Restorative Freedom Initiative
"Every man is greater than his mistakes"
APAC recuperando
Join us and become a part of our first US-based initiative, the Restorative Freedom Initiative (RFI) to create a brighter future for all in our communities.
Our Story
It all began in 2019 when AVSI-USA became the first backer of the award-winning documentary Unguarded. The film takes audiences into the walls of an Association for the Protection and Assistance of the Convicted (APAC) and shows how this revolutionary prison system transforms the hearts of inmates, volunteers, and all who encounter it. APAC is grounded in restorative justice principles and has successfully rehabilitated people and restored them to the community for 50 years, as well as presented a new way of looking at crime, punishment, and the prison system.
APAC transformed our perspective. AVSI-USA sees the immense need for work in this area in the United States, which has prompted us to begin an advocacy campaign to stimulate discussion, debate, and substantive change around restorative justice, both in and outside of prison. As a result, AVSI-USA has already identified a growing network of people and organizations interested in developing APAC-inspired initiatives in the US. The initiative began in 2022 in partnership with My Father’s House (MFH), a re-entry home in Denver, Colorado, with whom we began the process of adapting the APAC experience and methodology to the United States. In October 2023, the Restorative Freedom Initiative entered its second year and expanded to a second partnership with Living with Convictions (LWC) and an even wider network of fellow advocates.
Our Vision
Restorative Freedom Initiative will inspire cultural change in the United States through an advocacy campaign around Unguarded and the methodology of APAC. Restorative Freedom Initiative will partner with U.S.-based organizations engaged in re-entry programming to support them in adapting the APAC model and leading opportunities for reflection, learning, and sharing.
Our target for 2022...
10 men via 1 partner
20 volunteers trained via 1 partner
How we did? Surpassed!
18 men benefited via 1 partner
35 volunteers trained via 1 partner
Our goal for 2023
24 men via 2 partners
40 volunteers trained via 2 partners
Our 5 year plan
75 men benefited via 3 partners
100 volunteers trained via 3 partners
Our opportunity
A need in our backyard
US incarceration rates are 5 times those of England and twice those of Russia. Our strictly punitive approach fails to deliver the public safety it promises. 83% of formerly incarcerated males are rearrested within ten years from release. (U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics) The current US system also fails to support reentry into society, work, housing, and healthy relationships. A stronger reentry system would empower those who have completed their time in prison to lower recidivism and benefit all of society.
A more human solution exists.
The APAC method, embodied by trained staff and volunteers, considers incarcerated persons as human beings with freedom and potential and proposes a guided path towards individual responsibility, personal growth, and healthy relationships for those convicted and in prison. Facilities operating under the APAC method are run by incarcerated persons and volunteers, with no police presence. APAC’s philosophy believes that every person can be rehabilitated. APAC participants are referred to not as ‘inmates,’ ‘prisoners’' or ‘criminals,’ but as ‘recuperandos,’ that is, ‘recovering people.’ The recuperandos dress in civilian clothes, are never handcuffed and are called only by their first names.
We can all be part of the solution
AVSI-USA’s global network has been supporting the expansion of APAC in Latin America and Europe. We are convinced of APAC’s human and societal advantages. One of APAC’s unique attributes is the use of volunteer staff, essential not only for its cost-effectiveness but also because it engages passionate yet ordinary citizens, gives them purpose, and makes them advocates. Restorative practices thus benefit and transform the greater community along with those affected by incarceration.
Our Partners
The goal of the Restorative Freedom Initiative is to enable partner organizations in the United States to learn about, adapt, and implement methodologies inspired by the APAC philosophy and method.
In 2022, our first partner, My Father’s House (MFH), a group of re-entry homes in Denver, Colorado, embarked on the journey of discovery to learn more about the APAC method. With the support of Restorative Freedom Initiative, MFH began to adapt the APAC methodology to the specific context in close collaboration with highly experienced staff from APAC in Brazil. At the same time, MFH continued to experience growth, adding a third home and strengthening all aspects of its program.
In 2023, we welcomed our second partner, Living with Convictions (LWC), a re-entry program in Raleigh, North Carolina, into the initiative. Working with LWC will allow us to share the adaptation work done with MFH and learn from the staff and participants as they embrace the methodology and give it life at its two re-entry homes.
My Father's House (MFH)
Denver, Colorado
My Father's House is a nonprofit transitional housing community for men on parole, seeking to offer them safe, decent, affordable housing and a community of support. MFH empowers its men with virtues to succeed in life outside of prison, equipping them with a new sense of love, mercy, and perseverance to better value themselves and society.
Living with Convictions (LWC)
Greensboro, North Carolina
Living with Convictions is a Catholic ministry to men and women navigating prison and reentry. LWC proposes something unique in the world of post-prison reentry: transitional homes founded and run by former inmates who have successfully returned to society. This North Carolina-based home and program is grounded not in theory or statistics but rather in the lived experience of incarceration and release, failing, and beginning anew.
Meet one of the LWC men, Brian:
Unguarded
An award-winning documentary
UNGUARDED takes us inside the walls of APAC, the revolutionary Brazilian prison system centered on the full recovery and rehabilitation of the person. Beginning in 1972, APAC founder Dr. Mario Ottoboni volunteered in some of Brazil’s worst prisons. Seeing men and women frequently return to a life of crime once they left prison, Dr. Ottoboni decided to found his own restorative justice-based system. The results have been extraordinary: while the crime and recidivism rates have continued to increase in Brazil's public prisons within the APAC (Association for the Protection and Assistance of Convicts) system, they have steadily decreased. UNGUARDED explores the unique method behind this system, now present in twenty-three countries across four continents. Observing the daily lives of the “recuperandos” (recovering inmates) who live and work there, we see firsthand why—as one inmate puts it—“no one escapes from love."
Watch the trailer:
Our calendar of events
Upcoming Unguarded screenings and panel discussions around the country and world:
COMING SOON
