Soliciting community involvement and support for restorative justice through community service

Along with RCS, between 1999 and 2005, the court adopted several programs and interventions under what it called a “restorative framework.” Among these were victim-offender mediation (VOM), a victim services program (Victim Impact Program, orVIP), an offender competency curriculum (Victim Impact Offender Competency Education, or ICE), the use of Community Accountability Boards (CABs), as well as retraining of probation staff. RCS was seen by the court as an important part of this restorative framework in terms of limiting the punitive aspects of community service associated with work crews, involving community organizations in the design and implementation of community service that met identified community needs, and encouraging interactions between youth offenders and volunteers in service settings.

Unlike the involvement of victims and/or youth offenders in VOMs, VIP, ICE, and CABs, community involvement in RCS was achieved not at the case level (i.e., volunteers did not become involved in RCS via specific cases at the court), but rather through the active recruiting of community organizations to serve as RCS sites, and community volunteers to work alongside youth in service settings. The aim of the court was to include as many organizations and volunteers from within Clark County as possible to achieve broad community support for, and participation in, the court’s use of RCS specifically, as well as for its larger adoption of other restorative justice practices.