Identify other direct service community organizations and organizers that may have a stake in the creation of a restorative justice diversion (RJD) program. Also, identify people in your local juvenile legal system who need to be included in the design and approval of an RJD program.
In order to successfully develop an RJD program in your county, you will need to build relationships and collaborate with a number of partners and allies both in the criminal legal system and in your community. For this reason, it’s important to identify who you may need to work with, in what capacity, and to what degree they understand and support what you’re trying to do.
In this section you will learn how to create a community partner and ally landscape and a system partner and county leadership landscape, as well as how to produce a power map that is specific to your community. “System partners” are powerful players and potential allies in your county’s criminal legal or political systems. Some of them may be elected or appointed officials, so it will also be helpful to create a system partner profile for each individual, which contains publicly available information on their constituencies, issue platforms, and involvement on boards or commissions. “Community partners” may be other direct service organizations working with youth, folks that have been harmed or caused harm, as well as advocacy or grassroots organizing groups, educational institutions, etc. Maintaining a directory list of your community partners will help in developing a robust network of supporters and resources to turn to as you develop RJD in your county.
It should be noted that throughout this process, you may experience resistance or concern from some, as well as generous support and assistance from others. Patience and grace should be at the foundation of all relationship building. As you go through this step, always remember some of the foundational beliefs of restorative justice, such as, inquiry before assumption and ubuntu (“I am because we are”). Just because someone opposes your efforts today does not mean that their heart and mind will not become more open as you build community together.
The following are brief introductions to the community and system partner landscapes, system partner profiles, and power mapping worksheets mentioned above. Complete descriptions can be found on each individual tool’s resource or worksheet page.
Restorative justice relies first and foremost on relationships, so it’s important to know what organizations and groups in your jurisdiction may be potential partners, allies, supporters, or resources for both your community-based organization (CBO) and the community members with whom you work.
Jurisdiction-wide support for RJD means a lot more than just the implementation of a program. In order for an RJD program to thrive, it needs to be deeply rooted in, and supported by, community. So, just as we encourage community building among individuals, we must also practice it as organizations. This means doing research and getting to know the organizations that are already doing fantastic work with youth as well as getting to know other community members that may align with and support RJD.
Organizations or groups working toward social justice or system change tend to operate under the general categories of direct service, self help, education, advocacy, and direct action. For more detailed descriptions of these categories, look to the Community Partner and Ally Worksheet (downloadable above). An organization may fall under a single category or multiple ones. In any case, the work of social justice and system change exists along a spectrum—from addressing immediate needs as they exist in current power structures to addressing the root causes that created those needs and organizing to shift those power structures. No single category is better or more important than the other. Bringing about the changes needed to end systems of oppression happens best when allies in each of these categories work simultaneously toward common goals. Identifying which organizations in your community fall into which categories will allow you to create a rich and informative community partner and ally landscape. Though it may seem clear by reading about an organization’s mission statement or vision which of these categories the organization fits into, it’s always a good idea to reach out to folks that work there and speak directly with them about what they do. Not only does this promote relationship and community building, it also allows you to learn more about the beautiful work being done by your neighbors and colleagues and invites you all to dream together of what the future might look like.
This document should help you maintain a directory list of community-based supporters and resources to turn to as you develop RJD in county. You’ll refer back to this list in later steps of the toolkit.
In addition to building relationships with community partners and allies, you should get familiar with your county governance structure. This includes the various system partner offices, departments, and agencies that you’ll be engaging with as you develop your RJD program.
Many counties provide organizational charts on their websites that list governance bodies and the public agencies they oversee, as well as the specific officials (elected and appointed) within those agencies that you may be building relationships, partnering, or collaborating with. To get an even more specific look into your county government, you can visit the websites for individual departments, as they too may provide their own organizational charts that list the names and titles of specific system partners. If you can’t get this information online, consider calling county offices individually, or partnering with folks in your community who may be able to provide this information.
Similar to the community partner landscape worksheet, this document should help you maintain a directory list of system-based influencers as you go about engaging with them to develop RJD in your county. You’ll refer back to this list in later steps of the toolkit.
Once you develop your system partner and county leadership landscapes, you can create profiles for each of the system partners and county leaders who will have a role and decision-making power in the rollout of your RJD program. System partner profiles can be used in preparation for a meeting with a partner and to keep track of what level of support or opposition you have from each partner. The profiles, much like your power map, are living documents and should be regularly updated. Additionally, profiles and power maps are typically considered internal documents that can function as tools or guides for planning and strategizing for how to engage with elected and appointed officials. For this reason, discretion should be used in the storage and distribution of these materials.
Now that you’ve identified all your community and system partners, it’s time to assess the socio-political environment you’re operating in. Oftentimes, a discussion of power can be overlooked in restorative justice processes. This is likely because circle process, which many restorative justice organizations use for community building and decision making, is meant to distribute power evenly throughout a group of circle participants. While we are working towards a day in which power is a force for good which moves freely in all directions, power imbalances are very much a part of our current lived realities. It’s important to learn where socio-political power is currently concentrated in order to move toward a world where decision-makers can be in “power with” communities, rather than have “power over” them.
With this paradigm shift in mind, we ask folks to approach “Power Mapping” (sometimes called “Power Analysis”) from a restorative place, with a focus on relationship and community building. Power mapping is a visual representation of where power is distributed around the issues your tgroup cares about. It is a first step in planning how you can restoratively redistribute power to achieve the change you’re working toward.
Now that you’ve learned how to identify and categorize your community and system partners and allies, it’s time to gather information on your local juvenile legal system as well as engage with members of your community and find out what they think of RJD. In Step 2C: Community Vision, you’ll find tips and tools for how to best hear from folks in your community and guidelines for what type of data you should gather in order to paint a clear picture of youth criminalization in your county.
A university once invited the renowned professor Howard Zehr to give a public talk on restorative justice. Many system partners attended, who became eager to implement a restorative justice program in their own county. Professor Zehr connected them to Impact Justice’s sujatha baliga to provide thought partnership and guidance. sujatha advised them to identify community-based organizations to partner with and lead the development of the program. She also advised that the facilitating CBO must be deeply embedded in the community to be served, and for that CBO to have complete autonomy over the diverted cases.
Many challenges arose, stemming from long-standing, complex relationships between local CBOs and system partners. Over time, Impact Justice’s team facilitated a series of dialogues between the county agencies and local CBOs. In these rich, and often challenging conversations, the system partners were strongly encouraged to partner with a CBO which met the criteria found in this Program Fit Questionnaire. Ultimately, these conversations led to building strong, healthy, and clear relationships between system partners and several CBOs. The system partners began to understand the power imbalance that arises when they lead the RJD implementation process and why it’s essential for communities to lead the process from the onset. In the end, the system partners worked to find a strong community-based organization to lead the program and the program became a successful, community-led endeavor.
In one county a community-trusted, youth-serving organization had long desired to start an RJD program. Their district attorney, however, was vocally resistant to diversion programs in general—let alone a pre-charge RJD program. During the CBO’s five years of advocacy, the DA eventually agreed to divert a single case to RJD. Despite the incredible success of that case (including positive local and national media attention on the story and its restorative justice resolution), the DA remained unwilling to partner with the CBO to divert more cases to RJD.
Knowing that this would be an uphill battle, the organization focused their energy on community coalition building. Coalition building led to the creation of a county-wide racial justice task force that was approved by the county board of supervisors, and support for ending racial and ethnic disparities through diversion prevailed. The conviction, resilience, and advocacy of the community ultimately contributed to the election of a new, progressive district attorney. The new district attorney was deeply committed to ending racial and ethnic disparities in their county’s juvenile legal system and looked to the community to support solutions that met the needs of their constituents. This DA was eager to support the implementation of a restorative justice diversion program, and partnered with the CBO to ensure the development of a strong program.
Worksheet: Community Partner & Ally Landscape
Worksheet: System Partner & County Leadership Landscape
Template: Restorative Justice Diversion System Partner Profile
Resource: Guide to Power Mapping
FILL OUT Community Partner & Ally Landscape Worksheet for creating directory of community organizations and organizers to include in RJD program creation
FILL OUT System Partner & County Leadership Landscape Worksheet on roles and needs from system partners by adding in the names of your local juvenile legal system staff members
FILL OUT System Partner Profiles for system partners who will play crucial roles in starting and supporting an RJD program
CREATE a Power Map for your jurisdiction
