Restorative Justice: Strategies for Change (RJS4C)

Centre of Expertise Global and Inclusive Learning

Restorative Justice: Strategies for Change (RJS4C) is a collaborative project which aims to encourage the development of restorative justice in Europe. We seek to achieve this by identifying, connecting and supporting a small group of persons – the ‘Core Members’ – in each participating jurisdiction. Their role is to develop and implement a co-created strategy with a larger group of policymakers, practitioners, researchers, activists and other relevant, local parties – the ‘Stakeholder Group’.

This project is informed by the Council of Europe Recommendation CM/Rec(2018) concerning restorative justice in criminal matters and involves ten participating jurisdictions: Albania, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, the Republic of Ireland and Scotland. In each jurisdiction, between two and four persons, drawn from policy, practice, academia and civil society, are acting as the Core Members.

Dr. Anna Matczak is one of the core members of the Polish team, which in 2021 led to the proclamation of Wrocław as a restorative city. In her current role as a member of the Research Committee of the Confederation of European Probation she is also looking at the development of the idea of restorative probation.

Purpose of the project

The purpose of the project is threefold:

to contribute towards refocusing European criminal justice systems, agencies, policies and practices around restorative principles and processes;

to share successful strategies used in different countries to develop law, regulation, policy, practice and public awareness around restorative justice;

to determine how the Council of Europe Recommendation CM/Rec(2018) concerning restorative justice in criminal matters, adopted in October 2018, could be used as a vehicle to support this work.

Partners

Maynooth University Department of Law, Restorative Justice Nederland, European Forum for Restorative Justice, Wrocław Restorative Justice Board.

Research outputs

Matczak, A. (2022). Matczak, A. (2022). Wroclaw: stad van honderden bruggen als Restorative City. Tijdschrift voor Herstelrecht.

Matczak, A., Czarnecka-Dzialuk, B., Czajkowska, H. and Miśta, G. (2022). W poszukiwaniu przestrzeni dla sprawiedliwości naprawczej w Polsce, in: Romanowski, M. (ed.) Mediacja: od rozmowy do porozumienia. Warszawa: Instytut Wymiaru Sprawiedliwości.

Matczak, A. (2021). What is a restorative city? Archives of Criminology, 43(2), 399-427.

Matczak, A. (2021). The penal realities of community sentence and the role of probation – the case of the Wrocław model of community service. European Journal of Probation, 13(1), 72-88.