HISTORY OF RESTORATIVE JUSTICE CENTRE

The Lagos State Restorative Justice Programme is the brain child of the Criminal Justice Sector Reform Committee, Lagos State aimed at improving the Criminal Justice delivery system by taking minor offences and misdemeanours off the dockets of our criminal courts.

To this extent, the Restorative Justice Project Steering Committee was set up sometime in 2017. The Committee published the Restorative Justice Policy and organized training for volunteer restorative justice mediators/facilitators who will conduct Victim/Offender mediation and work to ensure criminal cases are resolved amicably. Also in 2019, the Honourable Chief Judge of Lagos State issued Practice Directions on Restorative Justice.

The Centre was formally launched on the 29^th May, 2022 and till date (July, 2025), …. number of cases have been referred to the Centre and treated. The Centre continues to get referrals from the Magistrate Courts and the DPP’s office. 

Suffice it to say that the Lagos State Restorative Justice Center is still a work-in-progress and we are growing, learning, and improving every day.

RESPONSIBILTIES AND CORE FUNCTIONS.

• Provide Victims of Crime the opportunity to be actively involved in the outcome of the Process so as to meet their needs for repair of harm done.

• Allow Offenders understand how their act has affected the Victim, provide opportunity to accept responsibility and make amends or repair the harm.

• Give the Community and stakeholders of a crime the access to participate in the outcome of the process.

• Ensure regular meeting of the Steering Committee and other stake holders.

• Determine the most suitable Restorative Justice Process for each case.
• Receive referrals from referring agencies and distributes to appropriate facilitator/Unit

• Training and retraining of Facilitators and referring agencies.

• Keep a proper data on all activities done in the Centre for appropriate use.

• Drafting of Terms of Settlements where matters are finalized and status report when they are Unresolved.

Working with other Restorative Justice agencies i.e CMC, Community Services and the Lagos Multi-door Court House for