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Centre Programmes and Services


Last modified 2004-04-19 11:22

 

Communities of Restoration (APAC).  The APAC methodology is a revolutionary faith-based prison regime developed in Brazil.  Prisoners volunteer to participate in a graduated programme designed to help them experience and participate in responsible, giving, loving relationships.  Research has documented that this programme reduces recidivism.  APAC-based prisons now exist in Brazil, the United States, Ecuador, Chile, and other countries.

Sycamore Tree Project®.  This faith-based programme brings victims and “unrelated” prisoners together to talk about crime and its impact.  The 5 to 8 session programme creates a safe place in which victims help prisoners understand the devastating impact of their crimes on others.

Restorative Justice Online.  This highly regarded website offers comprehensive, non-partisan information on restorative justice principles, practice, programs and theory.  It includes introductory tutorials, government resources and the largest searchable annotated bibliography of restorative justice articles available.  Monthly editions of the website are available through electronic newsletter.

RJ City.  This is a research and design project to create a model justice system that handles all crimes, all offenders and all victims as restoratively as possible.  We will test the viability of the design using a computer simulation.  It is anticipated that the simulation will be useful as a learning tool as well as to help government officials assess how to integrate restorative solutions into their own justice systems.

Online Assistance.  Centre staff members provide current information and assistance through email consultation.  This service is free when it consists of referrals to resources or individuals.  There may be a fee for more substantive requests. 

Vision and Mission

The mission of the Centre is to develop and promote restorative justice around the world.

The vision of the Centre is that one day restorative justice will be the normal way of responding to crime throughout the world.

 

 

 

Centre Notes

 

Continuing Support for Restorative Justice by the United Nations

The United Nations continues to promote its basic principles on the use of restorative justice programmes, which it adopted in 2002. You may recall that PFI played a major role in the development and eventual adoption of these guidelines. Now, the criminal justice reform office of the UNODC (UN Office of Drugs and Crime) plans to publish a handbook for countries preparing to use restorative justice programmes in their criminal justice systems. This will be a practical guide for starting programmes and for linking them effectively to police, prosecutors, judges or prisons.

The UNODC held an expert meeting in Vienna at the end of January 2006 to review an initial draft of the handbook. Dan Van Ness, who participated in this meeting, reports that the handbook should be of practical value to PF national ministries as well as their governments.