This week has been so difficult. Obviously we& #39;re at a point of absolute national crisis and that takes up a lot of mental space. But here in Omaha and of course also in Louisville, we& #39;re hammered by examples of a justice system that doesn& #39;t function for one part of our community.

If we& #39;re not talking about the murders of James Scurlock and Breonna Taylor because they happened somewhere else to someone else, or because we& #39;re focused on all the other terrible things that are happening, then we& #39;re ignoring the way that these murders are allowed, legitimated.

We can& #39;t ignore that justice simply isn& #39;t experienced the same way for everyone in our communities. Twenty years ago, when I first started working in prisons and learning (and teaching) restorative justice, I was fortunate to spend time with Howard Zehr, a pioneer in this field.

From Zehr and from the activists, victims, prisoners, and community leaders I met, I learned that in parts of our communities justice is experienced like rain: something over which we have no control and which is unrelated to our actions. Sometimes it rains; sometimes it doesn& #39;t.

By contrast Zehr writes, "True justice requires...that we ask questions [like]: Who has been hurt? What do they need? Whose obligations and responsibilities are these? Who has a stake in this situation? What is the process that can involve the stakeholders in finding a solution?”

We have a great deal of work to do before justice is something that we all experience, rather than something about which so many of us feel hopeless or cynical. A victim-centered justice system, one that is constantly grappling with issues of power and inequity, is long overdue.