RJ City Website Launched
Would you like to work in RJ City? This is an imaginary City that has decided to respond to all conflict, crime, victims and offenders as restoratively as possible. A conceptual foundation has been laid suggesting how this might be done. Now it is time to add programmes, systems and processes to bring it alive. A new website offers all interested people the opportunity to collaborate in "building the future of justice."
RJ City (www.rjcity.org) is a research and design project to explore how far restorative
justice principles and values might go in creating a comprehensive
response to crime. This is important because while proponents of
restorative justice suggest that we are nowhere near exhausting its
potential, most countries and communities have made rather limited use
of it.
The first phase considered the conceptual issues and structural support that a restorative justice system would require. The final report from this phase is available on the website, as is a case study that suggests how RJ City might respond to a household burglary.
The next phase will focus on building a model by designing component parts of the restorative system. It will draw from actual practice, research, insights from the fields of victimology and criminology, lessons from comparative and historical legal and cultural studies and so forth. This will allow creation of restorative programmes, processes and so forth to put muscle, nerves, and organs on the skeleton created in Phase One.
For example, RJ City would likely have some standard forms of restorative encounters that victims and offenders could choose from. What would those be and how would they operate? Are there criteria that would guide staff in deciding which options to present? Is there information from current practice that would allow an estimate of how frequently each one would be chosen? Similarly, is there information available that would suggest how frequently modifications to these standard encounters would need to be made?
Another example: How would RJ City recruit volunteers and staff to participate in the many parts of its response to crime? How would it train and evaluate them? What would happen over time as attrition takes its toll and new personnel must be recruited and trained?
A third example: How might RJ City respond faithfully to the needs of all victims? Is there a way to estimate the resources needed? How long they would be needed? How they would need to be distributed across the City to meet the need?
There are many such questions. It should be clear that Phase Two will require help from lots of people with different areas of expertise. Over 75 people assisted during the first phase. The RJ City website has been created to make broad collaboration possible.
In addition to reports on the first phase, the site includes three blogs:
Other discussion groups will be created when there is sufficient interest in a particular area of the justice system or of the process of transforming conventional criminal justice into restorative justice.
RJ City is sponsored by the Centre for Justice & Reconciliation at Prison Fellowship International, the group that sponsors www.restorativejustice.org.
Daniel W. Van Ness
February 2007
The first phase considered the conceptual issues and structural support that a restorative justice system would require. The final report from this phase is available on the website, as is a case study that suggests how RJ City might respond to a household burglary.
The next phase will focus on building a model by designing component parts of the restorative system. It will draw from actual practice, research, insights from the fields of victimology and criminology, lessons from comparative and historical legal and cultural studies and so forth. This will allow creation of restorative programmes, processes and so forth to put muscle, nerves, and organs on the skeleton created in Phase One.
For example, RJ City would likely have some standard forms of restorative encounters that victims and offenders could choose from. What would those be and how would they operate? Are there criteria that would guide staff in deciding which options to present? Is there information from current practice that would allow an estimate of how frequently each one would be chosen? Similarly, is there information available that would suggest how frequently modifications to these standard encounters would need to be made?
Another example: How would RJ City recruit volunteers and staff to participate in the many parts of its response to crime? How would it train and evaluate them? What would happen over time as attrition takes its toll and new personnel must be recruited and trained?
A third example: How might RJ City respond faithfully to the needs of all victims? Is there a way to estimate the resources needed? How long they would be needed? How they would need to be distributed across the City to meet the need?
There are many such questions. It should be clear that Phase Two will require help from lots of people with different areas of expertise. Over 75 people assisted during the first phase. The RJ City website has been created to make broad collaboration possible.
In addition to reports on the first phase, the site includes three blogs:
- Discuss RJ City is a place for discussion of general issues;
- RJ Today offers a forum for those implementing restorative justice in parts of the criminal justice system to share experiences.
- RJ and Prisons is similar to RJ Today, but focuses on that particular part of the criminal justice system.
Other discussion groups will be created when there is sufficient interest in a particular area of the justice system or of the process of transforming conventional criminal justice into restorative justice.
RJ City is sponsored by the Centre for Justice & Reconciliation at Prison Fellowship International, the group that sponsors www.restorativejustice.org.
Daniel W. Van Ness
February 2007
