Results at a glance: Evaluation of the Indigenous Justice Program

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The Indigenous Justice Program (IJP) is a federally-led initiative that is cost-shared with all thirteen provinces and territories and delivered in partnership with Indigenous communities. The Program has been in operation for 30 years, since 1991. The overall objective of the Program is to address the overrepresentation of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system (CJS), both as offenders and as victims.

The Program’s two funding components were included in the evaluation, namely the Community-Based Justice Fund and Capacity-Building Fund.

What was found

Recommendations

Recommendation 1: The Indigenous Justice Directorate, in collaboration with provincial, territorial and community partners, develop a compendium of training, resource materials and best practices available to Community Justice Workers.

Recommendation 2: The Indigenous Justice Directorate, in collaboration with federal, provincial and territorial partners, identify program-level initiatives to help address systemic inequities in the criminal justice system.

About the evaluation: The Evaluation of the Indigenous Justice Program was conducted by the Department of Justice Evaluation Branch and covered fiscal years 2016-17 to 2020-21. Its main objectives were to examine the relevance, effectiveness and efficiency of the Program, in accordance with the Treasury Board’s Policy on Results (2016). A planned recidivism study and comparative costing analysis could not be completed in the evalution timeframe. They will be completed at a later date.