About Harm Repair Program
To reach members of the Harm Repair Team, please email, call or text the following:
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RJP Maine’s Community Harm Repair Program provides an alternative path for community members who are entangled in conflict, perhaps have been harmed by crime or charged with a crime, caused harm, or are referred by law enforcement in lieu of summons or arrest. While holding people accountable for harms caused, this process seeks to put decision making in the hands of those directly affected and offers the opportunity to work collaboratively towards creating an agreement for how things can be made as right as possible.
Staff and trained volunteers facilitate conversations between impacted parties resulting in a concrete list of reparative tasks for the harming parties to complete, often with the support of a trained community volunteer mentor. These 'harm repair agreements' can include material reparations such as restitution or service work benefiting individuals and communities directly affected, as well as more thoughtful projects or activities that help rebuild safety and respect for all involved, reduce shame, and offer hope and companionship to those who need them. Our ‘high accountability/high support’ approach strives to convey 'you matter' to every participant. 92% of RJP Maine’s harm repair agreements are successfully completed.
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Overwhelmingly this process works: it gives people directly affected by wrong-doing and crime a voice in the process, increases insight of the person who caused harm into the wide-ranging impacts of offense, and engages the affected community in planning for rebuilding its own safety. It may also reduce expensive jail time and long-term repercussions of system involvement. The economic impacts of restitution paid, decreases in post-traumatic symptoms, and increases in social capital that our harm repair processes offer yield significant individual and communal dividends.
In the last fiscal year RJP Maine engaged approximately 750 community members in Waldo, Knox, Lincoln, and Sagadahoc Counties in harm repair processes for the 47 adults and 60 juveniles that were referred to us for causing harm. Trained volunteer facilitators and mentors supported more than ⅓ of the cases referred, while the remainder were facilitated and supported by RJP staff. |