This project exists to pick up where the criminal justice system has left off. Through Restorative Justice Community Circles, participants can untangle their complex histories. Long-held questions can finally be answered. Communities can recalibrate and forge a new path forward.

A Circle is an opportunity to complete a conversation. To restore what has been lost. To mend a rupture, resolve a rift. These difficult exchanges need structure and space. A Restorative Justice Community Circle is that place.

This year, The Restorative Justice Clemency and Parole Project (RJCP) launched as a Pilot Program, handling just a few Circles at a time as The Project takes shape. Through The RJCP Project, participants partake in an innovative Circle Process that is highly structured and well-supported to explore a conflict. The Circle Process is available to anyone* during or after the time of incarceration, and in some circumstances even pre-sentencing. Facilitating this process is a team of dynamic professionals with backgrounds in law, social work, education, spiritual and religious practitioners, and more. Once activated, the RJCP team starts the work. The RJCP Project intends to expand state-wide in New York and Louisiana, and eventually nation-wide.

The RJCP Project is an initiative by The Restorative Center (TRC), a nonprofit organization which advances and advocates for restorative justice to address the profound issues of social disconnect. The organization has led hundreds of restorative justice circle processes and many trainings across the country since its creation in 2015. The work of TRC demonstrates the benefits of restorative justice for race relations, incarceration, community dysfunction and resilience, reimagining school conflict, social services, and sexual harassment.

TRC directs academic work and trainings of the Circle model to advance deeper analysis of the impact of restorative justice and the various manners in which the potential of restorative justice can manifest. Integrating spiritual traditions and restorative justice models from across the globe, Restorative Justice Circles are teachable, flexible and deliberately structured to support community building, holding space, and connecting.

To learn more or request a Circle simply reach out.