Restorative Justice

Goals of Restorative Justice

• Provide an opportunity for the victim to be directly involved with the discussion and decision regarding appropriate sanctions placed on the offender.
• Increase offenders awareness of the impact of their behavior and provides an opportunity to take full responsibility for their behavior and actions.
• Engage collective responsibility of the offender’s support system for making amends and shaping the offender’s future behavior.
• Allows the offender and victim to reconnect to key community support systems.

Works Well For:

• Battery and Public Affray
• Burglary
• Social Media Threats
• Theft
• Vandalism
• After Detention Center

Pre-Circle

Interviews are conducted with the offender and victim separately. Buy in, intent, and solutions are discussed.

Circle

• Review incident
• Victim shares impact story
• Offender responds to victim’s story and why they committed the action
• Comments
• Repair
• Restorative Justice plan/commitment

Post Circle

Interviews are conducted with the offender and victim separately to discuss how they feel after the process and if they think it worked.

The Restorative Justice Circle Process

The process begins with the offender or JPO describing how the system views the incident. This is used as an educational opportunity because many of the offenses are not commonly viewed as offences by youth or families. The victim starts the discussion, if they choose to do so. Through these narrations, the offender is faced with the human impact of the behavior on the victim, on those close to the victim, and on the offender’s own family and friends. The victim will have the opportunity to express feelings and ask questions about the incident. All participants my contribute to determining how the offender might best repair the harm he or she has caused. The session will end with all participants signing a Restorative Justice Plan that outlines activities and commitments to be fulfilled by the offender.