Transformation in the Center
A report on the North American survey of Restorative Justice Centers
In 2024, our Community Engagement committee of MDRJN began envisioning a national survey to better understand how restorative justice centers are operating, what the needs are and how we can learn from each other. In the fall of 2025, we embarked upon sending out the survey to RJ centers in the United States and Canada. We are excited to share this report with you, highlighting the work of practitioners and centers all over the continent, and we also recognize the need for much more research. We hope that this survey becomes one of many assessments of practices, cultures and ways of being at centers, and begins challenging conversations around funding.
Want to know more about our key insights and what they mean for Detroit? Stay tuned for more conversations at the LOVE Building and in the community. We need restorative justice centers, healing centers, harm reduction and investment in so many community-based creative solutions, like the Mental Health Roundtable our Divest Invest team is co-creating with mental health providers across the city. We truly believe that people in the community know what they need the best, and believe in building power together in our work.
We invite your dialogue, your questions, your challenges and critiques. Please email us at mdrjn@detroitjustice.org to engage and learn about upcoming opprotunities to engage with the Network.
See DJC's Blog Post & Read the Digital report
On July 7, 2026, we launch our newest survey report, called "Transformation in the Center: A Report on the North American Survey of Community Restorative Justice Centers". We travel to the NACRJ Conference in New Orleans, to introduce the survey to some of the very practitioners who informed its results.
The report analyzes many aspects of operational and programmatic planning and implementation at RJ Centers across the country and respondents run the spectrum from abolitionist-community based orgs to practicing RJ in the context of juvenile justice and court-adjacent work. DJC's survey also studied spaces, logistics, staffing, funding and many other topics we hope are relevant to your work, as RJ and TJ practitioners.
MDRJN Program Manager Lauren Fardig-Diop worked collaboratively with the graphic design team Invisible Engines to bring this research to print. Many members of the Metro Detroit RJ Network, Cultivating Committee, DJC staff and interns offered feedback; as Tricia Hersey, the Nap Minister wisely reminds us, our whole lives are a collaboration. Grateful to the whole community of Detroit.
We hope that this report will draw readers in to ask themselves and their pods how they can support the restorative justice work happening in their communities, and leverage their resources to more robustly fund community-led work. We also hope that practitioners and centers will use this data to help them reflect on best practices, sustainability of their centers, and community care for staff, volunteers as well as community members.
Limited copies are available through contacting mdrjn@detroitjustice.org. A local discussion hosted by MDRJN is coming in the Fall of 2026, as well as follow-up conversations about the report.
Please read the full report below, or see DJC's accompanying blog post here.
Support our work!
Your support and contributions will support our programming initiatives. The MDRJN is a project of and is financially supported by, the Detroit Justice Center, which is a 501(c)3 organization. All donations to the MDRJN will go through the Detroit Justice Center, and are tax-deductible to the fullest extent permitted by law.