Releasing the potential of restorative justice: available, accessible & adaptable!

Restorative Justice Week 2022

20-26 November 2022 - Join the global campaign & celebration !

As the key theme for this year's Restorative Justice Week (#RJWeek, 20-26 November 2022) the EFRJ highlights the significance of 'access to restorative justice', and uses the slogan: "Releasing the potential of restorative justice: available, accessible & adaptable!"

Today hundreds of thousands people affected by harm cannot access the benefits of restorative justice for a number of reasons, and we think this should change.

We invite our members to use this week for celebration, raising awareness and to organise their events or campaigns linked to this topic, to help make the message more recognised!

What to do?

Read the Access to Restorative Justice brief to get a good summary of the key issues linked to the topic.
Join the online campaign, by sharing information (on restorative justice, on the significance of granting equal access to restorative justice, and on current #RJWeek events), and messages! Use the hashtags: #RJWeek #ReleasingThePotentialOfRestorativeJustice #AcccessToRestorativeJustice
Organise your local event or campaign - and inform us, so we can spread the word!
As every year, the EFRJ will gather and give visibility to all contributions to the week. Submit your event or campaign details below.
Check our shared calendar below about the happenings, events and campaigns and join the ones near to you!

Please contact us if you:

Need advise for organising your Restorative Justice Week event.
Want to publish your Restorative Justice Week event on our website or other communication channels.
Want just to inform us about your Restorative Justice Week initiative or have other questions about the this year's Restorative Justice Week or previous celebrations.

Restorative Justice Week 2021

21 - 28 November 2021

Protect and Empower the Person Harmed

In 2021 the EFRJ highlights the potential of restorative justice for victims as the key theme of the Restorative Justice Week 2021 (#RJWeek).

Restorative justice processes have a great potential to empower victims and survivors of crime, and to offer them closure. There is more and more understanding of how restorative justice can serve victims of different types of harm, including serious cases. Yet, restorative justice is still not accessible widely to all victims in every country. That is why the EFRJ puts this topic at the heart of the 2021’s Restorative Justice Week campaign.

The international Restorative Justice Week provides a unique opportunity every year to focus public attention on restorative justice, to the benefits it can create for the society, and to bring together communities globally and locally that are committed to address injustices and harm in a humane way.

Communication tips

Download the banner for the Restorative Justice Week 2021 and use it to promote and communicate about your event.

Use #RJWeek and #RJWeek2021 in social media to communicate about your event.

EFRJ Contributions

	Day dedicated to	What will happen?	Other relevant events happening (outside the RJWeek)
Saturday 20	Restorative Justice for Children	If you are curious about the specificities of restorative justice applied in a child-friendly way, take a look at our webpage dedicated to this topic with plenty of information, materials and recommendations	World Children’s Day
Sunday 21	Official start of the RJWeek	Opening the Restorative Justice Week In collaboration with the NACRJ we are making publicly accessible the recordings of our earlier webinars from the series "International Restorative Relations". The three videos will be accessible on the page of the series until the end of November! Trauma informed restorative approaches (with Joe Brummer, USA; Claudia Christen-Schneider, Switzerland) Police, community and youth relationships (with Remko de Boer, The Netherlands; Emma Goddard, UK; Vanessa Westley, USA; Micah Johnson, USA) Restorative responses to LGBTQ+ hate crime (with Mark Walters, UK; Malin Roiha and Ignacio Elpidio Domínguez Ruiz, Spain; Jasmyn Story, USA)
Monday 22	The significance of Values and Standards in RJ processes	On this day, the EFRJ will launch its "Manual on Restorative Justice Values and Standards for Practice". Between 10 - 11 am. Read more and join here the event. (pre-registration not required)
Tuesday 23	Restorative Justice for Victims of Anti-LGBT and Hate Crime	On this day we will share quotes from victims of anti LGBT+ hate crime that was gathered in the LetsGoByTalking project.
Wednesday 24	Access to Restorative Justice	5 - 6 pm CET we will have a live keynote talk by Tim Chapman: Victims’ Experiences of Access to and Participation in Restorative Justice: some interim findings from a narrative research project. Registration not required, just join the session here.
Thursday 25	Restorative Justice for Victims of Domestic and Sexual Abuse	On this key topic, the EFRJ will launch the screening of the film "Another Justice" (only for REstART 21 registered participants - registration is free of charge) and we invite you to don't miss the CJPE Webinar on "Managing Sexual Offenders" happening on 30 November.	International Day of the Elimination of the Violence Against Women (UN)
Friday 26	The Significance of the Collaboration with the Judiciary in Offering Restorative Justice	We will share the updated information from our RE-JUSTICE project and inspiring video excerpts produced in the project.
Saturday 27	RJ Responses to Traumas Caused by the Covid-19 Pandemic	Since the beginning of the pandemic, several events and initiatives had been organised by the EFRJ and other restorative justice services to discuss how to adapt restorative justice practices and skills to these special moments we are living. We are launching a collection of materials related to this issue and we are making publicly available the recording of our webinar "A restorative city in times of a pandemic" (May, 2021).
Sunday 28	Official end of the Restorative Justice Week	Looking back at the events of the RJWeek. Did you attend any of the events? Watched a film? Read an article released for the week? Share your thoughts with us or directly on social media (with using the #RJWeek hashtag!)
Tuesday 30		Criminal Justice Platform Europe webinar with CEP on the Council of Europe (CoE) Recommendation regarding the assessment, management, and reintegration in the community of individuals accused or convicted of sexual offences.

Little History

It all started in 1975 in England, where prison chaplains launched a day to remember incarcerated people, the ‘Prisoner’s Sunday’. The idea was then spread in other countries and 20 years later it become the ‘Prisoner’s Week’.
Finally, in 1996 Canada expanded the prisoner’s week into the ‘Restorative Justice Week: Community, Victims, and Prisoners’, later shortened to ‘Restorative Justice Week’.
Nowadays, the International RESTORATIVE JUSTICE WEEK (#RJWeek) takes place every year all over Europe and beyond. The European Forum for Restorative Justice joins the annual international campaign since 2000 with initiatives organised by the Secretariat and by sahring information on events launched by our members!

In 2021 we already celebrate the 25th Restorative Justice Week!

The ‘Prisoner’s Week’ is still celebrated and in Belgium the national prison week and our international Restorative Justice Week are celebrated with a good collaboration between the EFRJ and local organisers working in prison settings: for example, in 2017 their theme is about family members of prisoners, something where restorative justice can have a proper say.

Help us collect and map events organised to celebrate the Restorative Justice Week in 2021.

We encourage our members to organise their local events, and help us make the extended network of restorative events visible by sharing information on what is happening at different locations around Europe and beyond.
If you are organiser of a local event (or several), please provide us information via this form. (We will keep updating our map of events until the end of the week!)

RJ week 2020

Next restorative justice week will be the 16-22 November 2020!

Please contact Bálint Juhasz if you:

Need advise for organising your RJ Week event.
Want to disseminate your RJ Week activity within our network.
Want to publish your RJ Week event in our event page.
Want just to inform us about your RJ Week initiative or have other questions about the RJ Week.

Restorative Justice Week 2020

15 - 22 November 2020

The international Restorative Justice Week provides a unique opportunity every year to focus public attention on restorative justice, to the benefits it can create for the society, and to bring together communities globally and locally that are committed to address injustices and harm in a humane way.

RJ week 2019

The European Forum for Restorative Justice (EFRJ) launched 6 short videos (one for each day of the RJ week), with interviews with some of our Board members responding to the question “Why does RJ matters?“. You can watch them here:

Tim Chapman
Roberto Moreno
Patrizia Patrizi
Edit Törzs
Bart Claes
Annemieke Wolthuis

Also, the EFRJ published a booklet about environmental justice that you can find here.

Booklet "Environmental justice: restoring the justice"

Download

RJ week 2018

18-25 November 2018.

For this event, the European Forum of Restorative Justice (EFRJ) launched the film “Expanding the restorative imagination” based on interviews taken during its 10th international conference in Tirana (8 minutes) as well as "Re-storying a terrorist tragedy: The encounter" and "Re-storying a Greek tragedy: Electra meets Clytemnestra" produced for the workshop session “The theatricality of human drama and restorative justice”, presented by Katerina Soulou (EFRJ board member) in collaboration with Evdokimos Tsolakidis (Theater of Changes).

The EFRJ also launched the European Restorative Justice Policy Network. The event brought together representatives of the ministries working in restorative justice, penal mediation and/or criminal justice legislation from all European member states. The aim was to share experiences, reforms, best practices and challenges in member states; to make European policy makers aware of new research outcomes, innovative practices and international policy matters regarding restorative justice; to learn about needs and how the EFRJ could further develop (policy) development; and to provide a forum for discussion.

On 20 November morning the group visited the Belgian mediation service Mediante, directed by Antonio Buonatesta, one of the EFRJ founders and active member of the EFRJ, who presented the work of the organisation and the application of restorative justice in serious crime.

The EFRJ also launched a series of postcards, based on the artworks of Lee Anderson, an artist from the UK who joined us in Tirana for drawing some of the workshop sessions.

RJ week 2017

19-26 November 2017

Among others, the European Forum for Restorative Justice (EFRJ) launched the film ‘A Conversation’ (played by No Theatre) based on a real meeting between two families after a case of rape and murder.
EFRJ also published a booklet including articles on research and practical experiences on the use of arts in RJ (either as a communication tool or for raising awareness), following the June issue of the EFRJ Newsletter.

RJ week 2016

20-27 November 2016

The European Forum for Restorative Justice organised a series of activities bringing together arts, justice and storytelling. These activities were not only for passively experiencing and ‘consuming’ stories, but also for sharing and creating them, such as a master class on theatre as a restorative tool, a cartoon workshop and a digital storytelling workshop.

Read the stories about RJ we collected from all around Europe and beyond!