Community Justice Institute

Mission And Goals

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Located in the College of Architecture Urban and Public Affairs at Florida Atlantic University, the Community Justice Institute (CJI) is a Type III Research Center sanctioned by the Florida Board of Regents and supported by state, federal, and private funds, as well as university resources. Staff, consultants and volunteers at the CJI work to support local, state, national, and international efforts to increase citizen access to and involvement in justice decision-making, and to channel justice intervention towards supporting the development of community capacity. Research, evaluation, training/technical assistance, policy development and educational projects support innovative reform efforts that have focused on: detention alternatives, correctional leadership and management reforms, community policing, community and restorative justice implementation, disproportionate minority confinement, judicial reform, improving victim services, and citizen participation in alternative sanctioning processes. Other specific components of the CJI mission include efforts to:

  • Increase public access to research and training, enriching the community through service;
  • Partner with public and community-based justice agencies at the local, state and national levels to address the crisis in offender confinement and develop alternatives to incarceration;
  • Coordinate, collaborate, and streamline administration of a wide variety of individual faculty efforts in the justice and law-enforcement arena;
  • Conduct evaluation and other research on criminal and juvenile justice policy, causes of crime, impact of crime, and community and victim involvement in the criminal justice process;
  • Enhance teaching and learning experiences through faculty and student involvement in applied research using the community, the region, and the country as a laboratory;
  • Discover, analyze and document emerging trends in community justice issues.

Community Justice Institute Programs And Initiatives

Recent Research and Evaluation Projects:

  • Evaluation of Chicago Public Schools Peer Jury Program , Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority: A formative and impact evaluation of the implementation and operation of the Peer Jury Program as a disciplinary option in 27 high schools in Chicago’s Public School System.
  • Targeted Community Action Planning - An Evaluation of the Continuum of Sanctions in Broward County , Florida Department of Juvenile Justice and Broward Sheriff’s Office: Evaluation of diversion and probation in Broward County designed to assess the continuum of sanctions and to inform policy and case level decision-making regarding sanctioning of juvenile offenders.
  • Evaluation of Broward Sheriff’s Office Truancy Initiative , Broward Sheriff’s Office: Program evaluation of a county-wide truancy center run by the sheriff’s office.
  • Doing Good: The Civic Justice Corps – A Strategy for Community Development and Offender Reintegration , Open Society Institute: The AfterPrison Initiative: A Planning Grant to develop a strategy for offender community re-entry utilizing the concept of service in the interest of others. The project goal is to redesign corrective and intervention efforts of the justice system by developing a community-based model to demonstrate that service in the interest of others should become a primary focus of community supervision and community development.
  • Evaluation of Vermont Juvenile Justice Programs , Vermont Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services : This three-year project evaluates juvenile justice programs in the Vermont Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services. Goals of the evaluation are to assess incorporation of restorative justice principles in the program components, develop measurable outcome measures, and identify programs that have the greatest impact toward reducing juvenile recidivism rates (3 years).
  • Understanding and Evaluating Community Youth Sanctioning Models , National Institute of Justice : This research is designed to improve understanding the scope and prevalence of restorative justice conferencing for young offenders in the United States. In addition, quantitative and qualitative data on sample projects in selected communities are designed to determine consistency of implementation with restorative principles (18 months).
  • Citizen Involvement in the Response to Youth Crime , RobertWood Johnson Foundation: This research is focused on identifying the nature and effectiveness of citizen and community involvement in restorative justice conferencing for juveniles (24 months).
  • Technical Assistance and Evaluation of Restorative Community Boards Program , Florida Department of Juvenile Justice : Provide support, assistance and guidance in developing evaluation and monitoring design for community restorative neighborhood accountability boards (24 months).
  • Judges, Crime Victims and Juvenile Court Reform: An Action Research Initiative : Office for Victims of Crime : Conduct focus groups, interviews and planning forums with crime victims and juvenile court judges in four states.
  • Vermont Reparative Board Volunteer Survey ,Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP): Analysis of statewide survey of citizen participants in Vermont reparative boards (18 months).
  • Gang Free Communities Project , OJJDP : Provide support and assistance in assessing the scope of the Gang Problem in Broward County, Florida. Specific attention given to the origins, potential causes, and contributing factors of youth involvement in gangs (24 months).
  • National Juvenile Court Judges Survey ,National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and OJJDP: Analysis of survey responses from a national random sample of juvenile and family court judges focused on professional orientation and victim and community involvement.

Training, Capacity Building, and Technical Assistance

The Balanced and Restorative Justice Project:

The Balanced and Restorative Justice (BARJ) project is a national initiative of the Office of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.BARJ project trainers, researchers and juvenile justice practitioner’s work with jurisdictions nationwide to advance systemic changes in juvenile justice policy and practice. As a model of community justice, BARJ seeks to involve and meet the needs of three co-participants in the justice process- victims, offenders, and communities. In doing so, the BARJ model guides juvenile justice systems toward “balance” in meeting the sanctioning, public safety, and rehabilitative needs of communities.

The project has worked with communities and criminal justice agencies in over 50 jurisdictions and 35 states to provide training, education, technical assistance, evaluation and research on emerging law enforcement and restorative justice practices.

In the current grant year, the BARJ project has worked in 39 states and provided training and technical assistance to more that 15,000 justice professionals. Additional project activities are focusing on national outcome measures for juvenile justice and a new strategy for juvenile re-entry into communities that is based in the concept of service in the interest of others.

Training:

BARJ training components include:

  • Curriculum Development including topics such as Strategic Management and Leadership for Corrections Administrators; Restorative Justice Tools for Schools;
  • The National Annual Restorative Justice Academy , which provides an annual opportunity for criminal justice practitioners, policy makers, and community members to participate in a forum that offers general skills building training in restorative justice policy and practice
  • The Restorative Justice Clearinghouse that matches experienced practioner/trainers with agencies and organizations who require restorative justice or community justice training.

Technical Assistance:

 The CJI currently works with seven large Special Emphasis States seeking to implement systemic juvenile justice reform using restorative and community justice principles. In addition, local initiatives to develop demonstration communities are underway in several cities including Chicago, San Jose, CA. Washington, D.C., Honolulu and Brattleboro, VT. Additional states and community sites request assistance on a case-by-case basis.

A new initiative in this grant year has been the selection and development of five demonstration implementation sites as national models. These sites will be developed over the next three-year grant cycle.

Capacity Building :

The CJI supports professional leadership development and capacity building in justice system through its national network of senior consultants and advisers including: corrections managers, judges, prosecutors, public defenders and police officers. Community leadership development is supported by working with national minority, buinsess and faith community groups on local justice reforms.

Specifically, the Institute through the Balanced and Restorative project has co-sponsored recent conferences of the Prevent Crime in the Black Community forum, two national Native American roundtables, and a recent effort to develop a working paper on the role of restorative community justice in African American communities. Recently, the Insititute with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation convened a national forum on volunteer and “natural helper” invovlement in community based justice intervention projects.

Publications:

In addition to a newsletter, the Kaliedoscope of Justice , BARJ project staff and consultants have produced more that 50 monographs, implementation guides and technical assistance tools, research reports, and training curricula on restorative justice policy, practice and research . A list of recent publications of the CJI, including selected BARJ documents, is included in this brochure.

Education

Center for Advanced Criminal Justice Studies:

 The Center is a partnership with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, FAU, and the Sheriff’s Foundation of Broward County to provide advanced educational, training and research opportunities that will develop the professionalism, expertise, and leadership abilities of criminal justice practitioners.

A Criminal Justice Executive Leadership Certificate Program is available to individuals currently in management positions in law enforcement and corrections. Course content includes a focus on leadership and management, community development and conflict resolution, and strategic planning and analysis. Instructional teams teach courses with FAU faculty members and criminal justice professionals. The Class of 2003 will be the fifth graduation of this program and will bring the number of participants to over 150. It is of interest to note that 19 different law enforcement agencies have had program graduates.

The second component of the FAU/BSO partnership is the BSO/FAU Doctoral Research Fellowship program. Initiated in 2001, this program is designed to provide educational opportunities for doctoral students whose research and career interests match the initiatives of the Broward Sheriff’s Office. Fellows are chosen from doctoral students in Public Administration and provide research and theoretical applications designed to assist BSO in meeting its public safety mission. The fellows receive stipend and tuition waivers.

Distance Learning In Balanced and Restorative Justice:

This project began as a successful effort to develop and conduct a distance-learning course on restorative justice tailored for probation and parole officers in the State of Missouri. The distance-learning course includes six asynchronous lessons and live chats and will soon be offered to a national juvenile justice audience that includes juvenile court judges, probation officers, and others.

Publications and Monographs: Available Through the Community Justice Institute (Partial Listing)

  • Doing Good: A Model of Offender Re-Entry into the Community (2003)
  • Victim Involvement in the Juvenile Court (2003)
  • Community Boards and Juvenile Justice In Vermont (2003)
  • Engaging the Community in Response to Youth Crime (2003)
  • Reintegration and Restorative Justice: Toward a Theory and Practice of Informal Social Control and Support (2002)
  • Training for Trainers of Facilitating Restorative Group Conferences Curriculum(2002)
  • Balanced and Restorative Justice Project Curriculum Guide (2001)
  • Building Relationships, Developing Competency: Toward a Restorative Approach to Offender Reintegration in a Balanced Juvenile Justice System (2000)
  • Conferences, Circles, Boards, and Mediations: Restorative Justice and Citizen Participation (2000)
  • Citizen Involvement in the Response to Youth Crime (2000)
  • Mobilizing Social Support and Building Relationships: Broadening Correctional and Rehabilitative Agendas (2000)
  • Restorative Justice Inventory: An Organizational Assessment for Juvenile Justice Agencies (2000)
  • Restorative Juvenile Justice Policy Development and Implementation Assessment: A National Survey of State Systems (2000)
  • Victim Involvement in the Juvenile Court: Judges’ Perspectives on the Role of a Key Stakeholder in Restorative Justice (2000)
  • Victim Needs, Restorative Justice and the Juvenile Court: An Exploratory Study of U.S. Judges (2000)
  • Beyond the Punitive/Lenient Duality: Restorative Justice & Authoritative Sanctioning for Juvenile Corrections (1998)
  • Guide for Implementing the Balanced and Restorative Model (1998)
  • Restorative Justice and Earned Redemption: Communities, Victims & Offender Reintegration (1998)
  • Police Encounters with Juveniles Revisited: An Exploratory Study of Themes and Styles in Community Policing (1997)
  • The 'Community' in Community Justice: Issues, Themes and Questions for the New Neighborhood Sanctioning Models (1997)
  • Implementing Detention Intake Reform: Understanding the Judicial Response to Restrictions on Admission (1996)
  • Juvenile Justice Reform and the Difference It Makes: An Exploratory Study of the Impact of the Policy Change on Detention Worker Attitudes (1994)