All About CDRJS

Welcome to Cranbrook and District Restorative Justice Society (CDRJS).

Although restorative justice has been offered in Cranbrook and District since 2000, CDRJS became a nonprofit society in 2007.

The goal and function of CDRJS is to provide:

Restorative Justice as an alternative to the formal court process.
Public awareness of restorative practices.
Training in restorative measures and certify facilitators
Restorative Justice as a conflict resolution process for other ministries and nonprofit organizations.
Support and Administration for the Humanity Network.
Support and Administration for the Organization Against Racism and Hatred (OARH)

Strategic Peace Building

"Peacebuilding is the development of constructive personal, group, and political relationships across ethnic, religious, class, national, and racial boundaries. It aims to resolve injustice in nonviolent ways and to transform the structural conditions that generate deadly conflict. Peacebuilding can include conflict prevention; conflict management; conflict resolution and transformation, and post-conflict reconciliation.

Peacebuilding becomes strategic when it works over the long run and at all levels of society to establish and sustain relationships among people locally and globally. Strategic peacebuilding connects people and groups “on the ground” (community and religious groups, grassroots organizations, etc.) with policymakers and powerbrokers (governments, the United Nations, corporations, banks, etc.) It aims not only to resolve conflicts, but to build societies, institutions, policies, and relationships that are better able to sustain peace and justice."

University of Notre Dame KROC Institute for International Peace Studies

Peace Building Definitions and Strategies

"There is no single process or strategy used in peace building because no two situations are ever the same. However, the United States Institute of Peace identifies seven key components of strategic peace building to incorporate into any plan.

Recognizing the Burdens of Long-Term Violence
Eliciting Plans from Locals
Conflict Transformation
Insider-Outsider Links
Dealing with Spoilers
Identifying Obstacles to Strategic Peace Building
Elicit, Evaluate, Elicit, Evaluate…"

Peace Building Definitions and Strategies, Sunday Moultan

How is CDRJS involved in Strategic Peace Building?

Strategic Peace Building is a multi-dimensional approach to improving world peace, community peace, positive community awareness and engagement. CDRJS has four significant project areas which directly support these concepts:

Restorative Justice: is a process which directly involves the community in addressing crime in the community. It brings groups of individuals who have been linked through a difficult situation and fosters a dialogue centered on addressing the harm done and encourages the potential for forgiveness.

Restorative Justice Training: Currently, the systems that we experience on a daily basis to regulate and control human behaviour are based largely on rule and consequences, a punishment based system. Rules and regulations are necessary in given situations. Restorative Justice outcomes are specific to the group who are engaged in finding that solution. It is conceptually different and requires a change in mindset in order to successfully facilitate. Punishment based solutions are simple in that it involves a matching process between act and consequence and because we have daily experience and history with that type of processing, it is relatively easy to overlay a punishment solution with the intention of doing restorative justice.

CDRJS trains and mentors the growth of individuals who wish to be Restorative Justice Facilitators.

Humanity Network: CDRJS has recently been accepted as one of several provincial groups who will focus on addressing issues of hate and racism in BC. We are honoured to be given this recent recognition and support and it will further the previous work of OARH which CDRJS has been engaged in for the past 10 years. Provincially this initiative is called Resilience BC and we are exciting about the direct and support it will provide.

Hate and Race Based Incident Response: CDRJS is a local representative for the BC Hate Crimes Team. We work in conjunction with local and provincial RCMP to indentify, investigate potential crimes associated with offenses to self and indentity.

"The BC Hate Crimes Team works with local police detachments to investigate the criminal offenses and to protect sense of self and identity. For non-emergency questions about hate crimes, resources, training or education, please contact the BC Hate Crimes Team:

Phone: 1-855-462-5733 (toll free)

E-mail: BC_Hate_Crime_Team@rcmp-grc.gc.ca"

Taken from Report Hate Crime

Mailing and Physical Address

Suite 3

926 Baker Street

PO BOX 533 Stn. Main

Cranbrook, BC V1C 4J1

Phone• Email

Other: (250) 489-9622

Email: doug.mcphee@me.com

Office Hours:

Monday to Friday

9:00 AM to 12:00 PM

Other times when required