For example, RJ City would likely have some standard forms of restorative encounters that victims and offenders could choose from. What would those be and how would they operate? Are there criteria that would guide staff in deciding which options to present? Is there information from current practice that would help us estimate how frequently each one would be chosen? Similarly, is there information available that would suggest how frequently modifications to these standard encounters would need to be made?

Another example: how would we recruit volunteers to participate in the many parts of RJ City’s response to crime? What can we learn from current knowledge about this? What can we assume about attrition rates as volunteers decide after awhile to step back from the work?

A third example: how would safe houses for victims work? Do we have some way of estimating how many victims would use them? Or what services they would need? For how long would they stay? What kind of staffing would be needed, and what sorts of physical design features would we want to include?

There are many such questions. These are what we will be turning to now. Of course, after this there are two other phases (see How Is the Project Organized?).

It should be clear that we will need lots of people with different kinds of expertise to help out. We hope that you will be one of them. You might look through the list of active and proposed Groups to see some of the issues we have identified, and consider whether you could help out with one or two. Or you may notice something that we haven’t considered that you would like to help with. If so, let us know.