Last year, around 2,000 people entered and were released from NYC’s jails every month. Tens of thousands more were redirected to community programs. The breadth of these systems ask: How do public systems and services ensure responses to crime hold people accountable, without adding to cycles of incarceration? Restorative justice has been used to find these answers.

Across New York City, Community-Based Restorative Justice Initiative organizations are using RJ as a framework for youth services, from elementary to high school and afterschool programming. “Instead of it being something that we use for conflict and peer-to-peer mediation, it's more an overall form of communication, a way to bring the community together.”

A year after launch, ISLG convened the 16 Community-Based Restorative Justice initiative grantees to celebrate the work being done on the ground, as well as the training and technical assistance experts who’ve provided support along the way and the funders who can keep the work going.

The Request-for-Proposal (RFP) and other parts of grantmaking often leave out smaller, grassroots community organizations who are closest to those they serve. Using our Community-Based Restorative Justice Program and Grassroots Policy Incubator as examples, we dig into ways that funders and grant managers can create a more inclusive process that uplifts new ideas without sacrificing program quality and accountability.

Initial funding for restorative justice programs is part of $16.5 million multiyear initiative.