What if justice meant sitting in a room with the person who harmed you? Howard Zehr has spent five decades asking that question.

Howard Zehr has been called the grandfather of restorative justice, a title he accepts with some amusement. In this conversation, he traces a path that began with a single year at Goshen College in 1962, a dining-table conversation with a civil rights leader who had worked alongside Dr. King, and a lecture that gave him what he came to call the gap principle: do the work no one else is doing. That principle took him to Morehouse College, to Talladega, and eventually back to Elkhart, Indiana, where he reluctantly joined an experiment bringing burglary victims face to face with the people who had broken into their homes.

He talks about where the term restorative justice actually came from, what he learned about justice from traveling across the globe. Also his decades photographing people serving life sentences, why trauma destroys a person’s story, and why recovery means building a new one.

Access more episodes: juststoriespodcast.org

Guest

Howard Zehr

Bio

Howard Zehr is widely known as the grandfather of restorative justice. He began as a practitioner and theorist in the late 1970s, at the field’s foundational stage, and has since led events in more than 25 countries and 35 states, with particular impact in New Zealand, whose juvenile justice system was restructured around a family-focused, restorative approach. A writer, educator, and photojournalist, he was an early advocate for placing victims’needs at the center of restorative practice. He has taught more than a thousand practitioners, many now leading their own organizations, and in 2013 co-founded the Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice.

Credits

Host: Regina Shands Stoltzfus

Senior Producer: Yebu Ji

Sound Engineering: Alex Dugger

Background Research: Alaina Wolfe

Marketing Manager: Melissa Troyer

Audience Engagement Manager: Courtney Dobrzykowski

Directed by: Duane Stoltzfus

Tape Sync: Tobias Tate

Music

Theme Music: Umbilical Moonrise by Lotus

Capocollo Theme from Dot Sessions

Eleven Count from Blue Dot Sessions

Liptis from Blue Dot Sessions

Cheap Red by Blue Dot Sessions

Just Stories is a collaboration of the Religion, Justice and Society Department and the Communications Department at Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana, part of the More Than Just Stories project, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc.

We live in a messy world where relationships go south, and people hurt each other, sometimes violently. The criminal justice system is meant to answer that harm. But what happens inside the mind and heart of the person handing down the sentences?

Judge Kristine Osterday took an unlikely road to the bench: a first-generation college student from a blue-collar family, who followed what she calls “a call she was smart enough not to get in the way of." In this conversation with host Rob Brenneman, she speaks candidly about faith and vocation, why she's passionate about presiding over one of the hardest dockets: domestic violence, and where she believes the justice system, faith communities, and the rest of us are still falling short.

Access more episodes: juststoriespodcast.org

Guest

Kristine A. Osterday: Judge of Elkhart County’s Superior Court 1.

Since 2018, Hon. Kristine A. Osterday (B.S. ’01) has served as a judge for the Elkhart County Superior Court. Born in Valparaiso, she grew up in Elkhart County and attended Northridge High School. She is a graduate of IU South Bend and Valparaiso School of Law.

Timecode

00:00 Intro

02:00 An unlikely path to the bench

06:00 Amish country, RVs, and the 80/90 corridor

08:30 Inside the domestic violence docket

13:00 Plea deals and the limits of the system

17:00 The complicated reality for survivors

20:30 Restorative justice and power imbalance

24:30 When faith communities look away

27:00 A magic wand and the Ten Commandments

31:30 Don't make us feel like Sisyphus

Credits

Host: Rob Brenneman

Senior Producer: Yebu Ji

Sound Engineering: Grant Bachman & Alex Dugger

Background Research: Alaina Wolfe

Illustrator: Senna Duan

Marketing Manager: Melissa Troyer

Audience Engagement Manager: Courtney Dobrzykowski

Directed by: Duane Stoltzfus

Music

Theme: Umbilical Moonrise by Lotus

Big River Run from Blue Dot Sessions

Eleven Count from Blue Dot Sessions

Just Stories is a collaboration of the Religion, Justice and Society Department and the Communications Department at Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana, part of the More Than Just Stories project, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc.

Links

Elkhart Superior Court No. 1: https://elkhartcounty.com/en/government/courts/

National Domestic Violence Hotline: https://www.thehotline.org · 1-800-799-7233

Social media

Website: juststoriespodcast.org

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/podcastjuststories/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/podcastjuststories

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/just-stories-podcast

What does justice really mean, and how does faith shape our response to injustice? In this debut episode of Just Stories, hosts Rob Brenneman and Regina Shands Stoltzfus share the experiences that shaped their work, from Central America and refugee camps to classrooms and local jails. Through honest stories about faith, dignity, and our shared humanity, they explore how listening can become the first step toward justice.

Learn more at: juststoriespodcast.org

Credits

Host: Rob Brenneman & Regina Shands Stoltzfus

Senior Producer: Yebu Ji

Sound Engineering: Alex Dugger

Research Assistance: Alaina Wolfe

Illustrator: Senna Duan

Marketing Manager: Melissa Troyer

Audience Engagement Manager: Courtney Dobrzykowski

Directed by: Duane Stoltzfus

Music

Theme Music: Umbilical Moonrise by Lotus

Mint Martini by Blue Dot Sessions

Liptis by Blue Dot Sessions

Basic Curiosity by Blue Dot Sessions

Driptape by Blue Dot Sessions

Cheap Red by Blue Dot Sessions

Cloud Cannon by Blue Dot Sessions

Just Stories is a collaboration of the Religion, Justice and Society Department and the Communication Department at Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana, part of the More Than Just Stories project, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc.

Links

Regina’s Published Works:

• Resistance, Resilience, and Radical Love: Reflections on Blackness and Teaching Peace, Tehom Center Publishing, 2025.
• Been in the Struggle: Pursuing an Antiracist Spirituality, Herald Press, 2021. (co-authored with Tobin Miller Shearer)

Rob’s Published Works:

• Homies and Hermanos: God and Gangs in Central America
• "Organized Crime, Disorganized Responses: New Research on Gangs and Organized Crime in Latin America,"
• Building Faith: A Sociology of Religious Structures
• Rob’s Personal Website