What Christian Reformed Churches and Their Members Can Do

Here are some suggestions on what you and your congregation can do to practice restorative justice:

• Participate in Restorative Justice Week. Congregational resources for 2008 are found here: http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/rj/index-eng.shtml
• Distribute the report on Restorative Justice from the CRC’s synodical study committee to your congregation. Gather in groups to discuss the report, or invite committee members or those engaged in restorative justice to speak to your members. Contact osjha@crcna.org for speaker recommendations.
• Are you a pastor or church educator? Hold an adult Sunday school or education hour that examines restorative justice. Recognize Restorative Justice Week, the third week of November.
• Form a Restorative Justice Committee and have the members plan and coordinate restorative justice activities in the church. Have them report on their progress in bulletin inserts or church newsletters. Encourage the committee to network with other churches, classes, and denominational agencies, and to provide information to OSJHA about its efforts.
• Stay informed: Use the information on OSJHA’s web pages on restorative justice. Sign up for the OSJHA’s Advocate newsletter and the Justice eReport from Justice Fellowship (of Prison Fellowship Ministries). Consider signing up for electronic newsletters from groups like Center for Public Justice (US), Citizens for Public Justice (Canada), Church Council on Justice and Corrections (Canada), and the International Prison Chaplains’ Association.
• Voice your opinion! Speak on restorative justice issues. Write articles and letters to the editor and your legislators about restorative justice. Highlight political candidates’ positions on restorative justice issues. Support funding for crime prevention and restorative justice projects.
• Compile useful information on resources. For example, survey your community and document the key people, organizations, churches, funding etc., related to restorative justice efforts. Create a referral guide of organizations, agencies, or programs in the community that can help prisoners, ex-prisoners, families of prisoners, and crime victims.
• Work in your community to prevent crime, assist victims, and help with restorative justice efforts. Participate in efforts like neighborhood watches, community development organizations, crisis hotlines, neighborhood shelters, community advisory boards, programs for at-risk youth, and community mediation programs. Support programs such as community policing and probations, drug courts, transitional housing, work release, victim-offender mediation, alternatives to incarceration, and rehabilitation services for prisoners and ex-prisoners.
• Provide elders, deacons, and other interested persons with special training in working with prisoners, prisoners’ family members, and crime victims. Encourage members to sign up for training from organizations like Prison Fellowship Ministries.
• Organize worship services or Bible studies for prisoners with the help of the chaplains or other correctional staff.
• Contact prison wardens and chaplains to ask what programs need volunteers (e.g., programs for job training, literacy education and GED preparation, English as a Second Language classes, Twelve-Step groups, etc.) Volunteer to help out.
• Visit prisoners if the institution allows it. Become a pen pal to prisoners.
• Volunteer to serve as a mentor for prisoners (before release, if the institution allows it) or for ex-prisoners after release.
• Invite former prisoners and family members of prisoners to your church services and activities. Encourage them to join your church. Encourage members to invite them to their homes to eat or to take them out to eat. Offer your church as a place for support group meetings for prisoners’ family members or ex-prisoners.
• Provide help that prisoners’ family members or ex-prisoners need: food, financial help, referrals to agencies, transportation, counseling, assistance in signing up for services or programs, accompanying them to court, etc. Encourage employers to hire prisoners’ family members and ex-prisoners.
• Participate as a church in Prison Fellowship Ministries’ Angel Tree program, which provides Christmas gifts to children of prisoners, given in their parent’s name.
• Highlight the needs of victims in a church service during National Crime Victims’ Rights week each April.
• Assist in emergency assistance that crime victims need: financial assistance, food, protection, repairs, transportation, medical treatment, counseling, dealing with law enforcement officials and media, accompanying them to court, etc. Set up a fund in your church budget for victims’ needs such as home repair, medical treatment, etc.
• Refer victims to agencies that can assist them, and help them sign up for services.
• Encourage victims to tell their stories in victim support groups or other meetings, and to participate in restorative justice efforts such as victim-offender mediation, victim-impact panels, drug courts, sentencing circles, and plans for restitution or reparation.

Compiled by Gail Rice, member of synodical committee to study restorative justice, 2005.