HISTORY OF HALIBURTON COMMUNITY JUSTICE CIRCLE

Haliburton's Committee Against Violence and Abuse (CAVA) is an umbrella organization that delivers anti-violence services to members of our community. This organization is comprised of 18 agencies that meet monthly to assess and take action to improve conditions that help reduce violence in our County.

Several years ago, CAVA committed to doing something about the problems they were seeing in the local youth justice system, such as: the cost of accessing services from out of town, the failure to adequately address the needs of victims, a process that takes too long, penalties that seem to have little connection to offences and too many repeat offenders.

CAVA sponsored two community education days in 1999-2000 that were very well attended by a broad range of community members. Raj Sud, Anti-Racism Coordinator from OPP, and Ruth Morris of Rittenhouse introduced the concept of restorative justice. Kim Pittaway, free lance writer and Chatelaine editor, spoke on the nature of forgiveness. Coordinators from two Community Justice Circle projects in near-by communities attended and liaised with CAVA sub-committee members who had visited these projects.

Raj Sud returned to conduct a 3-day training event in September 2000, where approximately 25 people were given basic training in facilitating justice circles. Attendees included individuals from the court system, law enforcement, the legal profession, education, social services, and the faith community.

Circles can be conducted by volunteer facilitators, but it was obvious that such an initiative would be successful only if there was a full time coordinator, someone who would establish policies and procedures, do the necessary administrative work and be a liaison between court officials, OPP and the community. A steering Committee was formed, (a sub committee of CAVA), that included representatives from OPP, the Crown Attorney's Office, Probation and Parole, YWCA Womens Safety Network, Ontario Works, Job Connect and a local lawyer.

In January 2001, CAVA applied for and received funding from HRDC'S Job Creation Program (JCP). With these funds, Donna Austin, a local resident and trained facilitator, was hired as the coordinator of this Community Justice Circle in partnership with Family Services of Haliburton County. She has been facilitating Justice Circles since February, each of which has been a rich learning experience for us and for the community.

In 2002 we were fortunate to have been selected as one of the new Youth Justice Committee sites. Although this was exciting news, this funding only provided us with a portion of the costs required to operate this program, therefore, we continue with our search for sustainable funding. We have been fortunate, over the past few years to have received short term funding from several other sources, i.e., National Child Benefit Reinvestment and the Trillium Foundation

Although we are a very small community and our Justice Circles may not happen as frequently as some larger communities, we believe we feel their impact more. Justice Circles are very seldom ever a gathering of strangers. Often Offender and Victims lives intertwine. It can be detrimental to the social fabric of our small town to leave things unresolved between neighbours.

Offenders comments when asked, why did they choose to attend the Justice Circle:

• I felt horrible and wanted to apologize in person.
• To try and heal pain and suffering caused.
• To get my feelings out and to talk to (victim) and to apologize for what I did

Victims comments when asked why did they choose to attend the Justice Circle:

• A chance to talk to offenders and find out problems that have led to the incident.
• Hopefully we can also help resolve some of the problems for these young people and to prevent younger ones from doing similar acts.
• I felt it was necessary to help youth understand how people are affected by what other people do.
• I wanted the accused to see me, the victim as a person.