Hartford Community Restorative Justice Center

Programs: Restorative justice - restorative justice panel. Offenders, referred through the court system, are required to meet with a panel of community volunteers and any victims of their crime. Through this restorative process, offenders are held accountable for their actions and learn how victims and the community have been affected by their behavior. This program helps the greater hartford community in many ways. One is to provide an inclusive process where any person affected by a crime may be involved in the resolution process. Another is that this program helps connect the community with the offender, and the offender with the community. This reduces offender isolation, increases pro-social connections and is an important step towards reducing recidivism and, thus, increasing community safety. Pre-charge program. After a person has been arrested for a crime, the police and windsor county state's attorneys' office may choose to refer the case to hcrjc instead of sending it through the court system. The pre-charge program requires the offender to take responsibility for his/her actions and make amends to affected parties. When the offender successfully completes the program, the charges are dropped and case is dismissed. Restorative reentry and circle of support and accountability (cosa) program. Anyone returning to the community from incarceration may be referred to our office for reentry support services which includes transitional housing, service navigation, transportation assistance, work readiness, participation in our restorative justice panel, budgeting, and our cosa program. Cosa is a group of 3 to 5 trained community volunteers who are brought together to form a relationship with a person coming out of prison, known as the core member. The cosa is intended to reduce the risk of re-offense by providing core members with a new set of community-based personal relationships. These new relationships model pro-social community behavior and can help to interrupt the cycle of criminal offending. The informal authority derived through these volunteer relationships effectively augments the formal supervision provided by the department of corrections, leading to better reentry outcomes for all parties. The goal of a cosa is simple: no more victims. Restorative sanctions. Offenders who violate one or more of their conditions of release are often given a sanction. In an effort to make sanctions more restorative and less punitive, we've developed this program. Offenders participate in our restorative justice panel program to take responsibility for their actions and make amends to the community and affected parties.

transitional housing - anyone returning to the community from incarceration may be referred to our office for reentry support services which includes transitional housing.

skill building - skills training to assist reintegration (star). The star program is designed to help people returning to the community from incarceration develop job related skills, and community connections so they may enter the workforce with expertise, references, greater self-confidence and renewed hope for their future.