Questions and Answers

2007 California Peace Prize Honorees

Casey Gwinn

Q: How did you become involved in this kind of work?

A:I am a product of feminist advocates who invested 20 years of their lives in helping me figure out: “What does it mean to hold offenders accountable? What does feminist ideology look like in the criminal justice system? What does feminist ideology look like in the civil justice system? How do you really make the law keep its promise to battered women and their kids when the system is so complicated?”

So, for the last 20 years, we have worked together to make sure that in whatever we do, we hold ourselves accountable to each other and to battered women. At the end of the day, we want to be certain that we are providing what people need, not what we think they need.

Q: What do you think are some of the reasons for the success of the work and programs at the Family Justice Center?

A: The model of the Family Justice Center is simple. We ask you what you need and then we provide what it is you tell us. We are accountable and responsive to the needs of the client.

When we first opened the Center, we had a certain set of services and a certain approach. Five years later, it looked totally different because we ran focus groups. We keep listening to our clients and asking them what they need, how we are doing, whether we are meeting their needs. That is the model and that is the way it works. When you do that, you actually begin to see a difference. Empowerment doesn't come from telling people what to do. Empowerment comes from giving people choices and giving them the ability to make choices to do what they need to do.

Q: From a policy perspective, what should advocates do to help prevent domestic violence and help battered people?

A:The future is clearly in collaboration at the local, state, and federal levels. It is also in blending service-delivery philosophies. For example, how do we bring together the child advocacy movement with the domestic violence movement?

We cannot simply keep funding silos in various areas. That is not how we are going to change the world. The way we can change the world is to have everybody working collaboratively. When there is a family that has child abuse, sexual assault, domestic violence, and drug and alcohol issues … you need to have all of the providers working together. If we can figure out how to come together and decide what we can agree on, we will change the world and break the cycle of family violence.

Patricia Lee

Q: How did you get involved in this work?

A: I felt that there were so many injustices in the system. I started off, actually, as a survivor of domestic violence myself. Unfortunately I had to go into court and visit my ex-husband in the jails where I realized how inhumane the system was, even though I was a victim. At that point in my life, I had already graduated from college and I decided that I was going to attend law school. I had two children then and I tried to work within the system to try to make a difference. My children had seen and experienced violence in their young lives. I understood that, for children who have been exposed to violence, I needed to make a difference in their lives in any small way I could. Not having the heart to prosecute those who are so often oppressed in the criminal justice system, I knew then that I would become a child advocate.

Q: What do you need for your work to be more effective?

A: What we need to be more effective -- and when I say "we," I'm talking about the youth and families in the community -- are resources. We are in a time where funding is very limited and, unfortunately, it is all being diverted to the war. We are seeing its impact in our neighborhoods. I have seen organizations fold. Our own communities have become local ‘war zones’ where our youth are dying senselessly.

We see young men and women committed to the Department of Juvenile Justice for many years with very few services and they return to the same communities that they came from where there is a high level of violence. These youth are traumatized. They return to the community without mental health services, vocational skills, or support services that they need to succeed. The resources that are available are limited to so few children that many of our clients are part of that revolving door into the adult system.

Q: In thinking about success stories, what are some of the reasons for the success?

A:People need to understand that most of the children in the juvenile justice system will desist in their criminality. There is a hardcore of only 10 percent that will go on into the adult system. The reason that 90 percent succeed is because they grow up and mature.

People don't understand, or don't remember, that they themselves have gone through adolescence and that it is a challenging time. Of all the young people that we work with, almost half of our cases arise from our schools and their zero-tolerance policies.

If you have the right support services, the ability to work with the families, the ability to give a voice to and empower young people, and a way to help them find their way out of the juvenile justice system, most children will graduate away from the system and will lead successful lives.

Cora Tomalinas

Q: What inspired you to get involved in the kind of work you do?

A: When my daughter was a teenager, she got into the wrong company and started all these problems. We went through hell for two years to win her back. We sold the house that we were saving for so she could stay in rehab for less than a month. When we got her back, I said thank you. You get down on your knees and you say thank you.

But you can’t stay on your knees all the time. I started thinking about the parents that didn’t speak English, didn’t have a house to sell, and didn’t know how to approach people. I was the president of PTA. I was educated and fairly articulate. I knew how to knock on doors, but what do you do when there are no doors?

Q: What are challenges that young Filipino people face in San Jose?

A:Let me tell you what gang members, whether they are wannabes or hard-core gang members, say when I have asked them the question, “What can we help you with?” They say, at home their parents would like them to be Filipinos. Then when they go to school, if and when they go, they want to be Americanized.

The system, the establishment wants them integrated. But there is a space between home and school where they walk, where the gang members are. And the gang members say, “We’ll take you any way you are.” So we need to pay attention to that space.

Q: How can we create more effective community spokespeople?

A: You develop a community one person at a time. PACT (People Acting in Community Together) goes from one neighbor to another, asking, “What is it that’s going to make your life more bearable and make you happier in this community? Are you willing to work to make that difference with your neighbors?”

Q: What would make your work more effective?

A: We need to put resources into encouraging collaboration and into getting us together at one table. We need to teach people, professionals, and communities to work together, because it does not work when the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. We need to do a better job at delivering support and services in an integrated manner. I believe we, as a community, need to put more effort into culturally specific family forums, village meetings that are family friendly with child care provided and, yes, food too! We need more faith communities to be a part of the team as well. We need a team that talks to each other, to plan, implement and evaluate our solutions honestly, with hope and love.