An Outcome Evaluation of Minnesota Circles of Support and Accountability (MnCoSA)

from the study by the Minnesota Department of Corrections:

....The use of the COSA model with high-risk sex offenders began in a small Mennonite community in Canada in the early 1990s. Grounded in the tenets of the restorative justice philosophy, the COSA model attempts to help sex offenders successfully reenter http://www.doc.state.mn.us/publications/documents/9-12MnCOSAResearchinBrief.pdfthe community and, thus, increase public safety, by providing them with social support as they try to meet their employment, housing, treatment, and other social needs. Each COSA consists of anywhere between four and six community volunteers, one of whom is a primary volunteer, who meet with the offender on a regular basis. The results from several evaluations of the Canadian COSA model suggest it significantly reduces sex offender recidivism....

May 10, 2013 Case:Abuse, Offender, Reentry, Practice, Community, Region: North America and Caribbean, Case:Sexual, Policy, Circle, Country:USA

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Circles for sex offenders first in the South

from the article by Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan in the Herald-Sun:

Durham is starting the first Circles of Safety and Accountability in the South for sex offenders getting out of prison. COSA will match recently released sex offenders in Durham with a circle of people who will meet with them weekly to hold them accountable and support them in re-entering the community.

Durham County is home to about 300 convicted sex offenders.

Apr 12, 2012 Case:Abuse, Practice, Region: North America and Caribbean, Case:Sexual, Policy, Circle, Country:USA

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Circulos de Paz and the promise of peace: Restorative justice meets intimate violence

from the article by Linda G. Mills, Mary Helen Maley and Yael Shy in New York University Review of Law and Social Change:

Circles of Peace/Circulos de Paz was founded in Nogales, Arizona in 2004 to address these myriad problems with both the criminal justice response to intimate violence and Batterer Intervention Programs. Circles of Peace is the first court-referred domestic violence treatment program to use a restorative justice circle approach to reduce violent behavior in families in the United States. 

The program consists of twenty-six to fifty-two weeks of conferences, or "Circles," bringing partners who have been abusive (the "applicants") together with willing family members (including those who have been abused, the "participants"), support people, a trained professional facilitator, and community volunteers. The goal is to encourage dialogue about the incident, the history of violence in this family, and meaningful change. 

Sep 16, 2011 Practice, Region: North America and Caribbean, Policy, Circle, Case:Domestic Violence, Country:USA

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