ADVISORY COUNCIL
The Advisory Council began in 2016 and has been an integral part of NACRJ ever since. Made up of NACRJ members, the Advisory Council has served as a catalyst for numerous influential projects in recent years involving law & policy, K-12 education, higher education, and research & evaluation. The Advisory Council is currently going through a re-envisioning process to determine its future structure. Current Advisory Council members are:
Jasmyn Story
they/them/theirs
Jasmyn Elise Story is an international Restorative Justice Facilitator, Doula, and the founder of Honeycomb Justice and Freedom Farm Azul. Named one of Vice’s 31 People Making History by Creating a Better Future, they are a dedicated human rights activist with a decade of experience working in the voluntary sector. As the former Deputy Director of Social Justice & Racial Equity for the Office of the Mayor of Birmingham, Jasmyn co-led the launch of the State of Alabama’s first government-sustained Women’s Initiative. This decentralized movement aims to interrupt the cycles of harm plaguing Birmingham’s women, children, trans, and non-binary folk.
After completion of their M.A. in Human Rights at the University College London, they are currently completing their Ph.D. as a third generation Tuskegee University student.
Haley Farrar, JD
she/her
Haley Farrar, JD has been a restorative practitioner for over a decade. A former lawyer, she moved to New Zealand as a Fulbright Fellow in 2015 and has remained in Wellington since, working across a wide variety of government agencies building restorative capabilities through both teaching and issue facilitation. She has served on the AC since 2017, and takes a special interest in higher education and public sector applications of restorative approaches. Haley is originally from Richmond, Virginia.
Vanessa Westley
Vanessa Westley is a now retired 30-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department. After a decade of street experience in Patrol and Tactical units, Officer Westley has served as project manager for the CPD’s Community Policing Project Office to further implement the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) and later for the Mayor’s Office of Faith Based and Community Partnerships. She is a restorative justice practitioner, educator and advocate. Currently she is the Restorative Justice Coordinator for Healing Beyond Harm and Illinois’ first Apology Letter Bank.
Lindsey Pointer, PhD
she/her
Lindsey Pointer is an Assistant Professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School and Principal Investigator of the National Center on Restorative Justice. She has a PhD in Restorative Justice from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand and is a former Fulbright Fellow and Rotary Global Grant recipient. Lindsey has worked as a restorative justice facilitator, community program manager, educator, and researcher. She is the author of three books on restorative justice: The Little Book of
Restorative Teaching Tools (Good Books, 2020), The Restorative Justice Ritual (Routledge, 2021), and a children’s picture book, Wally and Freya (Good Books, 2022).
Jonathan Scharrer
Jonathan Scharrer is a Clinical Associate Professor and the Director of the Restorative Justice Project at the University of Wisconsin Law School. He has extensive experience as a facilitator of victim-offender
dialogues in sensitive and violent crimes and as a trainer in a variety of restorative justice practices. He has received national attention for this work, and he has been featured on both 60 Minutes and CNN’s The Redemption Project with Van Jones.
Jonathan is active in examining criminal justice policy--with a focus on victim-empowerment and addressing racial disparities in the criminal legal system--and has contributed to legislation and helped design and implement multiple restorative justice diversion programs and restorative responses to crime.
Sandra Pavelka, PhD
Dr. Sandra Pavelka serves as Director of Institute of Youth and Justice Studies and Professor of Political Science and Public Administration at Florida Gulf Coast University. Dr. Pavelka received her Ph.D. in Public Administration with a specialization in Justice Policy from Florida Atlantic University. Her dissertation, Practice to Policy to Management: A Restorative Justice Framework, focused on system reform and policy implementation of restorative justice nationally. She holds a Master of Public Administration from Florida International University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Florida.
Dr. Pavelka has also directed grants and contracts funded by the federal and state governments, local entities, and private foundations. She served as Project Administrator of the Balanced and Restorative Justice Project funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, US Department of Justice. Currently, she is the Principal Evaluator of the Ft. Myers Reentry Initiative funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, US Department of Justice.
Dr. Pavelka is an internationally known restorative justice expert. She serves on the National Association of Community and Restorative Justice Advisory Council and is Chair of the Law and Policy Committee. She has published extensively in the restorative and juvenile justice disciplines and has provided consultation, training and technical assistance with legislators, policymakers, justice system and educational stakeholders, victim advocates, nonprofit and community organizations in the development and implementation of restorative justice principles, practices, legislation, policies and evaluation.
