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CCJG Activity Group Network

Groups of Friends locally are engaged in a range of activities arising from their concern about the criminal justice system, crime and community justice, and restorative justice. Some groups are already in touch with the Crime, Community and Justice Group (CCJG), but few are in touch with one another, and the idea is growing that a network of local groups would be welcomed.

This new Activity Group Network is available to any and all local Quaker groups engaged in any kind of activity related to the criminal justice system and the people it affects. It is intended to complement Quakers in Criminal Justice: the informal network offering mutual support for individual Quakers working in various branches of the criminal justice system.

To support Activity Groups individually and collectively as a Network, CCJG offers:

Practical help

A network contact list 

for all the local Activity Groups which you can use amongst yourselves to keep in touch with one another, and to help new groups become part of this Network.

E-mail distribution to the Network

via the CCJG staff member, so that the minutes/notes of your group's meetings, publicity about your activities, and reports of your events etc can be sent quickly to other groups in the Network.

Information about CCJG's activities 

such as our briefings, responses to policy consultations and other documents as soon as they are published, as well as information about the bodies we have links with.

Links to other bodies, including:

  • Churches' Criminal Justice Forum: an ecumenical body, part of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, which holds twice-yearly open networking meetings
  • Restorative Justice Consortium: a national body which promotes the use of restorative justice in the criminal justice system and elsewhere.
  • Circles UK: the new national umbrella body for Circles of Support and Accountability around the country.

Opportunities to get together 

through QPSW conferences; CCJG will also help you host an annual event for the Activities Network at Friends House.

Speakers  

we contribute to the QPSW programme of speakers who are happy to visit local meetings and groups, and we can usually provide someone to talk about restorative justice, Circles of Support and Accountability and other aspects of community justice.

Publications

Responses to government consultations

CCJG uses the opportunities provided by public consultations issued by the government and related bodies to express Quaker concerns about the criminal justice system, and particularly to promote the use of restorative justice processes within it. You may find it interesting to read these and/or to use them yourselves in similarly responding to consultations.

Local activity group activities

A CCJG briefing which describes some of the things activity groups do, with some contacts to help you do them.

Women in prison and the children of imprisoned mothers

A briefing from the joint project undertaken by CCJG, Quaker United Nations Office, Geneva (Geneva) and Quaker Council for European Affairs. Published August 2007.

What is 'community justice'?

An outline of Crime, Community and Justice Group's own current thinking on how to define this now widely used term within the context of Quaker faith and practice.

Quakers and restorative justice

A CCJG briefing which offers some definitions, examples and ways in which Friends can promote restorative justice approaches to dealing with offending behaviour.

"What Can I Do?"

Published by Churches' Criminal Justice Forum, this lists ways in which individuals can volunteer in areas of the criminal justice system in England & Wales, and in Scotland.

[All are available in printed form and via e-mail, free of charge, from CCJG].

To join the CCJG Activity Group Network, contact: 

Paula Harvey,
Programme Manager
QPSW Crime, Community and Justice Group
Friends House,
Euston Road,
London NW1 2BJ

Tel: 020 7663 1036 (direct line and voice mail)

Fax: 020 7663 1049

E-mail: paulah@quaker.org.uk

Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) is part of the central organisation of Quakers in Britain, and its Crime, Community and Justice Group (CCJG) supports Friends in Britain Yearly Meeting in making their witness in the area of crime and community justice, and represents Quakers publicly in the area of crime and community justice.