Our Mission / Mandate
Effective, Just and Humane Responses to Crime, its Causes and Consequences In furtherance of its Mission, the Society:
- Provides for the effective integration into the community of those in conflict with the law, and provides, or encourages others to provide, services to those in conflict with, or affected by the Criminal Justice System.
- Promotes changes in social policy, the law and the administration of justice which will lead to more humane and effective treatment of individuals.
- Promotes citizen awareness of the problems of crime and its causes, acceptance of responsibility to respond to these problems, and involvement in the delivery and management of justice related programs.
- Promotes the fair and humane treatment of all incarcerated persons and seeks to ensure that all forms of detention and imprisonment comply with relevant legal and human rights standards.
Guiding Principals
Crime:
- Must be responded to in a just and humane manner.
- Is best understood as interaction between persons and their environment and dealt with through measures which resolve conflicts, repair harm, and restore peaceful relations in society.
- Is reduced through interventions which address the personal, social and economic factors underlying crime and through interventions which assist offenders and those at risk of offending to live constructively in the community.
- Requires solutions which involve the broader community and focus on prevention and rehabilitation interventions.
Individuals:
- Have intrinsic worth.
- Must be treated with dignity, equality, confidentiality, fairness and compassion.
- Have a right to self-determination without infringing on the rights of others.
- Have the capacity of change.
- Have the right to be informed about, and involved in, the criminal justice system.
Our Strategic Plan
The management structure of JHS Ottawa underwent significant changes in 2008/2009. Organizational restructuring was an inevitable eventuality after a period of such growth as we experienced in both programs and personnel. Through processes of reclassification, collaboration and competition, five directors were identified with responsibilities for the three service departments—Adult Justice Services, Youth Justice Services, and Employment and Training; the agency’s administration, including Finances, Human Resources and Information Technology; and, clinical issues related to service development and delivery, and evaluation of program effectiveness.
The goal in the first year and through the following two years is to achieve an organizational structure characterized by:
continuous improvement informed by our mission, reflection, research, and our vision for the agency;
responsibility and accountability of our agency and ourselves to our clients, our colleagues, our community, our history, our funders, and our respective professions and their related fields; and,
clarity and consistency in processes that govern and guide action at the levels of board, management, department, program and practitioner.
Toward this goal, the Directors, including the Executive Director, established these targets for this first year:
- to ensure the activities of restructuring are planned, managed and phased in;
- to standardize processes and procedures of existing centralized policies;
- to determine a clinical strategy that captures application and evaluation for youth and adult justice services;
- to develop a marketing strategy to promote our spectrum of services to nontraditional community partners and funders; and,
- to increase and strengthen our financial capacity.
The Directors’ team will continue to meet biweekly in the coming year to accomplish the goal of organizational restructuring through activities that achieve these targets.
