Jon Wilson
Founder & Director, JUST Alternatives
VOD Facilitator and Trainer
(click here for curriculum vitae)
Jon Wilson is founder and director of JUST Alternatives, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit committed to the advancement of promising victim-centered practices in justice and corrections. He has been a Victim Offender Dialogue (VOD) facilitator with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Victim Services Division and the Victim Service offices of the Maine Department of Corrections and the Massachusetts Department of Correction. Jon was trained in facilitating victim offender dialogues in crimes of severe violence by David Doerfler and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Victim Services staff, by Karin Ho, Victim Services Coordinator for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, and by Dr. Mark Umbreit at the University of Minnesota. He has also trained with David Gustafson and Sandra Bergen of Fraser River Community Justice Initiatives in British Columbia, and Howard Zehr and Tammy Krause at Eastern Mennonite University. Jon has attended the National Victim Assistance Academy, and he has trained in the area of predatory and extremely violent crime victimization with such experts as retired FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood and psychologist Dr. Anna Salter.
Jon is deeply committed to providing support to victims/survivors of violence and violation, and victim-centered opportunities for seeking healing and justice through VOD. He is thoroughly familiar with the needs of victims/survivors of violence, especially homicide and sexual assault, the challenge of helping them find a new sense of power and purpose, and the delicate intricacy of the VOD preparation process. He is also committed to the work of evoking a personal understanding of impacts and accountability in violent offenders, and he understands how to prepare those offenders to face and listen to their victims in facilitated VOD.
In an effort to broaden his understanding of the reasons offenders commit the violent crimes they do, he co-facilitated, from 2000-2004, an inmate education and self-examination program at the Maine State Prison. In 2001, the Governor of Maine appointed Jon to the Maine State Prison Board of Visitors, an oversight and advisory committee, on the strength of his victim-centered commitment to corrections and rehabilitation issues. He has chaired this Board of Visitors since 2004, and he remains steadfast in his victim-centered support and advocacy work.
Jon has presented in a variety of victim- and offender-related seminar, conference, and classroom education venues around the country. He has conducted, with colleague David Doerfler, and now on his own, nearly a dozen and a half VOD facilitator trainings for victim service providers, corrections professionals, attorneys, clinicians, social workers, and citizens who wish to become involved in the complex, sensitive and powerful work of victim-centered VOD.