel other than to say that I have a lot of trust with you and some of the other people that have caused harm in my life directly to me and to my family. I don't have trust with. And I've seen recently that there's reason to not have trust for sure. The other layer to this, too, is, you know, I've had addiction issues and I've harmed people. And, you know, I'm very aware of my privilege because I look like this.

[Aaron Faltolo]

Right.

[Rachel Cech]

And so I've had several brushes with the law where I was with people that don't look like this, and I saw how they were treated, and I saw how I was treated.

[Craig Jackson]

Right.

[Rachel Cech]

And I was like, I have a Jedi mind trick. I'll be like, there's nothing to see

[Eugene Youngblood]

for sure, you know, for sure.

[Rachel Cech]

And so I'm, you know, I haven't. That shit's in my past. But, like, I think about that sometimes, especially when I come in here, and I'm like, you know, I think there's a reason why I avoid working in the women's prison, to be honest with you, because I think it'd be a little too close to home.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Yeah. That's what we do when we have those experiences that we don't know how to cope with. We just bury them, and they don't get dealt with, and then it comes back later on. Yeah.

[Rachel Cech]

Well, I'm not the only one that's had addiction issues.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cech]

Family.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cech]

You know, for sure. And both of us, I think that we have dealt with our traumas by, you know, anesthetizing and compartmentalizing when I do it, too.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

And I mean, you know, that. You've heard my story. I just do it in a different capacity. I've learned to relate a lot with people who identify with substance abuse and people who identify with self harm, because even though I never have identified with those things, substance use was definitely, like, part and parcel to all the. That I was doing out there. And, like, with self harm, I never intentionally tried to hurt myself, but I would put myself in situations by the choices I would make where my life was like, I was gambling with my life. And I would knowingly do this over and over again because I just felt like that's what I was supposed to do or that's what was normal or whatever. And now, in hindsight, looking at that, like I was gambling with self harm in the same exact way that people that are intentionally hurting themselves are doing. Because there's a lot of situations that I've been through that I could have not walked out of of. And I knew that going into them and still was like, well, this is normal. This is what I'm supposed to do. So I do it.

[Rachel Cech]

You're just giving me a realization. I've done that too. I've done that too.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

But we kind of protect our egos by saying, well, I've never tried to end it or I've never tried to do this. But like, yeah, I was, though.

[Rachel Cech]

Yeah. I mean, I've. I spent a couple days, Decades of my life around scary drug dealers and people that have. I know, have done bad.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cech]

And put myself in spaces and places that things could be a lot worse.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cech]

So for sure. I never thought about it that way, though.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Rachel Cech]

As a woman, you just walk through life going, yeah, the world's scary and there's a lot of big bad bears out there.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

And if it happens, it happens.

[Rachel Cech]

It's kind of a little bit. I mean, obviously spidey sense and street smarts. Like, I notice when I'm around people that don't have street smarts, it's very clear to me. I'm like, what are you doing? Why. Why are you putting the money out?

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Well, and like, yeah, in the, in those situations, that stuff benefits us. Right. Because we've learned to keep ourselves safe doing that stuff. But it takes a lot of reckoning to realize that a lot of those tactics we learned and those lessons we learned desensitized us. And we had to shut down and kill parts of ourselves in order to be able to survive in the environments we're in. And like, that's fucked up. That's some stuff that you, you. Sometimes you can't get that stuff back. But, like, being able to account for that and reckon with that and figure out how to move forward and be gentle with that is. It's fucking hard.

[Rachel Cech]

We should get at it.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Let's do it.

[Rachel Cech]

So let's say the letter is written. It's good they've taken accountability. The victim or the victim's family has said they want to have a dialogue with them. What is that process like?

[Stanley Phillips]

Well, I can give you a real life example that just happened a few weeks ago. We had a murder case that occurred about 20 years ago, and there was three individuals involved. And the one that was probably the least involved, wrote a very, very meaningful two page accountability letter to the family. In the last sentence, the person had mentioned, if you ever wanted an opportunity to meet, I would be willing to answer any questions. Actions speak louder than words and I want to show you through my actions that I am accountable and I will be fully accountable to you in person if you would like. Instead of him asking and saying, I want a dialogue from you, which we don't allow in the letters, it was, if this was something you're interested in, I would be willing to do that. So when one of the family members got that letter, they were very moved by it. One of the of the siblings was still alive in their 90s and had made a comment that this had started some healing for her. So in this case, once this survivor had read the letter and seen all of the good things that this incarcerated person was doing in prison, turning his life around, committing to non violence, acknowledging accountability and responsibility even though they had a lesser role, the position that he took was, I accept full responsibility for all of my conduct and part of my conduct resulted in the death. And so it doesn't matter that somebody had more involvement or less involvement or whatever. I'm taking that full accountability. And that was his own journey. It's incredible the capacity for forgiveness for victims on their own healing journey. I get a lot of victims and survivors during the first call that tell me that they want to forgive the person they, that caused them harm.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

I promise you that this will live with me forever. And then I apologize to each of the people who wrote letters recommending.

[Rachel Cech]

It's a lot of people.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Yeah, wow. It's his mom, his sisters, his daughter, brother, I think cousins, aunt and uncles, friends, family, friends and nephew.

[Rachel Cech]

So I felt really emotional at different parts of what you were saying. And it's interesting because when I was talking to Stanley, he gave me this example letter that was like, he's like,

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

this is like ideal, whatever.

[Rachel Cech]

Yeah. And it was a lot shorter than I would have expected. I mean, it was still like two pages, but it was, you know, this is like four. Yeah. And so I wonder if, I don't know, for lack of a better way to say it, like, is that bad? Like that it's longer. I actually think that because you're so eloquent and you're. I. There wasn't any language in there that I heard where it felt a little like, oh, now you're taking a step back from the two steps forward that you just took. So that was like just a Thought that I had. But as a victim, if I'm putting myself in their shoes, which is easy for me to do, I might feel like it's still too focused on you. And maybe that's why a shorter letter is better, because it's just focused on them. And I think it's important to write the longer letter. Like, this is your process right now. Once they're involved, it's also their process.

[Abby Pierce]

Right.

[Rachel Cech]

I wanted to acknowledge that the letter that Stanley shared with me was someone that had given permission to allow that letter to be shared as a stellar example of how to write an accountability letter. None of the other letters are shared. They're very sensitive to privacy and confidentiality.

[Eugene Youngblood]

One thing I want to establish is the way our system is set up in the antagonistic, adversarial way. Person who caused harm versus person who was harmed. What ends up happening is because of that process. The person who's caused harm, and I'm speaking from a real personal experience, was my life experience. The person who caused harm can't really appreciate the gravity of the harm they've caused because the person they harm is not allowed to tell them, this is what you did to me. This is what happened. And now my grandson doesn't have an uncle or a father, and I have a friend who robbed a bank, right? And he robbed a bank with a note. He just went into the bank with a note and said, you know, give me all the money or whatever it said. But he was standing there and he did some things in a certain way that it did something to the teller. Years later, he had an opportunity to get with some people and apologize. And she was one of them. And one of the things she said is, sometimes I shudder when people come up to me, and in a certain way, and I'm still scared, and I'm still afraid, like, this is what happened to me. Even though you just gave me the note. Before he had that conversation with her, he didn't know the damage and the cause. In his mind, he's thinking, well, I just had a note. It didn't harm nobody. He didn't realize all these things happened. So then he had to stop and think about, man, you know, I did this to this person's life, and this happened. And not only do now do I have to live with that. I got to process that. But now I understand, right? And on the other side of that, the person who was harmed doesn't get to see what real transformation looks like. They just think you're the Same person even 20 years later, even 25 years later, even 30 years later, they think you're the same person who did this one thing on this one day. Not realizing that you grow and you develop, you reach your potential, you mature. And when they see that, they're often amazed. Like, wow. And then, and only then can you try to reconcile that.

[Rachel Cech]

You know, I know we're not going to play the recording of you reading the letter, of course, but like me being a proxy and, and having been in several. I don't know, I mean, there were times where I felt re triggered in the sense that my whole body just felt like. Like it was buzzing and humming, you know, like I was just like on high alert.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cech]

And then there were other times where I was just with you and I wasn't really thinking about my own experience. And then I got tears in my eyes because I know know you and care about you and I. I hate that that's the situation that led you to be here for a long time.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

No.

[Rachel Cech]

And I know it wasn't the first time that you had got in trouble with the lab, but this is the most significant by far.

[Stanley Phillips]

Right.

[Rachel Cech]

And you had said something the other day about your ERD date and like, not even really being able to process that in a real way. I see you on a healing journey and I witness you like evolving and growing right in front of me. Yeah. It's not a, like, slow process. Like you're in an accelerated period of growth right now. And so if that continues, what happens when you're, you know, whatever, 40.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cech]

How are you going to be feeling? And makes me sad. It makes me sad for his family. It makes me sad for your family and for you.

[Chris Gates]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cech]

And it's actually getting me in touch with my own sadness because growing up, like there was just a lot of up that happened around me and. And then I continued that chaos into my 20s and 30s. And I hear this talked about where it's like, people, even if it's not safe or the right choice for them, they. They do what's comfortable and what they know. And I've always applied that to people outside of myself, but I haven't really applied it to myself. And I'm realizing right now that like, shit wasn't normal. There was a lot of crazy shit that went on and then I perpetuated that. And it wasn't until I had a near death experience where I was like, okay, we're going to reset. And I. I basically camped out for a year. I didn't have a job, I didn't date anyone. I kept my friend group real small and real specific to people I'd known for a long time that I could trust. And I just grieved because I was not fit for human consumption is how I described it. I remember I did try to interview for jobs and I somehow caught the whale and I was being interviewed to be head of leadership development. Development for Facebook.

[Vic Chopra]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cech]

And I literally had to get off the interview in the middle of it because I manifested getting sick and I was so sick I could barely have a conversation with this woman and I started having a coughing fit and I really don't believe that was just coincident.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cech]

Like I was not ready.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

You knew you weren't ready?

[Rachel Cech]

Not at all.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

No.

[Rachel Cech]

It wasn't until after that that I. I really, really changed and I've been a different person for the past, you know, 12 years.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

That's heavy. I wasn't, I wasn't sure. It was hard for me because reading this I felt like it was kind of isolating because I was reading it and so I wasn't able to look at you while I was reading it. And it was hard for me to get a read on as I'm reading it. Like how it was impacting you and that. Like, like hearing you say how you felt and the things that you were hearing and what it made you think of. That's like. I'm gonna carry that with me because I'm just thinking about all of the people who I've made feel that way or like put through those experiences. And even with writing this letter to get back to the family to hope to give them some. Something from me is like now I'm thinking about all the things that it's going to trigger in them and the things that they've been dealing with for the last eight years. And like knowing that because of decisions I made is why I'm here. And if I'm being honest, I think I knew that I wasn't ready for the last eight years also, which is why I've stalled out writing this letter for so long. Like I've tried multiple times and not been able to do it because I. It just wasn't right. It didn't feel right. And I'm not going to give them some half assed letter that's not, not that I don't feel like is adequate. Even though, like I said, I know it's never going to be good enough. I'm never going to feel like I'm done. I'm always going to feel like there's more to add or there's more to say.

[Rachel Cech]

I think that's one of the evolutions that needs to happen or will happen naturally is that you'll get past this idea that it's never going to be good enough. Because that's still about you.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Yeah, exactly.

[Rachel Cech]

It's like. Like, am I going to get it to a place that's good enough to where they will accept or forgive me? Right. But that's still about you. Right. What if the sentences stopped with just this is what it is, period? I don't know. I'm torn because on one hand, I wanted to know the context in the story and I wanted to understand why you made the decisions that you made and what all went down. And also they probably know that from the case. So it's less about that and it's more about this is how it impacted you, and this is who I am now. And obviously naming that you're deeply sorry for what happened.

[Eugene Youngblood]

Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. And we have to remember that. Just stop for a moment, whoever you are listening to this, and ask yourself, what is the one time in your life where you weren't the best you, that you can be the thing that you wish you could take back? Because no matter who we are, we all have a moment in time that we wish we could take back. Now think about, what if that moment defined who you were? And that's what I have to live through. And that's what people who have been convicted of crimes have to live through. That's what people who are currently incarcerated have to live through. And when they walk out the door, they're going to always have to live with that on their back. Have you ever told a lie before?

[Rachel Cech]

Yes.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Okay.

[Chris Gates]

Yes.

[Eugene Youngblood]

And so because you have told a lie, does that make you a liar? Care?

[Rachel Cech]

No.

[Eugene Youngblood]

So how come if I committed a crime, I am now a criminal? Right? So just think about what that does to a person's psychology, to a person's personal makeup, right? Like, and you get bombarded with this messaging that you're worthless, that you ain't worth nothing. And especially when they give you that sentence like that, that your life is not worth anything, it's so hard to come back from that. Most people, you will find who the world will say is evil or psychopath or heartless, it's actually just a person who doesn't like themselves, doesn't know who they really are, and has been getting this messaging from society that they're a horrible person. And these are the convictions that they convict their self with. Long before they get to the courtroom, they've already told themselves, I'm a guy, a gang member, or I'm a dope dealer, or I'm a robber, or I'm a murderer. And they start living up to that and believing that because they don't have a self image to begin with. What we have to do is help them learn how to value their own self and see their self in a way that understands that their life has value. Because once you understand that your life has value, then you value the next person and their life and their position, possessions. Once I realized that I had value and my life had value and I was more than just a gang member, once I realized that I was as human as everybody else and I was just having a human experience, I realized I couldn't sell drugs no more. I couldn't rob anybody no more. I definitely couldn't cause any harm to anyone anymore because not only was I understanding that they deserve better than that, more importantly, I figured out finally that I deserve better than that.

[Aaron Faltolo]

I don't want to say it's cliche, but it's used a lot. But hurt people. Hurt people, right? I pretty much guarantee you that, that any person that you see that is currently sitting or has been released from being given a sentence and has caused harm was harmed prior to that. One thing that I like to share with folks all the time is like a pivotal moment in my life to my change and my journey to heal and no longer harm was when I was eligible to identify that I had become the monster that had took my father's life. At 14, I was with my father when he was shot and killed, and I held him till he bled to death in my arms, right? Not only was my father basically known void in my life up to that point, but think about that from a child's perspective of a father figure. Wanting to have a relationship that's not there, wanting to have love that's not there, wanting to have safety that's not there, wanting to have a bond that's not there, wanting to have acceptance that's not not there. And you're constantly yearning that you absolutely have to have that as a human being from the moment that you come out of your mother's womb, Just the trauma alone that that creates. And then to have to sit there with this man that I'm constantly yearning and looking for from to have shot in my presence, and then I have to hold him until he bleeds to death. The Ripple effects from that in my life, my siblings life. It's unfair, unfathomable. My family period. And at some point in time, after sitting years and years inside IMU and segregation, I had this thought of I am that same monster. I caused that same harm. I caused that same ripple effect. And it was almost completely and utterly devastating to me. Like I can't believe that I did that. I never even viewed it or even thought about that in that sense or in that frame or in that limelight. But when I did, it fucked me up, up. And I stood on that for years and years and I searched and I searched for the why. Why did I choose to do that and how do I never ever do that again?

[Rachel Cech]

You said something earlier about trauma affects biology. And that just came back to me with the what you just shared. And thank you for sharing that part of your story with me. And I think it illustrates how you can see all sides of it and hold space in a situation where because you've done the work to get to that place. It's interesting. I just had a realization. So the other day when I was interviewing Eugene, he said almost the exact opposite. But in a weird way they connect. He said it wasn't until I realized my own self worth worth and stopped seeing myself as to shortcut it a piece of that I was able to realize that I was the kind of person that wanted and needed to hold myself to a higher standard that I wouldn't harm other people. And can when you hear me say that, how do you connect the two?

[Aaron Faltolo]

I mean we're in the same boat. Like I didn't have no self worth. That's why I made the choices that I made and that's why I constantly caused harm. And that's why I lashed out out in the way that I did because I didn't have no self worth. My esteem for myself was completely non existent. Yeah, we may have held ourselves in all this bravado because of where we were at. Right. And how we're conditioned that we have to be. But internally it's not there. And I think identifying the monster that I had become was the pivotal moment in me healing and being able to find my self worth. And now my self worth is at a place just like Eugene said. I think they're both exactly parallel and entwined with one another. If we have no self worth, we're going to be harming other people. If we do have self worth, we're not going to be wanting to harm other people.

[Rachel Cech]

When I experienced intimate partner violence he was such a narcissist that he just turned on me and made it that I attacked him. And that because I threw a piece of cheese at him, that's what set it off. And then we already were in counseling. I had written a letter to him, and I was reading it, and he was sitting there kind of, like, scoffing and acting like. And it was so much of a turn on the dime with the person that I loved, that I'd been with for years, that I had a home with and dogs with and a business with, that it felt like. And it felt like almost a worse betrayal because there's never been an acknowledgment of the harm caused.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

No.

[Rachel Cech]

Or even that it was, you know, I don't want to say his fault, but, like, you know, that what he did. Never. Not once. And I've had to live with that.

[Abby Pierce]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cech]

That's the thing that's the hardest is, like, I don't really give a If he's doing better in his life and not harming other people. Actually, I don't believe that he is.

[Chris Gates]

No.

[Rachel Cech]

I feel sorry for anybody that's with him, but what I care about is him recognizing the harm that he did. Like, it changed my DNA.

[Eugene Youngblood]

Right.

[Rachel Cech]

I became a different person. And to have that experience is not something that I wish on anybody. Yeah.

[Aaron Faltolo]

Scientifically, they say that trauma is assault on your. Your biology. Like, think about that. Trauma is an assault on your biology. That means it changes everything internally in you. The chemicals, your thought processes, your physical well being.

[Rachel Cech]

Thank you for letting me be your proxy, because this really is helping my own process. Genuinely, what do you hope that your victim's family would feel if they ever read this letter?

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

The only thing that would give any sort of comfort is I really want them to know and believe and to feel that I'm trying to be better. And, like, I understand what I did, and I am working really hard every day to continue to understand that more and more and more and to really feel what that feels like. I see all the nuances and the connections between the way that I interact with the world and the impact that I'm having on other people. And, like, I'm. It's heavy to reckon with that and deal with that. And I really want to make sure that the family knows that I'm not gonna just move past this and let this just go away. Oh, I won't do it again. I'll correct my behavior and it'll be okay, because that's not where I'm at. Like, I'm walking with this every single day of my life from here on out, and it's continuing to change and impact my life differently. Every single time I think about every single time I have a new experience, and then I have to relate it back to this guy's life that he doesn't have anymore and this family that doesn't have their loved one anymore and his kids and all these things. Like, every experience I have, I feel like I'm carrying that with me now. And it's sad and it's hard and it's heavy, but it's like, that's my responsibility, and I'm. I want to do that proud. Like, I want. Want to make this horrible incident that up. So many people's lives mean something to me and to them and them. To know that I'm not just like, let me move on. Like, I'm carrying this with me to put as much good into the world as I can from this. Even though, like, it's not going to make up for it, it's not going to make up from them never having this person again. And there's nothing I can do to bring this person back. The very least that I can do is make this count for something good.

[Rachel Cech]

Well, you are. I'm having an experience right now of realizing. I don't know if you just saw it, but I got really emotional. You just made me realize I haven't been able to put my finger on it, but, like, why I do this work is because I'm seeking something that I never got from all those circumstances where I was harmed or people I care about were harmed. I never got an answer from society, from, you know, my parents, generation, from anybody in my life. It's just been this, like, gaping wound that I've just walked around with, and I'm like, well, I got some more Band Aids. I'll stick on that. Yep. Like, I knew there was a connection somehow. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. He just articulated it.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

I'm cool with band Aids, bro. I'm done with that. I'm done with that shit. I'm done. I'm tired of hurting people, and I'm tired of feeling hurt and then trying to convince myself that it's normal.

[Rachel Cech]

It's not normal. No, we've normalized it. No, my big epiphany with talking to my brother about the shit that we went through, you know, with his girlfriend being killed and other crazy shit that went down.

[Abby Pierce]

Right.

[Rachel Cech]

Is it's not normal. But when we were Growing up, we never talked about it. I mean, we talked about it, but, like, I asked him, I said, do you remember our parents ever saying to us, like, we're really sorry this is happening? You know, this is not normal?

[Aaron Faltolo]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cech]

And he was like, no. And I was like, I don't either. I said, I don't remember any adults saying this is not normal and it's not okay. I mean, we weren't even from, you know, the same kind of neighborhood. I'm from Walla Walla.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Right.

[Rachel Cech]

You wouldn't think, but trust me.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Yeah.

[Eugene Youngblood]

In countries where they cut your hand off for stealing, there are still people who steal where they have the death penalty, there are still people who are committing murders. There's nothing you can put in place that's going to hold anybody else accountable. I don't care what you do to them. You can't punish anybody into correcting themselves. That doesn't work. What happens is in the. The best thing we can hope and pray is that we put people in an environment where they want to hold themselves accountable. Because when you're able to hold yourself accountable and say, this is what I did. This is the harm I caused, then you act, and more importantly, you live in a different way. I didn't wake up one day and just start following the rules. I woke up one day and I realized I was better than that. And I realized all the things that I was doing, I really didn't believe in that, and that wasn't really me. And I took a look in the mirror and I had to get to myself and say, hey, you have to really live up to being who you really are, and that isn't you.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

I don't know if restorative justice necessarily always leads to forgiveness. I don't know if it can. When I was fighting my case, I was in the Kitchen county with somebody who harmed one of my family members. And I'll say that. But with that, I'll also say, like, being in the streets, like, I'm around people that have done things to people I love and care about and that I have done things to people they love and care about, or specific people that I've done things to and specific people that have done things to me all the time. Like, that took a lot to reckon with when I first started. Started being in space with, like, oh, this is the dude that was at the thing where this happened and. Or like, my homies into it with this dude over. It was always really easy for me once I figured it out, to compartmentalize street stuff from civilian stuff. And like being in prison, we do what we do in the streets out of a lot of bad habits, a lot of bad conditioning and like a lot of systemic things that play into how things end up the way they are. And so it's kind of easy for me not to, to carry that personally in certain respects. But I was in the county with somebody who did something to one of my civilian family members outside of street, outside of politics and all that stuff. And like, out of respect for my relative, I'm not going to speak on what exactly that was. But it was a woman in my family and I've always felt a really intense sense of shame for not responding, responding to that in a way that I feel like I'm supposed to with violence, with retribution, with getting action back right from the time that it happened when I was in elementary school or just about to be in middle school, up until like being face to face with this person and feeling like I'm supposed to do something.

[Rachel Cech]

But you just said something in the same sentence. You said bad habits and the way that we are conditioned to react. But then, then at the same tone you're saying you've always felt ashamed that you didn't react that way.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Oh, I know it's conditioning and I know that that's not healthy, that's not healing, that's not adding anything positive to the world. But I still feel like I'm supposed to do that. I still feel like I'm supposed to respond.

[Rachel Cech]

It's also a gender based thing too.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. But knowing that shit doesn't make the shame and guilt of not responding in the way that I'm conditioned to respond. It makes any easier, it doesn't make dealing with that any easier. It just gives me kind of a blueprint to know like, I can fall for that trick if I want to, but when I actually think about what's going to be good for like let's take the, the person who was harmed in, in this case my relative, is it going to help her out if I respond this way? Not at all. In fact, I'll probably be taken further away from her for even longer and it's going to hurt her even more. But I'm going to feel righteous and justified in doing what I think I'm supposed to do. That's dumb.

[Rachel Cech]

Not only that, think about it this way. Her having experienced, I'm assuming, violence and then you perpetrating violence against that person is just more violence Y and she's not going to feel Any better because of it, it might actually make her feel worse. I had people in my life that wanted to do bad things to my ex, and that would not have made me feel any better. The only thing that would have made me feel better is if he would have acknowledged what he did. Yeah, that's it. That's the only thing that would have made me feel better. My best friend's a trauma psychologist, and she was the first person I called after it happened.

[Eugene Youngblood]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cech]

And I was so brainwashed in that relationship that I almost went back into the house. And she was like, whatever you do, do not go back into that house. Because he had switched back into who he normally was and was like, can we talk about this? And all that stuff. And I just put my shoes on, grabbed my purse, walked out the house, and by the time I was gone, he had a chance, I'm sure, to think about what had just happened and what the potential repercussions were, and what was I going to do. And all this stuff. And all I could think about was, I've just been in a car crash. That's literally how it felt. I wasn't even in my body at that point, and I'm pacing down the street on my phone, and she's like, do not go back into that house. And I was just like. My brain couldn't rectify the person that I had loved and that had. I had built a life with. With. With that. But I was so glad to listen to her, because after that, when I moved back up to Washington, I went to domestic violence counseling for a while, and I sat in group with women who had gone back in the house, you know, metaphorically, over and over and over again, and had kids with their abusers and were still dealing with them. All I could be was thankful that I had that voice in my ear saying, do not go back in the house.

[Aaron Faltolo]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cech]

He had isolated me to the point where most of my friends and family were two states away, and anytime we'd see them, he would end up throwing a fit about something or making things difficult or making me focus on him in one way or another.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Yeah. Hearing you say that, the acknowledgment, the accountability is, like, the only thing that would make you feel any better. I can put myself in that situation with this person that I was with in the county jail. And I think part of what made me so angry and so shameful was that this person was walking around acting like like nothing had happened. Like they were the. Like, everything was cool, and it was, you Know, everybody wants to act like everybody's okay with their situation in jail. And, like, you know, it's like we trick ourselves into acting like nothing's wrong. Right. And I'm not sure what this person was in there for right then, but I know there were multiple other instances of this similar type of behavior, and they were just acting like it wasn't even a thing. Right. Because that's really frowned upon incarceral settings is having certain crimes against women are like, you're not cool for that. Like, you come to Walla Walla, and it could be a problem over here specifically. And a lot of different institutions are different with that, but just generally, like, people frown upon victimizing vulnerable people. I've worked with a lot of people in here and had conversations with a lot of. A lot of women in here who are really strong proponents of changing the way that we handle sex crimes and the way that we think about sex crimes and the way that we, like, vilify and demonize the individuals that perpetuate sex crimes and not thinking about the systems in our. In our culture that are what promote those in the first place and, like, enable those and normalize those. And it's. It's humbled me to feel how I feel about that situation, then hear from other women that are like, yeah, but that's just a symptom of this. Like, even they don't hold these specific individuals as demons for what they've done. Like, but the account hearing the accountability of, yeah, I did that, that, and, like, I'm trying to grow from it and be better from it and, like, move on from it. I feel like is the only thing that I could hear from this person that would make me feel like, okay, I want to support you doing better and changing your behavior and understanding what you did was wrong and. And healing from that instead of just ducking the consequences of it and continuing to do the same type of, like, okay, well, if you don't want to take accountability for it, then I'll do something that's going to make you sorry for what you did.

[Rachel Cech]

Did.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

But, like, correcting behavior is not the same thing as taking accountability.

[Eugene Youngblood]

I went to prison in 1991. I got out in 2021, which is a real incredible experience. But what's crazy is when I walked out the door, my friends greeted me at the door, and one of them said, hey, I thought you were going to do a backflip. I thought you were going to kiss the ground. I thought you was going to look up at the sky. And say, hey, fantastic, amazing. Thank you. Thank you. I'm finally free. But none of that happened. And she was like, can you tell me what's going on? What are you thinking? What are you feeling? And I said, the truth of the matter is, and this is a sad truth, that I had been incarcerated long before I was behind the wall, long before I was inside of a cell, long before I even went into a courtroom. I was in the prison of gang membership. I was in the prison of criminality. I was in the prison of living a street life. I was in a prison of violence. I was already serving a sentence. So what happens is the opposite is also true. I was actually free long before I walked out the door. So walking out the door was not the final stage. It was actually just stepping into a new part for me and a new understanding. But I had been free in my soul and my heart long before that, because I had come to understand that my life had value, that I had value, even if, and even while I was still incarcerated.

[Rachel Cech]

Do you think that's an important part of the process for people when they're healing, when they're still inside, that they have have to come to that place?

[Eugene Youngblood]

I think we talked before this interview about people having harsh sentences, especially because I was one of them who received one. Right. What makes a sentence harsh is not if someone gets 20 years or 30 years or 50 years or life without the possibility of parole. That's not what makes it harsh. What makes it harsh is the implications that happens to a person when the court and society says to you that you are stuck in this moment in time and this is who you are forever, and you're going to be punished for this thing you did. That was horrible in a lot of ways, but that was still just one moment or even maybe one season of your life. And we're holding you to that, that, and we're sentencing you to that without ever considering what your potential might be and what you might grow into. Especially if we're talking about young people.

[Aaron Faltolo]

We're human. I don't think that there's a human being that hasn't harmed someone else in some way, shape, or form. We're human. I mean, that's human nature. That's part of being in relationships. Whether we recognize it, whether. Whether it's something ginormous or minute in some way, shape, or form, we harm one another. How do we heal that? First and foremost, it starts with ourselves. If I'm not in a good way, I can't be in a good way. For anybody else. And healing is never ending. It's continuous, gritty, hard work. The hardest part is just your own self work and then identifying what other processes are that is outside of what we call our societal norm, right outside of our justice system. What is our justice system? That's another part to restorative justice, the transformative justice, right, is changing how we do things. Radicalizing, not being stuck in the conditions of the last four or five hundred years of what we've been conditioned ourselves to think, believe, and see that we have to do. We don't have to be inside a courthouse to have justice. We can come together and identify what is the harm that has happened. As you, as an individual, how do you want to see that harm restored? What have you felt? What has it caused to you as a human? How can we restore that? And for the person that has caused the harm, why did you cause that harm? We're probably going to see a whole slew of things that was like, oh, wow, injustice. Shouldn't both sides be able to get to a place where it's no longer afflicting them so that the person that caused harm is no longer causing harm, so that the person that felt harm is not continuously feeling the weight and the burden of everything that comes with that?

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

I wrote this letter in isolation by myself, and I can tell now after having this conversation with you that, that I wrote that in isolation by myself. It's not reflective of like, the relationships I have and the interactions that I've had of processing that stuff with other people. My perspective is so much wider now just from talking to you. And like, I value that so much because being stuck in my own narrative is how I got to a situation where I caused this kind of harm to people in the first place. And so now being able to think about how my behavior affects other people in specific instances, like, once you hear, it's like, you can't unring that bell. Once you're aware of other people's experiences, you can't turn yourself off to that. So not everything I do, I'm thinking of, okay, well, what about other people that have this perspective that I, I don't have? How is this impacting other people? And like, that's, I think that's one of the most valuable things you could ever have is an understanding and like, empathy for other people's perspectives because it informs mine and it, it will never not be informed by that.

[Rachel Cech]

Now what do you think? We're, we're both still sitting with.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

So we talked about how, like, My, I feel like my amends will never be done being given and my letter will never be done. It's never going to be right, it's never going to be perfect. I'm never going to be done giving back or making up for. I feel stronger and like I can carry that weight better now because working this out and talking about this with you is almost like a type of like strength training for that. Right. So even though the journey is a never ending journey and I'm never going to be finished with it, I feel better equipped to carry out this next leg, leg of it now. And I just want to keep going as far as I can go. Like for myself and for all the people that are in my life, for all the people I'm impacting and for all the people I have the potential to impact because there's a lot of people in this world that are hurt and like need help dealing with stuff and don't know how to go about getting it.

[Rachel Cech]

Can I tell you what it did for me?

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Please.

[Rachel Cech]

Anybody who knows me knows that I help so many people for sure. And that I, I genuinely get purpose and meaning out of that and joy. And a lot of times I don't give myself the healing and the space and the time that I need to help myself. And this has been really helpful to me in that regard because I'm really hard on myself and you are too. And that's another thing I relate to is like I'm never doing enough and it's like, where does that come from? I don't know. But like at some point I gotta do for myself and not just say, well, that's just because that's where I come from, you know, same as you.

[Eugene Youngblood]

Right.

[Rachel Cech]

We gotta do the work for ourselves, to heal ourselves. And for me, my healing is not so much about hurting others, but really for me right now what I'm sitting with is I need to really stop trying to solve something by doing all this stuff for other people and just like really be sitting with myself and in spaces with people, you know, like what we're doing right now.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cech]

And maybe you and I doing it more because I feel really supported in my own journey and I know I don't represent, you know, your specific, you know, victim's family, but I do feel like we've been a proxy for each other. I didn't know what was going to come up today, but what's coming up for me is just the need for like my own space to like give myself some grace.

[Chris Gates (continuation)]

Yeah, that's dope race. I'm glad. I'm really glad that I could have been a part of that with you. And I really think that, like, being able to do this with you is going to help me show up for the family in my case, and just the world in general in such a better way. Like, it's an invaluable experience. Thank you. For real.

[Rachel Cech]

So here we are. What I've learned through this process is that healing is not something you arrive at all at once. It's something you have to keep choosing. And usually it's before you feel ready. And to be really honest, I have spent years and decades avoiding this work. Partly because nobody ever really told me restorative justice was an option. Not the justice system, not society, or even in the most healing spaces that I've been in. And partly because on the outside it's very easy to be distracted. We stay busy, we keep working, we doom scroll on our phones, we drink, we do drugs, we take care of everybody else, and we continue build whole lives around not having to sit still with the things that really hurt us. But sooner or later, the pain comes and bites you in the ass. One thing I've learned from sitting with people in prison is that the environment, in a weird way, can trigger the healing process if you let it. Because everything else that's a distraction is stripped away. That does not make prison healing. Prison is still prison. But I have seen people on the inside go deep and do painful, honest work because there was nowhere else to run. And so what it makes me think about is that those of us on the outside, or really all of us, have to ask ourselves, what are we still carrying? What do we need to forgive? Not because what happened to us was okay, but because we deserve to stop letting it own us. And where do each of us need to take accountability so we can stop passing our pain on to other people? People? I don't have all the answers. I'm very much in it and still unpacking. But I do know this healing doesn't happen by pretending we're fine. It happens when we get honest and brave enough to say this hurt me, or I hurt someone, and I don't want to keep living like this. So to the people listening to this from the outside world, if you've experienced trauma or if someone close to you has, especially my fellow women who've survived intimate partner violence, this episode is for you. I know how hard it is to keep being a functioning person when some part of you is still back there trying to process and make sense of what happened. My hope is that something in this episode gives you new language or permission or or maybe just a little more breathing room for your own healing. And to those of you listening from prison or jail across the country, I hope this episode encourages you on your journey as well. I spend a lot of my time sitting with people in prison and after they get out helping them tell their stories. And I want you to know that I get how hard it is to sit in the fire and be fully accountable for your actions. It's not something you perform during the just for the parole board or on a mic. I'm talking about when you have to take a hard look at yourself in the mirror at 2am or when you're trying to write your accountability letter to your victim or their family and you realize there's no words to undo what's happened. But I see you and I feel you. We're not separate. We're not binary. Good or bad, victim or offender, healed or broken, we are inextricably linked as human beings on this healing journey. So whatever place you're listening from, inside, outside, harmed, ashamed, angry, grieving, numb or just tired, I hope this episode gives you the courage to begin. Godspeed and I love you all.

[Craig Jackson]

That's it for this episode of Concrete Mama. But before we go, here's who makes it happen. Zach Bens is a producer and our editor, sound designer and graphic designer. Chris Gates and Nate Bowers are the audio engineers. Megan Sanchez is a producer and handles our social media content and audience engagement. Vic Chopra and Rachel Cech are the showrunners and executive producers. I'm Craig Jackson, one of the newest Voices of Justice Media coming at you from inside the prison walls in Walla Walla. The Washington State Penitentiary and Washington State DOC have made this project possible. For more information, check out our show notes and you can write to us with feedback and questions about the podcast. We will read and answer some of them on future episodes. Concrete Mama is more than a podcast. It's a platform for voices. Voices that need to be heard. If this episode resonated with you, share it, support it, leave us a five star rating and keep listening. You can find unincarcerated productions on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and various other social media platforms. Thanks for listening.