The Aboriginal Justice Strategy (AJS), now known as the Indigenous Justice Program, supports community-based justice programs that offer alternatives to mainstream justice processes in appropriate circumstances. Created to provide alternatives to the mainstream system, the Indigenous Justice program provides funding to communities through two categories: The Community-Based Justice fund and the Capacity-Building Fund.
Community-Based Justice currently funds 197 community-based programs that serve over 750 communities.he objectives of the Community-Based Justice Fund component are:
to allow Indigenous people the opportunity to assume greater responsibility for the administration of justice in their communities;
to help reduce the rates of crime and incarceration among Indigenous people in communities with cost-shared programs; and,
to foster improved responsiveness, fairness, inclusiveness, and effectiveness of the justice system with respect to justice and its administration so as to meet the needs and aspirations of Indigenous people.
The Capacity-Building Fund is designed to support capacity-building efforts in Indigenous communities, particularly as they relate to building increased knowledge and skills for the establishment and management of community-based justice programs. The objectives of the Capacity-Building Fund are:
to support the training and/or developmental needs of Indigenous communities that currently do not have community-based justice programs;
to supplement the on-going training needs of current community-based justice programs where the cost-shared budget does not adequately meet these needs, including supporting evaluation activities, data collection, sharing of best practices and useful models;
to support activities targeted at improved community reporting in IJP communities and the development of data management systems;
to support the development of new justice programs, paying particular attention to:
the current geographic/regional imbalance in programming;
the commitment to develop new programs in the under-represented program models, such as dispute resolution for civil and family/child welfare; and,
to support one-time or annual events and initiatives (as opposed to on-going projects and programs) that build bridges, trust and partnerships between the mainstream justice system and Indigenous communities.