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 Mission Statement: Provide meaningful work service projects for youth offenders that enables them to provide restitution to victims and guides them to establish bonds between themselves and the community. Juvenile Community Justice will provide a service learning experience for youth that integrates critical thinking and civic responsibility, thus enabling them to take part in a program that helps place them back into their communities, where they become an intricate and necessary member.
The Community Justice Corps is designed to provide meaningful work service projects which enable youth offenders to establish a bond between themselves and their community. Work service projects include youth in responsive and challenging tasks that are beneficial to the community and are at the forefront of the mission of the Community Justice Corps. Youth are challenged to work and learn from the projects for which they are responsible. The Community Justice Corps strives to develop projects in cooperation with local community organizations, schools, non–profits, and government agencies.
The face of community work service must change to reflect the increasing need for youth to take responsibility for their actions. Justice should no longer be retributive, but provide the offender with a new perspective on the crime(s) they have committed. There is also a need for youth to feel as if they are an integral member of their community—to be less estranged. Through a variety of work service projects, the Community Justice Corps provides youth with a link between themselves, their actions and their communities.
The Community justice Corps designs and implements projects using the Community–Based Learning Model. This model reflects a broad framework that includes the following components:
- Service Learning
- Experiential Learning
- School–to–Work
- Youth Apprenticeship
- Mentor Shared Learning Programs
The Community–Based Learning approach is defined as a broad set of teaching and learning strategies that enables youth and adults to learn what they want to learn from any segment of the community. By establishing work service that creates strong ties between the community and youth, the Community Justice Corps provides a learning opportunity that challenges a youth’s perspective on community service, and its implications for their future taking a positive direction.
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