Building Restorative Communities

Chair:            Debby Shaw, Special Projects Manager, Courts

The Building Restorative Communities Initiative builds upon the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent and Chronic Juvenile Offenders to provide best practice information about how to address rising violent juvenile crime, (U.S. Department of Justices Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1995, www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles/guide.pdf). The Comprehensive Strategy asserts the need for a multifaceted, coordinated approach to prevent delinquency, with prevention as a critical first step. It presents a framework of research-based risk and protective factors as a way of understanding the influences on young people, while offering graduated sanctions as a realistic approach to effective intervention.

Following a four-step strategic planning approach, communities are guided to build upon their strengths and to meet their specific needs through:

1. Mobilization: Engage all stakeholders in working collaboratively toward a vision for the future of all their communitys children.

2. Assessment: Build a data-based profile of the community.

3. Planning: Develop an integrated, comprehensive, system-wide five-year plan.

4. Implementation: Implement and evaluate the five-year plan for enhancing the Comprehensive Strategy for preventing and controlling juvenile violence.

Through this process, communities are guided toward 1) preventing youth from becoming delinquent by focusing prevention programs on at-risk youth, and 2) improving the juvenile justice system response to delinquent offenders through a system of graduated sanctions and treatment alternatives. In 2001, Michigan implemented its own version of the Comprehensive Strategy (selecting Bay, Ingham, Jackson, Muskegon, and Wayne counties) and became the first state in the nation to fully integrate the philosophy and principles of Balanced and Restorative Justice (BARJ) into the strategic planning process.

To reflect Michigan priorities, in 2003, the Michigan Family Independence Agency, Bureau of Juvenile Justice renamed its strategic planning process Building Restorative Communities and selected Cass, Ottawa, Monroe, Kalamazoo and Washtenaw as the second round of Michigan counties to participate in the strategic planning phase of the initiative.

Goals:

1. Develop a comprehensive infrastructure encompassing the key components of the data-driven approach to human services.
2. Institutionalize restorative practices into the fabric of government organizations.
3. Young people across Washtenaw County will, as needed, receive assessment and early interventions to reduce the level of drug and alcohol offenses, runaways, suicidal ideation, mental illnesses, teen births, and status offenses.
4. Families in Washtenaw County will be able to access effective support systems that improve family cohesiveness, communication, community attachment and youth behavior management.
5. The rate of school success will be consistently high across Washtenaw County in terms of educational attainment, four-year completion rates, school safety, and truancy reduction.