About Us

RJS4C Ireland

About The Project

Restorative Justice: Strategies for Change (RJS4C) aims to support the development of restorative justice in Europe.

In ten countries, a core group of four persons – the ‘Core Members’ – are collaborating with domestic policymakers, practitioners, researchers, activists and other interested parties – the ‘Stakeholder Group’ – to co-create national strategies to guide their work.

This website hosts the work of the Irish partners.

project purpose

The purpose of the project is threefold:

  • to contribute towards refocusing European criminal justice systems, agencies, policies and practices around restorative principles and processes;
  • to share successful strategies used in different countries to develop law, regulation, policy, practice and public awareness around restorative justice; and,
  • to determine how the Council of Europe Recommendation CM/Rec(2018) concerning restorative justice in criminal matters, adopted in October 2018, could be used as a vehicle to support this work.

The project involves ten participating jurisdictions: Albania, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, the Republic of Ireland and Scotland. In each, between two and four persons, drawn from policy, practice, academia and civil society, are acting as Core Members. At a European level, RJS4C is coordinated by Dr. Ian Marder (Maynooth University Department of Law), Gert Jan Slump (Restorative Justice Nederland) and the European Forum for Restorative Justice.

Image credit: Designed by Lindsey Pointer & Illustrated by Phil Dickinson

Case Studies & Service Mapping

Case Studies & Service Mapping

Activities in Partner RJS4C Jurisdictions

In 2019, Core Members organised national meetings which brought together their Stakeholder Groups in order to help co-create a local strategy for the development of restorative justice in that country. For example, meetings of national stakeholder groups were held in Utrecht in June 2019, Rome in July 2019, Tallinn in August 2019 and Edinburgh in December 2019. Core Members have also organised a number of international conferences on restorative justice (e.g. in Prague in October 2019, Limerick in November 2019 and Tallinn in November 2020). In January 2019, the Polish group launched its new Facebook page to support their campaign, and in June 2019, Ireland and Scotland published their national strategies. In 2020, the Czech group launched a national institute of restorative justice.