Burnaby RCMP - Restorative Justice

Restorative Justice provides a constructive and meaningful response to crime and conflict involving youth by creating opportunities for accountability, understanding and healing outside of the criminal justice system. The process provides victims an opportunity to share how an incident has affected them and allows the youth offender involved to take responsibility for their actions, to be held accountable and to be actively involved in repairing harm they caused.

Types of Restorative Justice processes:

Circles and Conferencing: Trained facilitators bring together all parties affected by crime or conflict as an opportunity to repair the harm caused. All those who have been involved in the incident can listen to what has happened, hear how everyone has been affected, and then decide together how to move forward.

Shuttle Communication: For cases where participants are interested in communicating but a face to face meeting is not logistically possible, not desired, or not appropriate, participants are assisted through a process of indirect communication (through the facilitators or through letter writing) to have a process of accountability and information sharing.

Classroom Circles: For harmful behaviour that occurs in Burnaby public schools the restorative justice program can be invited by a school to facilitate a series of classroom wide circle dialogues with the students to explore the harmful behaviour, the impact it has on the students and school community, and how to strengthen community in the classroom and be in healthier relationship with one another. Classroom circles use a variety of facilitation techniques, activities, and games to explore the harm and what students can do to repair that harm. Circles last 75 minutes and typically involve multiple sessions spread over several weeks. 

How does Restorative Justice help?

Participants who have gone through Restorative Justice are often satisfied with the process which has a number of benefits, including:

• The opportunity for victims to be listened to and acknowledged in a supportive setting
• A sense of closure for victims, which may include an increased sense of safety
• The opportunity for victims to give input on what needs to happen to repair the harm
• Youth offenders gaining a better understanding of the impact of their actions
• Youth offenders taking responsibility for their actions

How does the process work?

Restorative Justice is available for youth between the ages of 9-17 who have caused harm in the community or at school and who wish to take responsibility for their actions and engage in a process of making amends. Victims must consent to a restorative justice process being used as a way to respond to the crime, but their direct participation in the process is voluntary.

To learn more about Restorative Justice, please click this link: Restorative Justice - an overview

While restorative justice processes facilitated through the Burnaby RCMP Youth Services Restorative Justice Program are not Indigenous specific, all efforts are made to incorporate culturally appropriate practices into each process when requested by a participate. The Province of BC does fund a number of Indigenous Justice Programs and services for Indigenous people who come into contact with the criminal justice system. To learn more you can contact us at Burnaby_Youth_Services@rcmp-grc.gc.ca to help get you connected.