Regional Red Deer Restorative Justice supports youth, families, and communities across Central Alberta in addressing harm through meaningful dialogue, accountability, and healing. Mission:
To provide those who have been harmed an opportunity to share the impact of the harm with the person who has harmed them and to identify actions that would repair that harm. To provide young offenders from rura
l Red Deer communities with an opportunity to avoid entering the criminal justice system by accepting responsibility for their actions and repairing the harm caused to all others by those actions. Principles:
Focus on the harm not the rules broken
Restore trust through empowerment and responding to needs
Provide opportunities for open dialogue in a safe space
Encourage collaboration and reintegration not coercion and isolation. Key Objectives:
To provide a safe, timely, accessible, acceptable, appropriate and effective community-based response to crime as an alternate justice program. To provide high-quality service to all participants in a restorative process – person(s) harmed, wrongdoers and members of the wider community. To support satisfaction in results achieved with person(s) harmed, wrongdoers, referral agents and community
To increase level of empathy between person(s) harmed and wrongdoers. To increase level of accountability with wrongdoers. Actions:
Police officers may choose to refer an offender to the program as an alternative to filing a criminal charge within the criminal justice system. This option enables the offender, if they are accountable for their actions and prepared to repair the harm they have done, to avoid a criminal record and the downward spiral for their future frequently accelerated by entering the criminal justice system. The Crown Prosecutor may also refer a case (post-charge) to the RRDRJ program if deemed appropriate. Participating local schools may also make a direct referral to the program as a proactive approach to help address high risk situations.
