BARJ in Illinois - Southern Illinois

Cra-Wa-La Volunteers in Probation, Inc.
1300 15th Street
Lawrenceville, IL 62439

Phone: (618) 943-5326
Email:crawala@crawalavip.org
Contact: Valerie Holbrook

What RJ practice/s do you use?
Restorative Justice Group Conferencing, Victim-Offender Mediation, Peer Jury and Underage Drinking Accountability Panel (last two practices are currently in the organizing phase)

Specific services offered:
Lawrence County RJ Accountability Program: We are the county RJ administrator, we coordinate and conduct "conferences", monitor and evaluate the RJ practices; as well as recruit and train community volunteer facilitators in the practices of RJGC, VOM, and Peer Jury for Lawrence County Courts (2nd Circuit Collaboration).

Note: These programs are supported by the Lawrence County State's Attorney and Circuit Court and a collaboration project with the 2nd Judicial Circuit BARJ project.

What population do you serve?
Youth and Adults

How/where do you get referrals?
State's Attorney; Public Defender, Law Enforcement, and schools provide referrals.

Does your process, program or activity show equal concern for victims, offenders and the community of those affected?
RJGC and Peer Jury include the three parties; however as standard VOM does not as a general rule include the community (though Police Office does participate)

Does the process, program or activity encourage the offender to feel accountable for his conduct, and be willing to repair the harm caused to the victim and the community of those affected, in a way that focuses on the competency development of the offender?
We require all offenders to participate in a pre-course "Victim/Community Awareness" in preparation to participate in a conference. Youth training for Peer Jury includes this component. All conference (RJGC, VOM, and Peer Jury) contracts include all three principles of BARJ in the agreement.

Does the process, program or activity provide opportunities for dialogue, direct and/or indirect, between all of the community of those affected, including the victim and offender?
All practices are direct dialogue; though when the victim chooses not to participate in a conference they are invited to send a representative, submit a "victim impact" statement (letter) which is read by the facilitator. In the case of a youth, parents are always required to participate in the process. We have not used video taping, however; do have it available to offer if so needed.

Does the process, program or activity encourage collaboration to restore and develop positive relationships among the members of the community of those affected, including the victim and the offender?
Community members are invited to participate in all the processes beyond those that may be directly impacted by the incident; hence would be indirectly. For example, an insurance agent might be asked to participate in a VOM to clarify the impact of "criminal property damage" to the neighborhood or community; a doctor might be invited to speak to "public health issues"; a city council representative or mayor might be invited to participate to represent the neighborhood or community. In the case of what one might call a "victimless" crime; carrying paraphernalia or drinking the "community" will be represented as the victim of this incident.

Does the process, program or activity empower the community of those affected to increase its capacity to recognize and respond to harm and crime in a restorative justice way?
All participants in each of the processes participate in the development and execution of the "contract" (agreement) and have a role in seeing that it is completed. A mentor might be assigned whether in a peer jury case or other conferencing case. Community service is not traditional the conference members are encouraged to be creative and think beyond the box. The focus of community service is there has to be a relationship between the incident (crime) and the services. All participants, victim, community, offenders are invited to participate in future conferences, encouraged to become facilitators. At the end of each contract a "celebration" occurs; occasionally (with the permission of the entire conference) the local media are invited to join the celebration to share the results with the community.

In what ways are you evaluating your program?
Each case is entered into our tracking system; we track the following: Referring agent; number of referrals; referrals that go to conference; referrals that do not go to conference; date of the incident; type of incidents (crimes); geographical area (location and community where the crime was committed); terms of the agreement; restitution amounts; number of successful or unsuccessful agreements completed; age of offender; gender, race, and educational level of offender (if an adult employment information is collected); profession of community participants (i.e. Law enforcement, local business owner, minister, etc.); community service hours and exact services rendered; time lapse from time of incident to completion of the agreement; and most importantly victim satisfaction; court satisfaction; and participants satisfaction (program evaluation). Reports are provided to the referring agent only from the aspect that the conference occurred an agreement was arrived at, notification of the agreement completion. Referring agents are invited to the celebration (per agreement of the conference group, an exception would be when a referring agent participates in the conference, i.e., school, law enforcement, probation. State's Attorney, Public Defenders, and Judges are not participants of the conference but might be invited to the conference completion celebration). The ultimate goal of the information tracking will be to provide the courts information related to the impact of the program related to decrease in incidents; victim satisfaction and hopefully reduction in recidivism.