Partnering with communities to address harm through dialogue

The Restorative Justice Project works in diversion and explores possibilities for restorative justice in intimate partner violence and sexual harm. We shift the paradigm from punitive to restorative – recognizing and valuing every individual’s dignity and potential.

We provide training and technical assistance to our National Restorative Justice Diversion sites in collaboration with community-based organizations and partners from the criminal and juvenile legal systems. We support these sites to introduce pre-charge restorative justice diversion programs in an effort to meet survivors’ needs without reliance on youth criminalization. We’re also collaborating with communities to envision safe, effective restorative justice alternatives to systems intervention for intimate partner and sexual violence and child sexual abuse.

When harm occurs and a law is broken, legal proceedings can be difficult and unproductive for those harmed, those responsible for the harm, their families, and impacted community members. Restorative justice offers constructive responses to wrongdoing by bringing everyone into accountability processes that repair and rebuild relationships.

Our work engages communities to center survivor-identified needs while reducing incarceration, recidivism, racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal legal system, and related social and fiscal costs. Visit our Resources page for more information about restorative justice.