Community Conferencing Program

Community Conferencing is a process that helps neighborhoods, schools, government agencies, faith communities, organizations and families uncover their natural wisdom for responding to destructive behavior in constructive ways, and to build connections that serve the well being of all.

Community Conferencing seeks to manage incidents such as second-degree assault, breaking an entering, larceny, destruction of property, truancy, suspension, neighborhood disputes, and first time auto theft. The program would like to serve as an intermediary step between incident reporting and criminal action for minor cases and for more criminal cases, serve as a parallel process to traditional adjudication in order to provide a restorative approach to sentencing.

The conference provides a forum in which those who have caused harm, those who have been harmed, and their respective supporters can seek ways to repair the damage caused by the incident and to minimize further harm. A conference gives those who have caused harm an opportunity to understand the impact of their behavior on other people, on themselves and on the wider community. A conference gives people who have been harmed the opportunity to explain how they have been affected and contribute to negotiations about how best to repair the damage. All participants are given an opportunity to recount what happened at the time, and what has happened since. The damage is generally emotional as well as possibly physical. It is important that everyone present should have a clear understanding of the full impact of the behavior. They then decide what needs to be done to repair the damage and minimize further harm. When an agreement has been reached, it is recorded in writing, and signed by key participants who are then given a copy of the agreement.

Advantages of Community Conferencing:

• Those who caused harm are confronted, often for the first time, with how their behavior has affected others.
• Those who caused harm take responsibility for their behavior, rather than walking away from the community of people they have hurt.
• Those who cause harm are given the opportunity to be accepted back into the community.
• Those who have been harmed are given an opportunity and a safe
  forum to talk about how they were affected
• Harmed individuals also play an important part in deciding how best to repair the damage and minimize further harm.
• Family and other supporters also get to talk about what has happened to them as a result of the incident.
• Everyone takes part in deciding what needs to be done.
• Everyone at the conference learns from the experience.

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