Paul Ingles Interviews Stephanie Lepp as they listen to excerpts from the Reckonings Episode called,
A SURVIVOR AND HER PERPETRATOR FIND JUSTICE

SL: This is the story of a perpetrator and survivor of sexual assault who managed to work through it using restorative justice. The voice of a survivor who actually got her needs met, knew what she needed and got her needs met and the voice of a perpetrator who really skillfully and graciously takes responsibility for his sexual abuse of power. They represent one answer to the question how do we change; how do we grow and how do we heal through sexual abuse of power?

PI: I will say that I think hearing from the survivor point of view has been covered pretty well in stories about sexual abuse and consent and such, but it’s pretty rare to get a perpetrator who deeply dives into a healing process to talk openly about their experience. That’s what makes this kind of extraordinary, I think.

SL: Yes, yes, especially on the perpetrator side of things. We’re not hearing that. We don’t hear our public figures coming out and taking responsibility partly because they don’t know what it sounds like. They haven’t had models.

Part of what I want to do here is model, not just what it sounds like for a perpetrator to take responsibility, but also how beautiful and powerful and I would even say manly it can sound to really just graciously take responsibility for ones impact on another person.

PI: What we’re going to do on today’s show is give you a streamlined version of the podcast, but again, I want to recommend that you listen to the whole long-hour program online at reckonings.show and Sound Cloud because that’s really the way to experience it, but for the purposes of time Stephanie, why don’t you give us a thumbnail of the two principle characters in the story.

SL: Yes, so their names are Anwen and Sameer and these are actually pseudonyms. They met freshman year.

PI: In the story, Anwen and Sameer wind up meeting at a fraternity party and through an unusual sequence of events, they wind up in Sameer’s room at the end of the night. Anwen’s keys and phone get accidentally locked in someone else’s room and that what necessitates the idea for Sameer to invite Anwen to spend the night in his room.

Then we hear in the podcast a graphic description of a sexual encounter that Anwen said she made pretty clearly on that she did not want to participate in.

The sexual activity can be described rather explicitly on a podcast but not over the airwaves so Stephanie, if you will, what is a PG-13 version that you can describe to us of what happened that evening?

SL: She didn’t have access to her keys, and she didn’t know how she was going to get home or where she was going to sleep. Sameer was convincing her to come home with him and she told him she didn’t want to, but he ultimately convinced her to come home with him which is when he coerced her into sexual activities; taking off clothing, engaging in specific sexual acts that she really did not want to do and was very physically recoiling from.

Finally, at one point, she started crying and he finally let up. He said he was hard to please and that he would go to the bathroom and finish up himself. He then came back and got in bed with her and put his arm over her and that’s how they went to bed that night.

PI: You can even tell years later that for Anwen, this was an upsetting event.

SL: Yes.

PI: Just in the tone of her voice and the way she describes it. Sameer’s characterization of the encounter is a little bit different. In interviewing him, could you describe how he seemed to feel about it or characterize it?

SL: Yes, he just thought it was an awkward hookup which in and of itself seemed normal to him at the time. He was somewhat sexually inexperienced. Hookups can be awkward at that age. The way he said it was that it doesn’t always work out the way it does in the movies. He just thought of it as an awkward hookup while she had a very, very different experience.

PI: Sometime in the next year, Sameer has a bit of an epiphany I’d say. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

SL: Yes, Sameer decided to become an orientation leader, which involved doing Green Dot training. Green Dot by standard intervention is a program on college campuses nationwide that basically teaches students how to respond to sexual assault on campus including how to recognize sexual assault when it’s happening.

He’d previously thought of sexual assault as something that only happens from a shiftless stranger in a dark alley attacking an unsuspecting young woman.

The facilitator at this Green Dot training said, “It’s not just about physical manipulation or physical violence, it can also be about emotional manipulation.” That sexual assault can be putting someone in a situation where they feel like they can’t say no.

When he heard that, he immediately thought of that night freshman year with Anwen.

PI: Let’s hear a little bit from the podcast now from Sameer after this moment of self-realization.

Sameer: I was terrified that I assaulted her. I was terrified that I had hurt her in this way. I was terrified of myself because if this was true and I did assault her, then what did that make me? I was terrified of being found out. I was terrified of being sent to jail. I was terrified of all the consequences that come with sexual assault and rape.

I didn’t have anybody who I could tell. What was I going to say, “Hi, I think I assaulted and raped somebody, but I’m not entirely sure.” No, I did not tell anybody about this incident. I kept it to myself.

I knew that I wanted to learn more. If this hour-long training taught me all this, then maybe I need to educate myself more.

PI: So while Sameer was getting some enlightenment about sexual assault, what was going on for Anwen during this time?

SL: Anwen was really affected by it. She would get stuck replaying that night over and over again in her head. She was struggling to focus in school. She was having difficulty with physical intimacy.

But she also was not totally understanding why it was affecting her so much because she too, like Sameer, had this kind of similarly narrow understanding of sexual assault. For her, sexual assault had to involve vaginal penetration by force. For her, if this wasn’t that, why am I so affected by it? She was being affected while also not really understanding why.

PI: Both Sameer and Anwen wind up connected to sexual assault awareness campaigns and then they wind up being at the same event at the same time. Here’s a clip that I want to play of them telling about being at that same event and recognizing that they were there together.

Anwen: It was unrehearsed. I walked up to the mic and started speaking pretty much. I went through the story a little bit, but more the emotions afterwards, but I didn’t say his name and he was sitting in the audience right in front of me.

Sameer: I was actually sitting about ten feet away from her. I tried really hard to keep myself together. I couldn’t look her in the eye, but I felt like such a hypocrite. This was supposed to be a space that was meant for survivors and allies. If you throw even a well-meaning perpetrator in there, does that negatively impact the movement itself?

Anwen: I wanted to call him out. I really wanted to call him out, but I wanted him to be able to come forward on his own. I wanted him to be able to stand up there with me and speak the story with me and be able to have the story be exposed in a way that didn’t just write us into the categories of angelic, pure survivor and horrible, evil assaulter.

Those things that make somebody assault, those are things that can be overcome if we learn about them and people can acknowledge that they’ve done something wrong and grow from it and learn it and be better people.

I think I actually said, “If this person comes forward and tells his story, I hope that you will listen to him.” I wanted to tell my story. I wanted to tell people. I started feeling this massive need to have other people know and to have other people know that it was him that did it. Then I went to Frank.

PI: Stephanie Lepp, who is Frank and what happened next? What was the next step for these two?

SL: Frank was the Director of Student Conduct at their university. He is the guy you go to when you have some kind of a complaint; that a student is cheating or giving alcohol to minors or if there is some kind of sexual misconduct.

She knew that she didn’t want a verdict handed down from on-high. She wanted Sameer to take responsibility and to do something together collaboratively to make things better.

She has this amazing line where she says, “I didn’t want to take away his agency because that would just be reversing the roles.” What was important to her was that both people have the opportunity to make things better.

In telling Frank, he said to her, “It sounds like what you want is restorative justice.” Restorative justice was something that she had never heard of. She just intuited her way into what she felt like she needed.

What happened next was that Frank invited Sameer and Anwen and choregraphed this restorative justice process that they then went through.

PI: We’ve covered restorative justice on our program, but it’s been some time, so maybe you can describe what the basics of restorative justice are, particularly as it relates to this case.

SL: The basics of restorative justice are instead of focusing on punishment, which is what we often focus on; did the person break a law or violate a policy and what’s the punishment for that crime, restorative justice really focuses on the harm that was caused. How was the victim impacted? What are their needs? What can the offender do to repair that harm?

The goal really is to find a resolution that achieves justice for everyone, healing for victims and allows offenders to take responsibility for their actions. The basic idea is that because crime hurts, justice should heal.

The basic process that they went through and that I think is pretty common to restorative justice are three phases. First there is the pre-conference where the facilitator meets with both parties separately to find out what happened, what their needs are, how people are feeling.

Frank met with Anwen and Sameer separately for weeks and then the second phase is the conference, which is where they actually all meet in person. This is the chance for Anwen to ask Sameer questions like “Couldn’t you tell that I was recoiling?” and for Sameer to answer them and also to share his repair plan, his plan for what he’s going to do in order to help repair the harm that he caused.

After the conference is the post-conference which is Sameer doing those things and Frank continuing to be the liaison between Anwen and Sameer as Sameer carries out his repair plan.

PI: Sameer is moving towards, what they call in restorative justice, a repair plan. What were some of the details of Sameer’s repair plan?

SL: There were multiple pieces of it, but a couple of them were, number one, finding more ways to tell his story, which Reckonings has been one of them, but there have been many.

He wrote an article for their university magazine where he actually outed himself. He wrote the article from his actual name.
He worked to make Green Dot training mandatory for all Greek letter organizations on campus so that all fraternities and sororities have to do Green Dot training.

He taught young men about consent, formally or informally, informally just talking to his friends. He continues to do a lot of this today. This has really become a part of his life; working to prevent sexual abuse of power.

PI: Included in the repair plan, as you mentioned, was for him to talk openly with his male friends about the parameters of sexual encounters with partners. Let’s listen to a little bit of what he had to say about that to his male colleagues on campus.

Sameer: I’ll ask one question and it will really throw them off; “Did you enjoy yourself?” “Yes.” “Did she enjoy herself?” “Of course, she did!” “How do you know?” “Well, she did this, this and this.” “Did you ask her?” They’re like, “No, why would I do that?” “Because it’s good to communicate.”

If I’m really comfortable with people, I tell them to talk to their partners about introducing different methods of communication while participating in sexual acts so that their partners know that they feel comfortable.

For example, having a safe word to stop sexual play. Even if it’s not super intense, sometimes things happen. Sometimes people get triggered. Sometimes people just want to stop, and they want to be able to communicate that effectively, so use a safe word.

Another great one that I’ve been told was the stop light system. If one person isn’t opposed to what’s happening but wants things to ease up a little bit, they say “yellow” and that is a sign for their partner to keep doing what they’re doing but ease up a little bit versus red which is full stop. I need you to stop what you’re doing. I’m not about that.

There are different, really easy to implement methods of communication that allow for better actual sex when you have it and then also to prevent a lot of potential pain.

PI: Boy, some good practical tips there.

SL: Yes, you often hear this whole thing about, “Isn’t it awkward to bring it up?” What’s more awkward, finding out afterwards that you really didn’t make them feel good or actually knowing the entire way because you’re engaged with them?
He makes a great point; it actually does make for better sex when you have it as well as prevent a lot of potential pain.

PI: Right. Tell us about what punishment or consequences that Sameer did have to deal with for his admission of guilt about his sexual behavior with Anwen.

SL: He got a formal conduct reprimand which is a strike on his academic record and then of course having to tell his story publicly, which has had its own consequences; creating tension in relationships he has that he’s had to really work through but the main consequence really was just having to face himself.

There is a common refrain about restorative justice that maybe it’s too lenient. Sameer is very clear that facing himself and confronting what he did is absolutely the hardest thing he has ever done in his life, to really face himself and his impact on another person.

Anwen really understands that which is part of why she pursued this avenue as opposed to another form of punishment.

PI: One of the very interesting objections to the restorative justice model that you bring up in the program on Reckonings is whether restorative justice seems to let a perpetrator off easy. I liked Anwen’s response to that and Sameer’s comments too, so let’s hear that.

Anwen: Restorative justice is not lenient. You’re forced to take a look at your innermost darkness. I think that’s one of the most difficult things a person can do is to confront their own shadow and come face to face with themselves.

Sameer: Every time that I’ve wanted to punish myself beyond all belief, she always said, “No, I want you to do better. Don’t just take the easy route and lock yourself up or get yourself kicked off campus because that’s not going to help anybody.” She never wanted to punish me. She wanted me to learn. She wanted me to grow. She wanted me to prevent this from ever happening.

Anwen: I didn’t want to take away his agency because that would just be reversing the roles. I would say what’s important to me in the restorative justice process is that both people are given a space where they are empowered to make things better.
I want all of this to be shared and I want to speak out about it and tell the story. I want to be telling the story with Sameer because it’s so powerful to have both of us speaking. It’s really hard too.

I have a hard enough time telling this to friends and the only reason I keep talking to people and keep doing things like this podcast and keep trying to find ways to share the story is because I think it helps people. I want to provide an example of an instance of rape in which you can really see that both people are human and both people are more than their actions and can grow.

Sarah Holtz interviews Lindsay Krinks or Open Table Nashville

LK: Our mission is to disrupt cycles of poverty, journey with the marginalized and provide education about issues of homelessness. Near and dear to our heart is so many of our folks who are marginalized who are oppressed and crushed. Our system, our folks often feel the pressures of the injustices in our world. Lots of folks get heated and upset and that’s where de-escalation comes in. Those skills are really important.

SH: Could you define de-escalation for folks who might not be familiar?

LK: Sure, if you think of escalation, it’s really a rising of levels or intensity, so de-escalation would be reducing that intensity, bringing things down and calming them back to a level place.

SH: What are some of the warning signs of someone having a moment of escalation or exhibiting trauma?

LK: Some of the warning signs could be someone with clenched fists, someone who is pacing back and forth, someone whose face is tight and displeased or upset. We always say it’s so much easier to prevent escalated situations when you can catch those warning signs early.

Maybe it’s somebody who is withdrawing from a group or maybe it’s someone who is starting to raise their voice and get agitated. It looks different for different people, but that prevention part and catching it early is so important.

SH: Could you talk a little bit about what goes on in the brain and the body when someone becomes escalated?

LK: When someone becomes escalated, there is a lot that happens in the body. I’m going to talk about a couple things. One of the things that’s really important to understand is that our brains, when we get escalated, are firing in a way that doesn’t foster logical thinking. It fosters those fight, flight and freeze responses.

If you think of the brain as a raised fist, the wrist is like the brainstem and that’s an instinctual part of our brain. The inside of the hand is like your limbic system, your emotional parts of your brain and then the top is the neocortex or the thinking parts of our brain.

During crises and trauma and escalation, the thinking parts of our brain go offline. We go back to the center of the hand to the instinctual parts of our brain where we are really in survival mode and we literally can’t think about creative problem solving or logic. We can’t think about consequences because our body goes back to that real primal instinct which is get out, get away or fight.

A couple other things that are going on in the body that are important to know is that a lot is happening with our nervous system. The autonomic nervous system controls all those parts of our body that we don’t have to think about like our breathing, our heartrate, our blood pressure and on a normal day, that is functioning in these really beautifully regulated waves, but in a situation of escalation, those waves either get stuck on where people are raging, they can’t slow their heartbeat, they are anxious and panicking. That’s the hyper-aroused, hyper-vigilant stage. Or those waves can get stuck off, which is dissociation, feeling depressed, feeling low and paralyzed.

In these situations, it’s really important to be able to bring people back to themselves and to understand that until you can get those logical parts of the brain firing again and until you can get those waves calmed, they are not going to be able to think outside of the hormones and the things that are coursing through their bodies. It’s really important to help people return to themselves so that they can start regulating those systems again.

SH: I know that you operate under the framework of trauma-informed care. Could you talk a little bit about that?

LK: Absolutely. A simple definition of trauma-informed care would be treating folks with non-judgmental compassion, meeting people where they are and understanding that their behaviors have roots into their past experiences and past traumas.
The larger, more clinical definition of trauma-informed care is really treating it as an evidence-based practice, which means that it has a whole body of research behind it and has been shown to be really effective.

It’s a method for interacting that takes trauma seriously in people’s lives. It takes the effects of trauma on people’s minds and hearts and bodies seriously and prioritizes both safety for everyone involved and also the voice and agency and dignity of the people involved.

There is a lot of focus on people’s voices and their choices. There is a lot of focus on mutuality and collaborating and being a team instead of being defensive or offensive. There is a lot of focus on empowerment, not shutting people down, but giving people options to take back control in their own lives.

SH: What are the next steps when you see someone who is in an escalated state?

LK: When we see somebody in an escalated state, it’s really important to check in with them.

I’ve been part of groups working either in a movement context where there is a march or an action or we’re working in an emergency shelter for people in the cold. We have a vibes committee or a vibes team where we go around and check in with people. We’re like, “Hey, it looks like you’re having a really hard day. Can I get you some water or coffee? Do you want to talk about anything?”

The prevention element is really important. Most situations that escalate can be prevented. Not all situations that escalate can be contained. The earlier you can catch something, the more you can do to prevent.

We tell people to always check in with folks. Tell people your name and who you are. Be a friendly face because we know that body language communicates so much to people. We approach people as friends and equals and get their name. The more we know people’s names and the more we build rapport with folks, the better trust we’re going to have and the more relational rapport we’ll have to de-escalate it a situation comes up.

Some things you can’t prevent, and they just escalate, so then we have to go into the act of de-escalation.

SH: I know in your trainings you use this terminology that I hadn’t heard before; the “window of presence or tolerance.” Could you unpack that a little bit?

LK: Yeah, totally. This idea of the window of tolerance, which I like to call the “window of presence,” was developed by a guy named Dr. Dan Siegel who does a lot with psychiatry and mindfulness. He said, “Our window of presence is like our comfort zone. It’s when we’re cool, calm and collected and we can self-regulate our emotions.”

It’s not a static window. When we’re stressed out, that window gets smaller and when we’re healthy and we’re taking care of ourselves, that window expands. We can get knocked out of our window by a crisis situation. That can happen to the people we’re working with or it can happen to us when we step into an escalated situation.

Maybe we get stuck on where we’re hypervigilant, we’re hyper-aroused and everything is a threat. Our hands start shaking, our heart starts beating faster. We’ve got to get back to that calm place. We can also get knocked off into that paralyzed place too, that freeze response.

The idea of the window of presence is that we have to get back to our center, to our window of presence in order to be effective in these situations. And in order to de-escalate folks, we have to help them get back into their window.

There are a lot of ways that people do that, and everybody is different. Some people use mindfulness techniques. Some people use scented oils or sensory awareness. Other people use cigarettes or a walk.

I work on the streets of Nashville and I carry cigarettes with me because it’s a really great way to say, “Hey friend, it looks like things have been really hard. Do you want to take a few minutes to smoke and relax and walk and talk?” That can really diffuse things pretty easily for some.

For other situations, maybe it’s having some fidget things or a stress ball or toys if you’re working with children, something that can get people in touch with their senses and can bring people back to that window.

Here’s the thing; we are all human and we’ve all had moments where we’ve come unhinged or gotten angry or we’ve shut down and we’ve needed this from other people. This doesn’t just work with folks who are economically disenfranchised. This works with our friends, with us, with our family members. This is an approach that translates across so many different differences.

SH: I’m curious how you all determine in any given situation who the best person to handle an escalated situation is.

LK: Sometimes we don’t have a choice and it’s if you’re there, you step in. Sometimes it’s like that working on the streets. No one else is around and I see a street fight going on, so I go over and have to figure out if it’s safe for me to step in.

You always have to check in with yourself because there are risks involved in stepping into escalated situations and I want to be real about that. People get hurt. You have to really listen to your gut and pay attention to that and figure out if that’s something you’re willing to do and read the situation.

If you have rapport with folks, if you have relationships, you’re going to be way more likely to step into a situation and call people back into themselves than if you’ve never met them before and they don’t know you or care about you.

I remember early on after we started Open Table, we ran a transitional housing community that was co-ed. One night there was a man we’ll call “Tim” who was in a house meeting and he got really angry, rightfully so, about one of the younger women in the house. He stood up from his seat, went over the couch and started yelling at her and getting in her face.

I was the only staff member there. I knew Tim. I had known him for years. I stepped in and I put my body in the middle of them. It was literally the first time that I had ever stepped into a situation that was escalated. My hands were shaking like a leaf. I couldn’t stop them from shaking.

I just kept saying, “Tim, this isn’t who you are. I know who you are” and I locked eyes with him. “I know who you are, and this is not who you are.” I was able to keep saying that like a broken record on repeat. I finally got him to move into the kitchen and then eventually step outside with me and get some fresh air and take a walk.

Sometimes you don’t have a choice and there is no one else who can respond. Certainly, relationships do matter.
There is also a lot of critical self-awareness we have to have in the world because we are not going into a vacuum of power balance when we step into these situations. Our society is not equitable. Power imbalances exists on an interpersonal level and on a systemic level and that’s really important to understand because when people are escalated, they feel powerless.

If we are people that hold certain levels of power on a race level, on gender, on sexuality, on education, on class, if you’re in a uniform (you’re more likely to read as an authority figure than if you’re dressed down) all of these things matter when we go into a situation. We have to know how we present to the people we’re going in with.

I’m a young, short, white female, so in a lot of situations I don’t read as threatening, but in some situations I could, and I have to understand that. If there is someone that can better speak the cultural language or have a better rapport with that community that’s there, they could be a better person to de-escalate the situation than I can.

Having critical self-awareness and cultivating that in our actions in this field is incredibly important.

SH: Yes, it also seems like there is a big element of restorative justice embedded in this work.

LK: Absolutely. It’s not about punishing folks for things that they often can’t control. There is a feeling of being out of control when you’re escalated and those of us who are human and have had those experiences know that it feels crappy. It feels terrible. It’s about restoring people to themselves, bringing people back to themselves and entering back into healing relationships and community.

I’ve seen so many people heal and begin to change the ways that they interact with each other and change the ways that they act when they’re triggered when they’re treated as human beings.