RESTORE

An RJ group conference for shoplifting.

Participants will:

witness those who shoplifted take responsibility for their actions.
hear from store employees, police and community members about who is affected by shoplifting and how.
work with those responsible to create a plan for how to repair the harms they caused by shoplifting.

Those who have shoplifted in the city of Longmont may be referred to RESTORE by the Longmont Police Department or Longmont Municipal Court. Those who have shoplifted will meet with up to seven others who have shoplifted, along with an employee from a Longmont store, a Longmont police officer and community member volunteers. Together everyone will hear from the community representatives about how shoplifting affects others and the community. Next, the responsible persons share their experiences and make reparative agreements in break-out circles. The break-out circles are comprised of two responsible persons, their support persons, one community representative and one trained facilitator.

The program aims to:

help those who have shoplifted understand who is affected by their actions and how.
give those affected by shoplifting an opportunity to share their experience and make requests for the responsible person(s) reparative agreement.
enable those who have shoplifted for the first time a diversion from the court system so that they do not have a theft charge on their record.

This model is based on the evidence based practice of restorative justice.