Restorative Justice Community Action (RJCA) works in Minneapolis neighborhoods to enhance offender accountability for urban livability crimes by empowering local citizens to participate directly in the justice process.
Activities like drug dealing and possession, soliciting prostitution, public drinking, public urination, and disturbing the peace have a detrimental effect on the neighborhoods where they are a common occurrence – making people fearful and distrustful, contributing to commercial and residential instability, and eroding the quality of life of those who live and work in these otherwise vibrant and vital communities.
RJCA pioneered community conferencing, a face-to-face restorative justice model that recognizes the community as a victim of crime and gives offenders constructive ways to make amends for their actions. The community conferencing model we use is an adaptation of family group conferencing, a conflict resolution process that originated with the Maori people of New Zealand.