Organization

The Center for Services in Restorative Justice (CSJR) is a non-profit organization with charitable status that was created in 2001. It is made up of individual members who share its vision and its goals.

The CSJR promotes restorative justice in the general public, but also with specialists in fields related to restorative justice (social work, counselling, law, police work, etc.).

The CSJR organizes Victim-Offender Encounters or VOE (Rencontres Détenus-Victimes) between victims of criminal acts and offenders, who do not know one another. view services.

History

Testimony of David Shantz, CSJR co-founder with Thérèse de Villette.

I was a chaplain at the Old Pen. I listened to inmates, but I was only hearing half the story of a crime. I could only guess at the victim’s suffering. I wondered how victims and offenders separated by walls and by bureaucracy could be brought together. In 1989, I was at a conference in Ontario on VORP (Victim Offender Reconciliation Programs) that talked about encounters between a victim and the individual’s own offender, but that seemed too difficult to me. However, we decided it was possible to try Face-to-Face as practiced in Newfoundland by R. Newen. I talked to the inmates about it. One of them answered me in writing: “I’m indifferent to my victim. If only I could see victims, understand their tears!” So, with D. Martin we planned an encounter between inmates and victims, and we circulated the invitation to participate widely. The director, Mrs. Tronche, asked me, “Aren’t we just using inmates to help victims?” Then I heard people saying, “Aren’t we just using victims to help inmates?”

Finally, during the summer of 1991, the first encounter took place at the Federal Training Centre. It was the first time in a federal penitentiary, and the only thing I only hoped was that “it didn’t blow up”. I knew a 60-year old woman that was the victim of all kinds of offenses who, because of her encounter with inmates, felt empowered again. She got back her right to speak without having her own words used in Court. She recruited victims. We did Face-to-Face until 1993.

In 1999, I met a Criminology student who was interested in restorative justice. Her name was Thérèse de Villette. I told her that I had ended the program because I didn’t have the time and the opportunity to recruit victims. She suggested we resume the experiment, saying she was ready to find victims. I was skeptical. Yet in November 1999, we started to do Face-to-Face again, which later became known as VOE (Victim-Offender Encounter).

VOE is not a method in itself. We are there to facilitate dialogue between people, to help them express their emotions and their suffering in order to heal. A crime creates an imbalance of power. I use you to get power. At VOE sessions, I lay down my arms (pencil, gun, lie…), anything I use to attack another person… Victims must also lay down the exaggeration of hysteria, the screams. Here, we put everything aside in order to gain much more. It takes some preparation. An environment of safety and understanding helps things along. The inmate goes back to his or her cell and thinks, “Finally, I am sharing with a group in which I don’t feel judged.” There is no report or evaluation to do in VOE sessions as in other programs. We meet each other in our sufferings. Crime is like a black hole. We go there together. We weep for both inmate and victim. The group absorbs the suffering and starts a life anew.

CSJR News Bulletin – Spring 2005