Listening to Those Affected

I haven't yet posted an announcement of our spring/summer newsletter, which is now available both online and in hard copies. If you can make good use of hard copies, please let us know and we'll be happy to make some available to you.

The theme of this newsletter is "Listening to those affected by murder and the death penalty," and in it you'll find several powerful stories that serve as a good introduction to the issue and that offer new and deeper understandings for those who have already been thinking about these things for a while.

The material on the effect of homicide includes detailed and reflective stories about the invisibility that a child felt after her mother’s murder and the way that a father of a murder victim confounds others’ expectations about how he should feel.

Then there's material on how the death penalty affects those who are closely involved with it – from families of the executed to, perhaps surprisingly, prosecuting attorneys. Running as a unifying theme throughout the stories is the power of listening as a way to achieve real and sustained change, and there's an interview with the Texas After Violence Project that speaks directly to this idea.