Funding

Articles discussing funding resources and strategies for programmes.

Local program helps youth offenders repair harm done in communities

from Alex Holmquist's article in mndaily.com: The Seward Longfellow Restorative Justice Partnership offers first-time youth offenders an alternative to going to court through participation in a restorative conference. The program accepts youth ages 10 or older who live or commit a crime in the 55406 zip code. Their typical crimes include trespassing, graffiti, shoplifting and fifth-degree assaults.

Tips to sustaining a restorative justice program, from the front line.

from Kris Miner's entry at Restorative Justice and Circles: I can tell you from the directors seat, here at St. Croix Valley Restorative Justice I am designing a game plan to keep our program going. Some tips:

Restorative justice program faces funding woes despite success

Eighty percent or more of the CJP’s cases conclude with a resolution agreement, according to Kimberly Mann, coordinator of the Collaborative Justice Project (CJP) that operates from the provincial courthouse in Ottawa. However, despite such a high satisfaction rate and positive evaluation results from government departments such as Justice and Public Safety, CJP is finding it increasingly difficult to stay afloat. “We had federal funding as a pilot for the first six years. Since then we’ve been struggling to find funds,” Ms. Mann said.

Investing in restorative justice

Our criminal justice system is broken, and the reasons are complex. One of the many contributing factors is that our penal system's focus on punishment is not working. You would think that after their first time behind bars prisoners would never do anything to wind up back there; yet the opposite is true. In December 2007, the Department of Justice estimated that two-thirds of all released prisoners will commit new offenses within three years of their release. In addition to the great human toll of incarceration, $68 billion of our taxpayer dollars are paying for this travesty.

Friday Discussion: RJ funding

With the economic crisis, governments are struggling to balance their budgets. Funding for restorative justice has never been easy, but in this climate it promises to be harder.