Last fall, the Bethel College admin­istration invited more on-­campus ­foot patrols by the North New­ton, Kan., Police Department in response to incidents of vandalism. A range of community members voiced concern and opposition. 

Does having city police patrolling a college campus run counter to restorative justice? Is police enforcement conducive to racial justice? 

These questions make police patrols on a Mennonite campus particularly relevant to Indigenous justice. There is evidence that police disproportionately target and harass people of color, including students of color at colleges and universities across the nation. 

In her essay, “Mass Incarceration and Restorative justice,” posted on the Mennonite Church USA blog in September 2022, Lorraine Stutzman Am­stutz challenges us to acknowledge that our justice systems are experienced differently by those from the dominant culture than by people of color — and, further, that racial discrimination is baked into our government policies. 

In other words, our justice system isn’t just. It singles out people of color for punishment, in a system that Stutzman Amstutz characterizes as “more about rules and laws than about relationships and needs” and that “values power over others rather than collaboration.”

Restorative justice, on the other hand, is a way of incorporating and learning from Indigenous wisdom. Restorative justice works to strengthen community, interweaving Indigenous and Mennonite traditions. 

Stutzman Amstutz describes it this way: “Restorative justice provides a framework and approaches to ensure all people are treated with dignity and respect as we seek to be in community together.”  

Supporting Indigenous justice means opposing the encroachment and expansion of the criminal justice system onto diverse college campuses like Bethel and opposing the dangerous trend of criminalizing college students, especially students of color. 

I am dismayed that a Mennonite institution has invited police onto campus as enforcers. In my own identity as a Mennonite, I asked myself why police patrols trouble me. After all, I seek to live peaceably in a society of laws. 

If our criminal justice and judicial systems were just, I could feel confident that my commitment to peace would be honored by authorities. 

I turn to Matthew 5, where Jesus announces, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.” I have asked myself, “Aren’t the police peacemakers?” 

Something about naming authorities as peacemakers does not sit right with me. But why? Are police making peace as they enforce systems and policies built upon injustice? I am not sure this is possible.

As a peacemaker myself, what is my response to state-sponsored authorities patrolling young people at a Mennonite institution? Is it possible to imagine a way to address student infractions that do not require the involvement of criminal justice authorities? 

As an Indigenous woman, my life has been framed by colonization. While many people in the dominant culture may generally feel safe and trust that societal authorities are on their side, I do not. 

While I have lived a peaceful life seeking harmony and attempting to live with a posture of lovingkindness as instructed by Jesus, I have felt threatened, harassed and misjudged by criminal justice and judicial authorities multiple times. 

I do not believe I have always been treated fairly by authorities, and I wonder if students on the Bethel campus may feel the same way. 

Quick and easy answers to safety concerns reinforce a violent and colonial status quo. If we hope to move beyond the status quo to approaches that are restorative and that affirm the value of life and all human beings, we’re going to need to think more creatively beyond empowering authority enforcers. Instead, we might envision restorative solutions that strengthen community faithfully. 

Josue Coy Dick, a Bethel student, contributed to this article.