VADP's Listening Project

VADP members are using the Listening Project Interview, developed with help from North Carolina's Rural Southern Voice for Peace, to help our fellow Virginians explore their attitudes toward crime, justice, and the death penalty.

The interview raises questions such as "What can Virginia do to prevent violent crime?" and "Would you ever agree to witness an execution?" It presents a few facts about the
death penalty, but interviewers' primary goal is to listen and seek common ground. Those interviewed have stated that the survey was not only useful, but enabled them to better understand the death penalty and its consequences.

VADP Listening Project

The Listening Project Interview on the death penalty in Virginia was developed with help from the North Carolina based Rural Southern Voice for Peace in 1992. The Listening Project involves in-depth interviews and the building of positive relationships with the people surveyed.

Open-ended, non-threatening questions encourage people to look into issues more deeply than they might otherwise. The interviewer and the person being interviewed face the issues of in our case, community, crime, justice, and the death penalty and together explore possible solutions.

The Listening Project Philosophy is based on the belief that in situations of conflict we believe that our opponents also have a piece of the truth and to focus on positive solutions. This builds trust so that the Listening Project participants can focus on their common humanity and their shared hopes and fears rather than looking at differences and Prejudices. Thus the people you interview will be able to look critically at their own attitudes and be more open to new ideas, alternatives, and change. VADP had set as its goal for VADP members to interview all 140 members of the Virginia General Assembly as well as judges, commonwealth attorneys, etc.