Restoring Peace and Safety: Paths to Community Justice
A Panel Discussion Featuring:
Cheri Maples, Gretchen Rohr and Chris Wilson
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24, 2016 6:30PM-9:00PM
St. Wenceslaus Hall 2100 E.Madison, 1st floor
This public event will bring Cheri Maples of the Center for Mindfulness and Justice and DC Superior Court Judge Gretchen Rohr (brief bios below) to Baltimore to discuss mindfulness and its potential impact on transforming the criminal justice system. Baltimore resident Chris Wilson will also be a panelist. Representatives of the Holistic Life Foundation will lead the group in a breathing exercise at the beginning and/or midpoint of the discussion. Two local groups, Out4Justice and Black Womyn Rising are co-sponsors and will offer comments and perspectives from the audience. Please note: street parking is available and there is a parking lot behind the building open as well.
We hope you can join us for this important community conversation. Please feel free to share this announcement widely with others in your networks.
See attached flier for more details. Thank you!
Cheri Maples was ordained a Dharma Teacher by Zen master & peace activist, Thich Nhat Hanh in 2008. She is co-founder of the Center for Mindfulness & Justice. In addition to leading mindfulness retreats across North America, she is also a keynote speaker, consultant and trainer. Cheri worked in the criminal justice profession for 25 years as a police officer, the Head of Probation & Parole, and an Assistant Attorney General in Wisconsin. She also has extensive experience as a community organizer and a social justice advocate. She has incorporated all these experiences into her understanding and teaching of the Dharma and her practice of engaged Buddhism.
Gretchen N. Rohr’s first trainings in meditation were in 1994 while working alongside formerly imprisoned activists who developed techniques to liberate their minds from conditions of solitary confinement. These teachings in interdependent awakening supported her professional life restoring justice within communities in need of healing; they ultimately led to her appointment to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Judge Rohr has lectured extensively across the country on effective workforce and leadership development for incarcerated youth and adults, reconciliation and restorative practices for building safe communities, and trauma-informed police, correctional and judicial crisis responses. In her free time, she supports integration of contemplative practices while teaching at Georgetown University Law Center, hosting educational exchanges for local restorative justice practitioners and helping facilitate Insight Meditation Community of Washington’s People of Color (POC) and Insight on the Inside (incarcerated people’s) Sanghas. She participates in the Community Dharma Leadership training program and was one of 120 Buddhist leaders nationwide called to participate in the first Whitehouse Buddhist Leadership Conference in 2015.