COMMUNITY Restorative Justice Ireland (CRJI) have welcomed the publication of the Criminal Justice Inspectorate of Northern Ireland’s Review of the organisation.
CRJI is a community-based restorative justice organisation. It provides a range of services aimed at resolving and reducing conflict and restoring relationships in a completely non-violent and human rights compliant fashion.
Services include victim support, youth mentoring, advice, and mediation. CRJI offers its programmes at no cost to participants and is accredited by the Department of Justice.
In carrying out this work, CRJI works closely with a range of agencies and community groups, including housing associations, youth groups, counselling services, and statutory organisations.
In July, funding from the Executive Office (TEO) – providing £1.2m in restricted funds in 2021 – was suspended after CRJI notified TEO of issues of concern. An internal investigation was commenced and funding was suspended.
Following an investigation, funding was reinstated to CRJI in November.
Chief Executive Officer Jim McCarthy said: "We are very pleased to see the publication of this thorough report.
"As the report notes, when I became Acting Director in 2021 I raised concerns about our capacity in terms of human resources and financial administration and we had already put in place a range of measures to address these and other governance procedures.
"This report provides us with a template to better formalise and improve our relations with key criminal justice partners, including the Department of Justice, the Probation Board and the PSNI.
"We are of course pleased that the Inspectors were impressed by the dedication and commitment of our staff, the quality of our work, the positive views of key partner organisations towards us and the fact that we have made significant progress against previous Criminal Justice Inspectorate recommendations.
"In a similar spirit, we look forward to ensuring that the recommendations in this report are also implemented.
"We thank the Inspectorate for providing us with the framework to ensure that we continue to develop and enhance the service that we provide to the communities in which we work."
