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Colorado Forum on Community and Restorative Justice
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The Colorado Forum on Community and Restorative Justice exists to facilitate understanding and implementation of restorative and community justice with the communities of Colorado.
Community and Restorative
Justice
Community Justice - providing restorative justice in the community, may include community courts, community policing, or other activities of the criminal justice system conducted in the community.
Restorative Justice - Bringing the community, victim and offender together to repair the harm.
Principles of Restorative Justice:Crime is primarily an offense against human relationships, community safety, and well-being and secondarily an offense against the law or state.Repair or mend the damage arising from the criminal offense.
Balanced participation among the victim, community and offender to examine how harm might be repaired and restitution and reintegration achieved. Restorative justice includes the victim in the process as the victim desires to be included. The needs and wishes of the victim must be recognized and supported.
Promotes growth and capacity building by providing opportunities for:
- Victims to move toward healing.
- Communities to realize empowerment in solving their own problems.
- Justice systems to partner with the community.
- Offenders to develop empathy and increase their ability to make better choices.
Restorative justice is built from the community, not from official structure.
Restorative Justice is about the offender working to repair, when possible, the harm to the community.
It is about the victim and the community recovering from the harm caused by the offender.
Restorative justice is about principles, not programs. Programs are restorative in nature when they are based on the principles of restorative justice.
Sentencing Circles, Community Service, Family Group Conferences, Victim Impact Panels, Victim Offender Dialogue, Community Group Conferences