Community Justice Initiatives (CJI) is a non-profit organization known world-wide for starting the first Restorative Justice program involved with the criminal legal system.
Restorative Justice offers an approach to addressing conflict, crime and harm that brings together those who have caused harm, those affected by it, and the broader community to collaboratively seek healing, understanding, and meaningful accountability. RJ prioritizes the recognition of needs, accountability, the repair of harm, and — whenever possible — restorative relationships. Rather than being a one size fits all model, RJ is a flexible framework grounded in principles and practices that guide individuals and communities toward transformation in themselves, others, and the systems and contexts in which we live.
We provide conflict resolution services, support for people impacted by sexual trauma, assistance for families involved with child protection, reintegration support for adults returning to the community from prison, connection support for older adults and co-housing support.
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Our restorative justice programs are offered in Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo, and the rest of the Waterloo Region in Ontario, Canada.
Through research, speaking opportunities, and written resources our influence is global.
As CJI journeys toward a more just society, we challenge our biases, nurture radical love and acceptance, and imagine new possibilities for healing and reconciliation.
We mobilize restorative justice alongside the community to meet healing, justice, and safety needs across continuums of harm, conflict, crime, and wrongdoing.
A Waterloo Region where justice is reclaimed as a restorative community practice rooted in accountability, dignity, consent, and repair.
This plan, and the six commitments named within it, is one embodiment of our learnings and analyses around our organizational obligation to anti-racist and anti-oppressive articulations of restorative justice.
Commitment 1: Deepen our ethical relationship with and accountability to Indigenous knowledge and communities.
Commitment 2: Create and embed transparent and inclusive recruitment practices into organizational culture at all levels, including Board governance.
Commitment 3: Demonstrate solidarity and understanding with racialized and marginalized identities across the organization in how EDI work is done.
Commitment 4: Embed structures that make accountability possible and embody our values.
Commitment 5: Embody understanding of and responsibility to identity-based harm.
Commitment 6: Honor community expertise.
Restorative justice is a way of addressing conflict and crime that enables people who caused harm, those affected by the harm, and the community to collaborate toward meaningful amends and outcomes.
CJI staff and volunteers are thought leaders in the field of restorative justice.
