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Online Articles

Talking Cure
Community Conferencing Center uses restorative justice techniques to deal with crime in Baltimore.  Baltimore City Paper, May 27.

Bearing Witness
The Justice Policy Institute asked Baltimore City's Residents to Give Voice to What's Needed to Fix the Criminal Justice System; from The Justice Policy Institute, April 1.

Online Discussion
Washington Post Magazine contributor Karen Houppert, Baltimore resident Bernard Williams and Lauren Abramson, director of Community Conferencing were online 3/23 discussing Houppert's Post Magazine cover story, 'The Truth About Forgiveness,' and the work Abramson's organization does to facilitate reconciliation and healing; from Washington Post Magazine, March 23.

The Truth About Forgiveness
After his son was murdered, Bernard Williams became consumed by anger and depression.  There was, he came to realize, only one way to save himself; Washington Post Magazine, March 22.


Effective Way to Settle Disputes without Heading to Court
Lauren Abramson founded the Community Conferencing Center program in Baltimore as a way to resolve conflicts without going to court; abc2news.com, March 12.


School Officials Say Help was Offered to Two Teens Involved in Fatal Stabbing
In recent days, teachers and administrators at William H. Lemmel Middle School learned of a rift between two boys they thought were friends.  They tried, unsuccessfully, to get their parents to come in for a conflict-resolution session; from Baltimore Sun, November 2008.

We are the Experts We Seek
Our society teaches us to seek out “experts”— to fix our cars, heal our bodies, manage our relationships, resolve our conflicts.  You’d think we can’t do much for ourselves...So how about this:  Let’s be more aware of the fact that we really can solve many of the problems that we pay others for; from Audacious Ideas - Open Society Institute, June 2008


Young People Are Hungry To Be Heard
During a Street Soldiers class at Heritage High School, students respond when asked whether they had ever seen someone shot. In the class, students discuss violence and learn ways to resolve their disputes peacefully; from The Baltimore Examiner, May 2008


Council Considers Mandating Classes to Resolve Conflict
Baltimore's public school students in grades three through 12 must take conflict-resolution classes, under a resolution a City Council committee approved; from The Baltimore Examiner, May 2008


From Revolving Door to Open Road 
Community Conferencing: Alternative to conventional punitive justice; from The Indypendent Reader, Fall 2007


Serious Crimes Conferencing in Baltimore
The Community Conferencing Center offers a variety of conference services in Baltimore, Maryland. The center offers court diversion for non-violent offenses, alternatives to school suspension, re-entry conferencing, and neighborhood conflict resolution. In this article, Lauren Abramson, executive director of the Community Conferencing Center, provides an overview of a serious crimes conference held in a prison setting; from Restorative Justice Online, September 2006


Team Spirit 
A local program turns conflict into cooperation; from The Urbanite Magazine, October 2005


Disparate Groups Resolve Conflict Through Talking  
As head of the Community Conferencing Center, Ms. Abramson has gone into schools, neighborhoods, courts, community organizations, and the juvenile-justice system to, as she puts it, "get people to do the radical thing of sitting down and talking to each other;" from The Chronicle of Philanthrophy, October 2004


Resolving Conflicts Face-To-Face 
The process is called community conferencing, and it's based on the traditional African Maori justice process of settling disputes face-to-face, with all affected parties present at the meeting; from The Johns Hopkins Magazine, June 2003


Psychiatry Professor Gets Victims and Offenders to Talk it Out 
Lauren Abramson, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the School of Medicine...has provided a forum where victims of wrongful acts can get their desired five minutes...to come literally face to face with their offenders; from The Johns Hopkins Gazette, July 2000


Radical Conferencing for Crime and Conflict Management 
“We do the incredibly radical thing of getting people to talk to each other,” says Lauren Abramson, Ph.D., founder and executive director of the Community Conferencing Center in Baltimore, Maryland; from Peace Partnership International


Restorative Practices in Maryland 
Said Abramson, “I think one of the important things about what we’re doing is that this is being done in some of the most disinvested and distressed neighborhoods in Baltimore, the second most violent city in the United States;” from The International Institute for Restorative Practices


 

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PDF Articles

Conferencing May Help Community 
Interview with Lauren Abramson; from The Corner Forum, July 2003


 

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Word Documents

When Forgiveness is Hard
Article about one Serious Crimes Conference; from The Manna, August 2007


The Face-To-Face-Fix 
Q&A with Lauren Abramson; from The Baltimore Sun, November 13th 2005


Sweating the Details 
Op-Ed Article; from The Baltimore Sun, July 12th 2005


Conferencing can help kids and taxpayers 
Letter to the Editor; from The Baltimore Sun, May 5th 2004


Mediate This
It's unfortunate that people at the state Department of Juvenile Services and with the early intervention program Community Conferencing Center cannot resolve their own differences. They should try again; from The Baltimore Sun, May 4th 2004


Turning Feuds into Hugs 
Mediation: The brawling kids might've been a matter for police, but one local program found a happy solution. Unhappily, it needs state money; from The Baltimore Sun, April 27th 2004


Lauren Abramson, Innovator of the Year; "Giving Peace a Chance"   
From September through May, Baltimore City school police arrest about 200 children per month - a scenario that frequently becomes a direct path to prison. But the Community Conferencing Center is trying to change how things are done; from The Daily Record, 2004


A League of Their Own 
A story about how one Community Conference mobilized angry residents to help the kids instead of calling the police on them; from The City Paper, November 2002


 

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 Video Files

Innovations by Baltimore Community Fellows 
Open Society Institute Community Fellows Lauren Abramson, Bonnita Spikes, and Bernard Fayall speak respectively about their work with restorative justice, death penalty abolition, and youth mentoring; from The University of Maryland, Baltimore County, October 2006


 

 

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