Community Justice Center, a Fresno, CA-based agency promoting healing through community-driven research and evidence-based restorative processes.
Today we put on Spotlight on the Community Justice Center in Fresno. They are doing some amazing work addressing both sides of the offender-victim dynamic.
The CJC is an umbrella of services that includes programs to help the recently released find productive and purposeful footing on the outside. Many transition homes do the good and challenging work of helping returning citizens discover this healthy path. CJC does that as well as addressing the traumatic harm that the original crime caused in the first place. Many victims wrestle with how to heal from the harm inflicted upon them. CJC has programs designed to tackle the challenges of this aspect of the fallout from crime as well.
COSA (Circles of Support and Accountability) is a proven prosocial community-based support program provided by CJC that makes all the difference. A circle includes several selected individuals who regularly meet with the returning citizen to talk about their goals, challenges, and progress. The individual is part of a team that encourages the individual to thrive and offers supportive input.
COSA’s Core Principles are 1) No more victims; 2) No one is disposable and 3) No one does this alone.
Evidence shows that volunteers create a sense of mutual respect and obligation that could not be easily forged with paid staff. Circles fill a gap between programming and community-based supervision. Circle members provide concrete support and stabilizing effects such as housing and employment. Circles enable the habits and culture that support resistance by developing and modeling normal and normative relationships. Circles create a context, which inhibits re-offending because of mutual obligations, monitoring risk in daily life, accountability to the community, and reducing the incentive for crime because of creating a stake in conventional life.
The COSA inner circle exists inside an outer circle of professionals that can include parole/probation officers, psychologists, housing managers, social service workers, employers, and other supportive allies.
CJC also seeks to heal the harm and breach that exists between offender and victim through a program called VORP. The Victim Offender Reconciliation Program (VORP) began in Fresno County in 1982 as the first of its kind program to provide a restorative approach to the juvenile justice system.
From its first year handling 85 youth cases, the program has expanded each year and now includes restorative services for adults and an insight awareness course for the community.
The goal of the program is to restore and heal the relationship between the party that was harmed and the party that caused the harm.
This is done through a mediation process called a group conference where both parties can express their pain, remorse, and efforts to heal. Rather than a punitive approach, this process emphasizes relationships and the healing that can happen when individuals come together to repair harm and community.
Now in its nearly 40 years, VORP has served thousands of youth and families in this restorative approach to harm and has successfully kept these individuals out of the criminal justice system.
VORP served 106 youth this past year without a single youth having a further encounter with the criminal justice system to date.
Since 2019, the COSA program has served 76 reentering men and women after long incarceration for serious and violent crimes, including sex offenses. Of those 76, three have had violations of parole/probation, and none have committed harm or another crime.
To highlight just one example of the profound work, consider the example of Denise. Denise has come from an extremely difficult and abusive past, but through the support of COSA and others she recently dedicated her grandson, Levi, at church, followed by a family baptism that included Denise, her mother, her daughter, and her son. Her boyfriend was just released from prison and is also a part of COSA. She is an Uber driver and her daughter was just hired at Costco. Her faith is on fire and her testimony has been ministering to countless people.
COSA and the CJC are shining a light in Fresno where it is needed most – healing the deep scars that leave us broken, ashamed, and untrusting.
The power of God flows through his people into the dark recesses of the human experience and brings new life.
Need services or have questions?
Contact the CJC today to inquire about programs, services, events, or anything else on your mind. They are happy to help.
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