A Community-Based Approach

Restorative Justice Diversion (RJD) is a community-based approach aimed at healing harm and preventing criminal charges. It involves diverting cases to community-based organizations (CBOs) for restorative justice processes instead of pursuing criminal charges. 

Are you interested in starting a restorative justice diversion program in your community? Check out this step by step guide to get started!

How Does Restorative Justice Diversion Work? 

A restorative justice diversion processes involves three stages that create opportunities for repair and healing: 

  • Preparation: Participants, including the person harmed, responsible person, caregivers, supporters, and community members, meet with facilitators to discuss their needs and prepare for the restorative conference.  
  • Conference: A facilitated dialogue, known as Restorative Community Conferencing (RCC), brings together all stakeholders to discuss the harm, its impacts, and agree on a plan for repairing the harm. 
  • Plan Completion: The responsible person takes action to complete the agreed-upon plan, supported by facilitators and community members. 

Facilitation Methods in Restorative Justice Diversion 

Circle processes and RCC form integral parts of RJD. Circles, which are facilitated dialogues, address various situations, from building support networks for survivors of harm to engaging community members around issues happening in a neighborhood. RCC specifically handles situations involving harm. Once law enforcement diverts a case and refers it to an RJD program, facilitators: 

  • assess each person’s willingness to participate, 
  • prepare participants, and; 
  • facilitate an RCC where all impacted parties, community members, and loved ones discuss impacts and devise a consensus-based plan for repair, usually completed within 3-6 months.

Who Facilitates RCCs and Circles? 

RCCs and circles are facilitated by individuals who have been trained in both RCC and circle processes. Key qualities of a facilitator include: 

  • Equal Partiality: Facilitators demonstrate care, compassion, and concern for each participant in the process, regardless of their involvement. This equal partiality is crucial, especially in cases where facilitators may have emotional ties to the issue being addressed. 
  • Supporting Dignity and Wholeness: Facilitators uphold the dignity and wholeness of each participant while creating supportive, brave, and non-judgemental spaces for genuine accountability to take place. 
  • Respect for Participant Agency: Facilitators recognize that each participant possesses wisdom and agency, empowering them to articulate their needs for healing and accountability. 

Core Elements of Restorative Justice Diversion

  • Oriented around the needs of people harmed: The person harmed identifies what they need to repair the harm. The process is oriented around getting those needs met and their questions answered. They also make decisions on the process that make them feel safe and supported. This even includes details of where people sit in the RCC, who enters the room first, who they want as support people, etc. Because a person’s needs are dynamic and can change, the RCC process is flexible to meet their needs. The input of the person harmed is fundamental in the creation of the plan to repair the harm.
  • Created and held by community: Restorative justice diversion relies on the wisdom, knowledge, and expertise of community members to address the issues that impact them. The relationships that bind families and communities together are what power restorative justice processes. Being “held by community” means that restorative justice processes function best and are in alignment with the values and goals of restorative justice when operating fully outside of the legal system. It also means that the program is developed by, and responsive to, the needs of directly impacted people. 
  • Designed to reduce the criminalization of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities: Youth diversion programs often fail to reach the communities most impacted by our criminal legal systems. Therefore, keeping the reduction of criminalization of BIPOC communities at the forefront of how we implement RJD programs is essential. To address this, the jurisdictions we operate in focus on the zip codes from which youth of color are most often incarcerated and crimes for which youth of color are disproportionately incarcerated. Additionally, selecting CBO’s that prioritize hiring folks with lived experience and BIPOC staff is another way to help reduce the likelihood of implicit bias creeping into restorative justice processes and contribute to a level of cultural competence that enables restorative justice processes to effectively serve BIPOC communities.
  • Focused on pre-charge diversion: An RJD program should aim to divert cases as early on as possible in order to minimize the interaction with the system for both the responsible youth and the person harmed. A pre-charge referral means that a case is referred by the DA or referring agency to the CBO after a young person has been arrested and before any charges are filed. Diverting cases pre-charge is important because the admission of guilt in an RCC process could be used in criminal proceedings if there is a charge present, leading a young person to fear telling the truth. In post-charge cases, CBO facilitators who are not qualified to give legal advice may do so unintentionally, which would cause liability issues, and concerns around confidentiality about what occurs in the RJD process.
  • Structured to avoid net-widening of the legal systems: The cases diverted to RJD should only be cases that would have been charged and would have resulted in the young person being incarcerated or placed on probation. The purpose of this is to support the people harmed, as well as to reduce incarceration. We do not want to divert cases that would have been thrown out in court or low level cases that wouldn’t have resulted in probation/incarceration. Moreover, this RJD model is intended for addressing serious harms, and studies show that high-level interventions for low-risk youth actually increase recidivism.
  • Committed to protecting participant confidentiality: In order for RJD to be effective, confidentiality must exist on multiple levels within the process. The most concrete and critical measure of confidentiality is through a signed memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the CBO and the DA or local charging authority that clearly states that nothing said during the RCC process or learned as a result of the RCC process can be used in criminal or juvenile court. With an MOU in place, folks can tell the truth at any stage of the process, and none of their statements will be used as evidence in court. Also, the fact that a young person did or didn’t opt to participate in the RCC process cannot be used in court. No CBO should accept cases from the juvenile legal system without a signed MOU.
  • Dedicated to strengths-based approach to healing harm: When working with the young person who has committed a harm, we must shift their perspective, and those around them, from what is “wrong” with them to what is right with them. That they are more than just the worst things they have ever done. This helps to view them as not just part of the problem, but as integral to the solution—to making things right by the person they harmed, their community, and themselves. We must also shift the perspective around the person harmed toward their own strengths and what they know helps them heal.
  • Rooted in relationships — how to nourish, deepen, and heal them: Remember, at its core restorative justice is all about relationships — how you create them, maintain them, mend them. We approach the entire process, including prep, with relationships at the center. This includes getting to know each other, building relationships, and cultivating trust. We want to know what people value, what they like about themselves, what they’re interested in, what they want out of this process, what would make them feel whole. What will help them feel their dignity is intact or increased during this process?

What Roles Does the Criminal Legal System Play in RJD?

Traditionally, the criminal legal system operates by focusing on identifying laws broken, identifying who broke them, and then punishing that person. However, restorative justice shifts the focus to understanding harm, meeting the needs of those affected, identifying root causes, and promoting healing and accountability. In RJD, the criminal legal system’s role is limited to diverting cases to RJD programs instead of incarceration or probation. It does not participate in the restorative process but follows recommendations from the facilitating community-based organization upon case completion or return.

Benefits of Restorative Justice Diversion 

  • Meeting the needs of those most impacted by harm including the person harmed, their supporters, community members, and the responsible youth.
  • Addressing root causes that lead to the harm happening
  • Disrupting the cycle of incarceration
  • Reducing social and fiscal costs of the justice system 
  • Increasing and strengthening positive social bonds 
  • Effectively reducing future harm and criminal legal system involvement