What is the Winona County Restorative Justice Program?

The Winona County Restorative Justice Program is a community-based program that strives to make a difference in the lives of the youth that are currently in the juvenile justice system. Housed with the MN-Department of Corrections, we take a restorative approach to crime and juvenile offenders. The program first started in 1999 with Community Work Service and the new philosophy of Community Group Conferencing. In 2001, the program expanded its services and now operates an established Mentoring Program and in 2002 added Transition Circles of Support.

Our program’s mission statement is “to expand services to at-risk youth, victims, offenders, families, and the community as a whole by offering an alternative to and within the traditional judicial process”. Too many times juveniles look at their delinquency as hurting only themselves, if anybody, and as the “easy way” to get something they want. They don’t realize how many individuals their crime and behavior affects. In actuality, crime is an act that affects all of us: victims, offenders, family, and the community. Our purpose is to use restorative measures to help juveniles understand who is affected by their actions and to take accountability for their actions. Furthermore, we provide alternative and restorative programming for the at-risk youth in our communities. We aim to make our youth grow to become caring, responsible, and productive adults.