Restorative justice (RJ) arouses more and more interest among the legal community and non-governmental organizations in Poland. Among Polish cities, the leader in disseminating knowledge about it as well as implementing restorative practices in the activities of local government institutions in cooperation with NGOs, the judiciary and law enforcement agencies, is Wrocław, which has made formal efforts to obtain the title of the Restorative Justice City. To this end, in November 2019, the Restorative Justice Team under the mayor of the city was created, which appointed representatives of local government institutions, municipal guards, non-governmental organizations, and probation officers. Two of its members, Grzegorz Miśta and Honorata Czajkowska, have also represented Poland in the international RJ project called “Restorative justice: Strategies for change” since 2019. The establishment of the Team, however, was only the culmination of activity that has been developing in the city for many years and is based on good cooperation between the aforementioned entities.
In 2016, the city, as part of the local government unit – Wrocław Integration Center – with the participation of the probation court service and the Lower Silesian Local Council for Social Readaptation and Aid for Convicts, initiated the Work for the Local Community – Wrocław Center for Restorative Justice (Pol: WCSN), which became a model project in the field of implementing RJ practices. The main task of the WCSN is the organization of conditions for the performance of socially useful community work by convicts of minor offenses under the penalty of restriction of liberty. Convicts are involved in educational and reintegration activities, receive support from a psychologist and a career counselor, and help in addiction treatment. WCSN works with the perpetrators and the local community, the latter of which it considers to be a victim of hate speech distributed in the form of various writings. In order to activate the residents, an online system of reporting acts of vandalism or hate speech was implemented, which the WCSN transmits to the Municipal Guards and the Police. The perpetrators of such acts perform unpaid community work (over 300,000 hours have already been served), which benefit about 60 entities: schools, kindergartens, libraries, and associations. The socially useful work program fulfills both the social rehabilitation and educational functions, and also serves as compensation for the harm inflicted. According to one of the participants of the research conducted under the LetsGoByTalking project, WCSN is “a model and unique project for several reasons: it is the only one in Poland; it involves several institutions in achieving the goal; the element of residents’ participation plays an important role here.”
For many years, restorative practices have also been used by the House of Peace Foundation, a non-governmental organization cooperating with WCSN and the municipal government, which specializes in mediation, organizes, among others, peer mediation in schools, teaching conflict resolution and communication without aggression. The Foundation also deals with education, having created the Lower Silesian Dialogue Center – a network of organizations involved in dialogue building which is a meeting platform for people from outside large centers. With the financial support of the Wrocław local government, it runs the Mediation Emergency Service for the city’s residents. It also participated in resolving the dispute between the Roma living on an illegal encampment, and the city authorities and residents. The organization continues the Program for Romanian Roma relocated from the encampment to training flats and takes care of them, offering the support of an assistant, access to legal and financial assistance, and working for their integration. It places great emphasis on education in multiculturalism.
The development of RJ is also fostered by scientific and research works undertaken by the Wrocław academic community. At the Faculty of Law, Administration and Economics of the University of Wrocław, the Laboratory for Research on Mediation and Other Alternative Methods of Resolving Disputes in the Public Sphere is being developed, which conducts research on various aspects of the use of mediation in the public sphere. Thanks to the funds from the European Parliament grant in the years 2020-2022, it carries out the project “Mediation and dialogue in the European Union leading to a lasting and socially equitable agreement reached in the conditions of reliable and credible information.” It is a research project, but its important goal is also to influence the social environment of the University, which is why the project’s social partner is involved in the research and dissemination part – it is the Jakub Jasiński High School No. 5 in Wrocław. The project focuses on three issues: establishing and maintaining intercultural cooperation, the ability to mediate, and the ability to identify unfair communication.
The implementation of the idea of RJ in Wrocław is favored by cooperation developed on many levels between various organizations and institutions, practitioners and theorists of the problem. As emphasized on the WCSN website, there are important arguments in favor of Wrocław: human capital, the city’s multicultural identity, the existence of a local government that feels responsible for people at risk of social exclusion, as well as the probation service taking responsibility for carrying out non-isolation penalties and taking the victims’ perspectives into account while proceeding with any action.
Owing to the actions taken, Wrocław had a chance to become the first Restorative Justice City in Poland. It joined this group as the tenth city in the world during the international conference “Restorative City – Building a Bridge of Understanding,” organized on November 8-9, 2021. It is worth mentioning that Wrocław has become a leader not only in terms of disseminating the idea of RJ. As the first city in Poland, in 2020 it was also admitted into the European Coalition of Cities Against Racism, and in July 2021 it joined the European Intercultural Cities program.