Effectiveness - Funding to Support CJCs

The CJC Initiative has had early success. Its funding supported CJCs/IJCs that promoted the use of alternative measures and restorative justice and increased the capacity to offer integrated services in communities. In so doing, this has increased access to community supports that address the root causes of crime. Through the Ad Hoc Committee, the Initiative also undertook work toward a framework for a potential national CJC program.

Enabling the use of Alternative Measures and Restorative Justice

Available data indicates the CJCs’ potential to encourage the use of alternative measures and restorative justice.

Ability to enable use depends on the type of CJC model

The ability of the CJCs to enable the use of alternative measures and restorative justice varies by CJC model and its context.

Early results

The ON CJCs track information on the use of alternative measures, including community-based dispositions, and restorative justice. Early results show that most cases involved the use of alternative measures. The Kenora CJC with its Indigenous target population uses restorative justice in all cases.

Figure 5: ON CJCs’ use of alternative measures (including community-based dispositions) or Indigenous -led restorative justice

Figure 5: ON CJCs’ use of alternative measures (including community-based dispositions) or Indigenous -led restorative justice
Figure 5: ON CJCs’ use of alternative measures (including community-based dispositions) or Indigenous -led restorative justice
Community Justice Centre Alternative measures Restorative justice
Toronto Downtown East Justice Centre 59% 0%
Toronto Northwest Justice Centre 94% 1%
London 60% 13%
Kenora 100% 100%

Increasing the Capacity to Offer Integrated Activities and Services

The Initiative increased funding recipient’s capacity to offer integrated activities and services to target population groups. Engagement sessions contributed to a better understanding of community needs and helped initiate the development of partnerships for potential CJCs.

Ad Hoc Committee

Through the IAID’s management and leadership, the Ad Hoc Committee, implemented as part of the CJC Initiative, emerged as a best practice. The Committee supported capacity development by serving as a forum to learn from other jurisdictions’ experiences, including challenges and promising practices. In addition to facilitating this peer learning, the Committee brought in experts, such as the US Center for Justice Innovation, to share insights on CJCs internationally. The Committee also fostered a vibrant a network, with members reaching out to each other outside of committee meetings for advice and in-person visits. Jurisdictions that were funded for the engagement process continued to attend even after their engagements were completed. These are all signs of the vibrancy of the community formed through the Initiative and the level of interest in CJCs.

Provincial and territorial community engagement sessions

The provincial and territorial community engagement sessions would not have occurred without the federal funding. These sessions allowed provinces and territories to introduce and discuss the concept of CJCs, learn more about community needs, and begin building relationships with various potential partnering organizations.

CJCs/IJCs

For the ON CJCs and BC IJCs, the federal CJC Initiative funding is a proportion of the total funding, with the provincial governments providing most of the funding. As a result, it is difficult to attribute increased capacity to provide integrated services specifically to the federal funding. However, key informants commented that the federal funding was critical to enabling them to expand the partnerships, enhance services, and include new sectors that might not typically see themselves as having a role in criminal justice interventions, such as housing. As one key informant put it, “We would not have been able to work as expansively, as dynamically, and as robustly as we ended up doing.”

The MB CJCs are entirely federally funded; therefore, without this funding, MKO and MMF would not have been able to create their navigation services. Efforts to build and expand partnerships are ongoing.

The networks of organizations are different for each CJC model. They range from complex networks where partnering organizations serve a variety of roles to less complex networks where partnering organizations are primary referral sources. Despite these differences, the evaluation found that all CJCs/IJCs offer integrated services, through connections to justice system actors and by either directly providing or referring to supports across social service sectors, such as health, education, employment, life skills, and housing.

Increasing Access to Community Social Supports to Address Root causes of Crime

By their design and as evidenced by available data, the CJCs increase access to community social supports by connecting participants with relevant supports to address root causes of crime.

Accessibility is reflected in both the number of participants served and the CJCs/IJCs ability to reach their target population.

Participants served or cases handled since receiving federal funding

The statistics below reflect that the CJCs/IJCs are at different stages in implementation (ranging from over three years since receiving federal funding to, in the case of the Red River Métis CJC, less than one year). Taken together, the CJCs/IJCs have provided supports to thousands of participants.

Note: Data is not available for four of the BC IJCs. ON CJCs collect information based on cases rather than participants.

CJCs/IJCs are reaching target populations

The BC IJCs and MB CJCs are reaching their target populations, as 100% of participants who are willing to self-identify indicate that they are Indigenous.

ON CJCs are also reaching their target populations.

Note: Since multiple responses were permitted, the statistics for ON CJCs may exceed 100%.

Evidence of increased access

The evaluation evidence shows that CJCs/IJCs are increasing access to community social supports that address root causes of crime. This is reflected in the wide-ranging supports that participants are offered directly or by referral. These supports address issues related to poverty, trauma, and racism (the key factors identified in the literature that are related to high risks for criminality).

While not all CJCs/IJCs are tracking the extent to which participants are being connected to specific types of services, available information shows that many participants receive relevant referrals.

Reflecting that these population groups are often underserved, the DTE found that 88% of its active participants came without existing connections to programming, supports, or services. The DTE staff made connections to relevant services for most participants who had needs in the following areas (percentages represent participants with that need who were connected to supports):

Other CJCs also made connections to services for many of their clients.

The BCFNJC reported that between January 2024 and March 2025, the IJCs provided referrals to over 1,000 individuals.

Possible impact on recidivism and level of criminal involvement

Although data is limited, there is evidence that by connecting participants to wrap-around community social supports to address root causes of crime, the level of criminal involvement and recidivism rates are lowered among participants.

Early indications for the DTE shows that participants are less likely to re-offend than before, using a pre/post analysis (e.g., 77% of active clients demonstrated desistance from crime). Similarly, TNW results for high-risk 17-year-old participants show a lower recidivism rate (25%) than the provincial average for high-risk youth (61%).

Developing a Framework for a Potential National CJC Program

The Initiative – through the Ad Hoc Committee – has supported progress toward developing a framework for a potential national program.

Role of Ad Hoc Committee and support for current approach

Starting in 2024, the Ad Hoc Committee devoted several meetings to discussions on the development of a framework for a potential national CJC program. Key informants thought the discussions about a potential framework for a national program were very collaborative, providing space for thoughtful exploration of a shared philosophy for CJCs that could inform a potential national framework.

Challenges

Developing a national framework is challenging when the pilot CJCs are at different stages of development and using different approaches. Outcomes and results of the pilot CJCs are not necessarily available yet, and it is difficult to attribute results to the different approaches in ways to support future planning. While the flexibility of the program has major benefits as discussed earlier, that same flexibility complicates strategic planning and analyzing outcomes.