Bringing Peace to the Central City: Forgiveness Education in Milwaukee

Abstract

The last 2 decades have seen a flowering of scholarly and applied work in the area of forgiveness, a skill important to the development of peaceful people and communities. We describe a forgiveness intervention designed to help children in a central-city environment. Such environments put children at risk for various psychological and social problems, including antisocial behavior, in large part because of the many forms of injustice experienced in such a context. Injustice often leads to anger, a key emotion in the development of psychological, interpersonal, and even academic problems. The current forgiveness education program is showing promise in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and is now being implemented in inner-city Milwaukee.