The annual Whidbey Interfaith Vigil for Peace and Hope is at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 25 at St. Augustine’s-in-the-Woods Episcopal Church in Freeland.

The service will feature music, prayer and sacred scripture readings from Buddhist, Christian, Jewish and Muslim traditions, according to a recent news release. The theme this year is peacemaking through Restorative Justice: Changing Lens in Addressing Crime.

The presenters this year are Tom Ewell from the Whidbey Island Quaker community and Andrew Somers who serves as the Island County Superior and Juvenile Court Administrator. Ewell has a long history in working for criminal justice reform and Somers has extensive knowledge and experience with juveniles that encounter the criminal justice system, according to an event news release. Ewell and Somers recently co-chaired a Island Country Restorative Justice Task Force.

The United States criminal justice system incarcerates the largest percentage of its citizens of any country, according to the news release. The cost and the waste of life when imprisonment is overused and misused is unacceptable, it said.

Event organizers ask if there are better ways to provide for public safety, acknowledge the harm done to victims, and hold criminals accountable and reintegrate them back into society. One alternative to the problem of mass incarceration is the model of restorative justice. How is this model being applied here in Island County?