Association for Participatory Criminal Justice (AJPP)

The Association for Participatory Criminal Justice (AJPP) is a local nongovernmental organization, registered in 2017, which promotes reforms to improve criminal law, criminal justice, at the national level, and to develop the elements of restorative justice. The key goals are: • Ensuring the cooperation between professionals from criminal justice and social service systems; • Involving specialists from criminal justice system in promotion and implementation of restorative justice elements; • Strengthening the fundamental rights and promoting criminal justice principles in order to ensure the rule of law. The mandate of the NGO’s bodies is established for 7 years (the statute has been modified in July 2022). The geographic coverage of the AJPP activity regards all regions of the Republic of Moldova. The organisation is interested in the implementation of projects regarding criminal justice field, lato sensu, by promoting alternatives to detention for children and adults in conflict with the law. In particular, the main activities are related to probation and penitentiary systems, as well as mediation involving children and youth in conflict with the law. The most important activities, implemented since 2017: • Improving legal framework on pre-sentence reports and training probation officers in the field • Developing, implementing and adjusting probation programs for children and adults in conflict with the law (during the period of 2019-2023, up to 100 children completed the probation program “Civic education and Vocational Training” developed by APCJ in 2018) • Training probation officers on needs and risk assessment conducted within the system • Developing and adjusting behavioural programmes for children and juveniles in detention • Identifying and purchasing the instrument on clinical evaluation of children in detention (PCF –personality clinical form) and training psychologists from penitentiary system • Organizing round tables with judges and prosecutors