WHAT ARE WE DOING?

Come join us for an exploration of justice and healing at the 6th annual Re-Storying Justice Jam! Our in-person gathering in Northern California will bring together activists, advocates, storytellers, practitioners, community members, persons impacted by the criminal legal system and all who feel called to transform it. We will reflect, share stories, and engage in collective visioning to “re-story” our notions of justice on the path to creating broader systemic change. We will co-create, tangle & untangle, challenge & be challenged, support, connect, and dream in ways we can’t even predict.    

WHY HAVE A RE-STORYING JUSTICE JAM?

Across our communities, a deep longing for new ways of addressing harm and conflict has been rising. More and more people are recognizing how ineffective, biased, and punitive the current criminal legal system is—designed not to heal, but to punish, exclude, and perpetuate cycles of harm. While restorative and transformative justice movements are gaining traction, they are also under attack, often dismissed as ‘too soft’ or misrepresented as a reformist or idealistic alternative.  

At the Re-Storying Justice Jam, we are coming together to reclaim the spirit of justice rooted in healing, accountability, and community care. We are here not just to resist but to restore — to restore our relationships, our collective agency, and our belief in what’s possible. Justice is not just a theory; it is practice, ways of being, commitments to transformation. The Re-Storying Justice Jam is a space where we lean into the power of human connection — something that cannot be regulated, restricted, or taken from us.  

In this moment of rupture and challenge, we are asking:

• How can we keep the spirit of restorative and transformative justice alive at this time in history when these practices are often misrepresented and attacked? 
• What language, narratives, and framing will allow us to reimagine justice beyond systems that were never built for us? 
• How do we center relationships as the point of transformation?
• If we ourselves have been hurt, how do we ensure we do not perpetuate harm in the ways we show up for the communities we serve? 
• Where are we growing, and where are we struggling, in our own work and lives, in practicing justice rooted in community and accountability? 
• What are the tools — ancestral, practical, and emergent — that we can use to transform conflicts and break cycles of harm? 
• How do we protect the sacred spaces of connection, healing, and resistance—both digitally and in person—when these spaces are increasingly under threat? 
• How do we ensure that the work of justice is not just another demand placed on us, but also a source of restoration? 
• How do we stand in our power, honor our lineage, and build movements that last?  How can we collaborate and cross-pollinate with our solutions and contributions?

What are YOUR questions?  Bring them to the Jam!

Real talk—this work can be so heavy. The weight of injustice, the exhaustion of constantly pushing back, the toll it takes on our bodies, minds, and spirits — it’s real. For those of us who are justice-impacted, who carry both lived experience and the responsibility to create change, the stakes are even higher. And, we have always had the tools. Our ancestors organized with far less and moved the movement farther. We stand on their shoulders, and we keep building.  

The Re-Storying Justice Jam is a space to breathe, reflect, and restore—a space to pour into each other as we do the work of healing. Here, we practice forms of liberation, not just in theory, but in action. We build coalitions that include those who are detained, criminalized, and pushed underground. We find strength in each other, moving from individual struggle to collective power. Because no matter how heavy things feel, we are here, and we’ve got each other.  

Bring your questions, your stories, your presence. Let’s re-story justice, together.

WHY “RE-STORYING”?

Our ideas about justice — who deserves accountability, what healing looks like, and how we respond to harm — are deeply shaped by our personal experiences with conflict and wrongdoing. If we are to transform the systems that perpetuate harm, we must examine the narratives we carry within us.  

Re-Storying is the process of remembering, reclaiming, and reshaping these narratives. It is about revisiting the stories that have shaped our ideas of justice—stories passed down through family, culture, and institutions—and asking whether they serve healing or perpetuate cycles of harm. When we re-tell these stories with truth and care, we create space for both personal and collective transformation. Unhealed wounds, if left unexamined, continue to shape our actions and limit our freedom. Yet, when we bring them into the light, we open the possibility of choosing new ways of being — ways that honor our full humanity.  

Re-Storying integrates personal reflection with systemic change. The justice we seek must be rooted in truth, in healing, in accountability that restores rather than destroys. By shifting the narratives we hold, we lay the groundwork for a justice system that is truly worthy of the name.

WHAT IS A JAM?

In music, a jam is a creative, live gathering of musicians who together, spontaneously create a new sound. Similar to that, YES! Jams are places where diverse leaders and visionaries bring together their passions, openness, and unique perspectives. In spontaneous connection, we weave layers of experience, wisdom, heart, and spirit to create some real magic. Our Re-Storying Justice Jam asks that all the players/participants are present and ready to listen deeply to each other, and together, we will create something greater than we as individuals can create alone.

This Jam is different in that we build healthy relationships while mindful of strategy. Other retreats focus on personal transformation but may leave out systemic change. Some trainings work on leadership and power dynamics, but may forget our souls.

YES! brings all three together — we give change-makers tools to build open-hearted, healthy communities where people can be real with each other. The Jam is not a conference, seminar or a typical meeting – it is something unique. It’s dedicated time to think and feel deeply about transformation in our world, in our communities and in ourselves. There are in-depth conversations, and there is a lot of fun, art, and creativity. There is dancing and embodiment, group explorations, and co-creations, as well as solo time and internal reflection.

The Jam works on three levels of change & transformation:

1)     The Personal. A place for each one of us to explore our own journeys and histories, to heal our individual wounds and to come into our most authentic selves so that we can better fulfill our unique purpose.

2)     The Interpersonal. We are harmed in relationships, so we must heal in relationships. We come together to share our collective journeys, our cultures, our ways of grieving and our ways of healing, our histories of struggle and our stories of resilience.

3)     The Systemic. Our individual identities and our collective stories are molded in a larger context. By becoming clearer about how these systems influence our lives, we can have a larger impact in the broader world around us.

The facilitation team has collectively co-organized and co-facilitated many different Jams. We call ourselves ‘facilitants’ because we will be fully participating in the Jam, bringing our questions too.  We don’t have all the answers (or maybe any of them!). What we do offer is a variety of ways for each of us to arrive at our own answers — and new questions. We’ll use a number of processes and tools and experiment with different ways of being together, all aimed at strengthening our self-awareness, our ability to communicate and work through conflicts, and our ability to vision and put these pieces together. We see the Jam as an experiential journey of the collective wisdom, questions, powers, and differences of everyone who attends.

WHO IS INVITED?

• We invite those who have borne witness to the cruelty of our criminal legal system and feel called to do something about it. 
• We invite those who have been impacted by the criminal legal system, directly or indirectly, and who believe that what is happening is in opposition to our fundamental need for human connection. 
• We invite those on either side of the ‘Line’: law enforcement, prosecutors, defense attorneys, service providers, court clerks, and government workers  who might be questioning their relationship to the criminal legal system.  
• We invite those who have gone Inside as prisoners, staff, or volunteers, and have come back changed by what they experienced. 
• We invite persons who have caused harm, survivors, and any combination of the two to join us in the profound work of Re-Storying. 
• We invite professors and students of all fields who are curious about restorative and transformative justice and seeking networks of practitioners to connect to.
• We invite you – if this invitation speaks to your heart in this time!

We commit to creating a safe and brave space for our individual and collective work.

We encourage folks from Black, Indigenous, Latinx, immigrant, API, POC, and LGBTQI communities to apply. 

Dates, Logistics, and Contribution

Dates, Costs, Travel

The Jam will be held from the afternoon of Sunday, August 10, 2025, until the morning of Thursday, August 14, 2025, at the Quaker Center, a retreat space about 75 minutes south of San Francisco. It is a naturally beautiful place, away from the hustle and bustle of modern life, both inspiring and rejuvenating.

It is our deepest hope that we will gather in August in person in a safe way for everyone. If you have any concerns around COVID that you would like to share with us, please do mention them in your application or write to us at restoryingjusticejam@gmail.com, and we will follow up with you directly.

Organizing this event requires resources but please do not let cost be a barrier; we will work out a solution together. The total cost of the jam is $850 per participant ($425 for food, lodging, and materials; $425 for program costs, including organizing support, childcare, and facilitator honorarium).

If you or your organization can pay the entire cost of $850, great! If you can contribute more, that extra amount is tax-deductible and will go to our scholarship pool.  If you can contribute a minimum of $425 to cover food and accommodation, we can work with that! If you cannot pay the minimum participant amount of $425, please still apply and let us know how much you can contribute. We can offer a combination of scholarships, work-trade and monthly payment plans to make participating in the Jam work for you. 

We also encourage applicants to seek support from their organizations, as many people receive a lot of leadership skills and professional development through their learnings and experiences at the Jam.

Also, we welcome children to the Jam; we love having whole families sharing the Jam experience. We will provide childcare and work out the details with you. 

I’M IN! WHAT’S NEXT?

APPLY TODAY!

Who is putting on the Re-Storying Justice Jam?