By bringing victims and perpetrators together, she’s helping repair harm and turn lives around. Meet restorative justice expert sujatha baliga.

A graduate of Harvard and Radcliffe, baliga completed her law degree at the University of Pennsylvania and became a public defender, but she says the legal system began to feel like it was designed to not get at the truth. She began to look for a path to justice that “excavates from the deepest level who has been harmed, what do they need, and whose obligation it is to meet those needs.” She found it in restorative justice.

In 2015, baliga helped found Impact Justice, a national center developing new methodologies to reduce incarceration and create a more humane, responsive, and restorative system of justice. Baliga is the director of its Restorative Justice Project, which develops programs that are culturally responsive, community-based, and victim-oriented. She is also executive director of The Paragate Project, which offers workshops exploring forgiveness.

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