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We’re here for you if you or someone you care about is being negatively impacted by the criminal justice system. Whether you are in crisis now, looking for reintegration services, or need trauma recovery and healing in the aftermath of incarceration, contact us—we have programs to help!

11 x 17″ LARGE POSTER FOR COMMUNITY EDUCATION – TWO SIDED Side One- BLINDSPOTS:UNEXPECTED FINDINGS FROM JAIL TRAUMA RESEARCH Side Two – WHATCOM COUNTY JAIL TRAUMA CHART: RADICALIZED ACUTE DISTRESS UNDER DURESS (RADD) & REPETITIVE ACCELERATING TRAUMA (RAT) This poster was created to synthesize the emotional distress people experience as […]

Blindspots Poster Available for Purchase Read More »

11 x 17″ LARGE POSTER FOR COMMUNITY EDUCATION – TWO SIDED Side One- BLINDSPOTS:UNEXPECTED FINDINGS FROM JAIL TRAUMA RESEARCH Side Two – WHATCOM COUNTY JAIL TRAUMA CHART: RADICALIZED ACUTE DISTRESS UNDER DURESS (RADD) & REPETITIVE ACCELERATING TRAUMA (RAT) This poster was created to synthesize the emotional distress people experience as

Whatcom County Jail Trauma Chart – the RADD-RAT Symptoms Read More »

What happens to people when they get arrested? Most people don’t know because no-one really wants to talk about it. Why not? Joy Gilfilen, President of the Restorative Community Coalition, did a quest to find out.  It is disturbing to the soul. People who get arrested go through dramatic arrest

Blindspots 1.1 Whatcom County Jail Trauma Study Read More »

Blindspots 1.2:  Whatcom County Jail Trauma Research Study Episode 2 It’s about discovering the false pre-assumptions that people make about an arrest. Joy had no idea she herself would have blindspots even after years of researching the issues and working with people. For example, she discovered that most people who

Blindsposts 1.2 – Radicalized Acute Distress under Duress (RAD) Read More »

Whatcom County Jail Trauma Chart

The immediate and then compound ripple effects that come from just an arrest process, then a jailing process are serious and last a lifetime. All this happens before a court is even involved or a person is charged with a crime. The immediate and then compound ripple effects that come

Blindspots: Unexpected Findings from Jail Trauma Research Read More »

Systemic Patterns of Poverty

MISMANAGEMENT = SYSTEMIC PATTERNS OF POVERTY After analyzing data about Whatcom County’s Justice system for the Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force, dated November 2017, the Vera Institute of Justice published a report that identified “the following factors contributing to jail overuse in Whatcom County: Most admissions (62%) into the

Systemic Patterns of Poverty Read More »

True Costs of Incarceration

What are the “true costs” of incarceration? It’s complicated. It’s ultimately a contrarian lose/lose/lose game. People try to simplify the question of the growth of mass incarceration as a Good Guy vs. Bad Guy problem.  Or as a good vs. evil problem.  Or as a safety problem, like how we

Money: What are the True Costs of Incarceration? Read More »

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