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Victim Impact Grant Awards

This project will provide $1 million in grants per year for two terms ($2 million total) to eligible nonprofit organizations to fund victim impact programs in one or more California State Institutions. The grant period begins on July 1, 2022 and ends on June 30, 2024.

The purpose of the Victim Impact Grants is to provide grant funds to eligible nonprofit organizations for delivery of victim impact programs at one or more California State Institutions.

Victim Impact programs are victim-focused restorative justice programs provided by volunteers/community based organizations. These programs must employ restorative justice principles, have an emphasis on offender accountability, and provide opportunities for offenders to understand the impact of the harm caused by crime.

Below are the Victim Impact Grant Recipients:

Program Name: EPP

Institution: CCWF

The Enneagram is a dynamic tool that maps out nine (9) fundamental personality types of human nature and their complex interrelationships. This tool helps to identify the unconscious cognitive, emotional, and behavioral strategies that underlie everything that we do. EPP certified guides use the Enneagram to inspire personal transformation for participants to become aware of themselves, manage their emotions, build emotional intelligence, engage in healthy interactions and relationships with others, and find their way back to their innate inner goodness and light. Participants benefit from these classes through increased self-awareness and self-compassion that yield reducing recidivism, reducing violence against others.

Program Name: GOGI/Victim Offender Accountability Program

Institution: CAL

The GOGI Victim Impact Courses program encourages understanding and awareness of the impact principle throughout the duration of a 24-week program where participants:

  1. Develop insight regarding their involvement in victim impact;
  2. Identify a tangible way to address and repair harm where possible;
  3. Restore – or create – wellness;
  4. Learn to apply positive decision-making tools to guide their daily lives and eliminate victimization.

Program Name: The GRIP Program

Institution: CTF

GRIP is a year-long, evidence-based methodology developed over 24 years of working
with thousands of incarcerated people and many victim/survivors. It is a trauma
informed, Comprehensive Victim Impact/Offender Accountability program that integrates
the latest brain research. GRIP offers students an in-in depth journey that transforms
violent behavior into an attitude of emotional intelligence that prevents re-victimization.

Intensively trained facilitators employ a 308 page curriculum — “Leaving Prison Before
You Get Out” — which has been tested, evaluated, and proven extremely effective for
offenders and, with selected individuals, for victims. Students learn and practice skills to
stop their violence and to understand victim impact, developing emotional intelligence,
mindfulness and deep empathy, over a full year of classes (104 instructional hours)

Program Name: NICST Dog Training Program

Institution: SOL

The NICST prison dog training program rehabilitates rescue dogs to overcome the effects of the dog’s trauma and trains them to be service dogs. This is a voluntary, self-help program inviting participation from the general population. Inmate participants are taught parallels between the trauma of a rescue dog and a victim of crime and actualize their transition from “harming” to “helping”. Underlying program outcomes include understanding harm, personal accountability, rehabilitation, reintroducing compassion, and the ability for the inmate to connect with others outside themselves.

Program Name: Camp Grace

Institution: CCI

Parent & Child Camp Behind Bars brings children to prisons to spend sustained time with their parent over a five-day period. It is completely based on creative writing, art, and music, with the main activity being a family mural. Daily journaling and drumming and dancing are also integral parts of this unique camp. Professional facilitators in each area are brought in to assist the parent and child as they begin to build a family legacy through the various art forms. Inmate parents must be discipline free for one year and participate in a parenting preparation course to qualify for the program.

Program Name: Accepting Responsibility Letter

Program Name: Self-Control

Institution: MCSP

Institution: ASP

The Accepting Responsibility Letter is a victim Impact Program where the offender is asked to write a letter based on his/her life and about the crimes they have committed leading up to their current phase of incarceration. The letter is to be ended by expressing to their victim how incarceration has rehabilitated them up until this point and any remorse that they feel.

The Self-Control Program is a victim impact outreach program that allows the participant to gain control over their desires, emotions and impulses while holding themselves accountable for their actions. This is a 12-week course that includes writing assignments and discussions regarding topics that relate to the crime that was committed. Writing assignments will either be placed in the participants central file or send to the victims in hopes of receiving a victim’s impact statement in response.

Program Name: Sanctuary Program

Institution: SATF

The Victim Impact Sanctuary Program addresses the cause of criminal behavior, the effect crime and incarceration has on direct and indirect victims, empathy for victims, accountability for offender actions, exploration for shame and its contribution to further hurt, and participate in projects to honor and restore victims. Participants will create a Healing Sanctuary project that will be gifted to victim participants who will also have the opportunity to give voice to their experience of harm.

Program Name: Pathways to Freedom

Institution: CIW

Pathways to Freedom provides training in skills such as de-escalating negative emotions, emotional intelligence, and basic leadership skills for inmates. Topics include the importance of honesty and authenticity, respectful communication skills, how to recognize and manage anger and fear, and discovering the thoughts and distortions of thinking that result in emotional responses and how to change that to an appropriate and positive emotional response. The program is presented via large groups and workshops.

Program Name: A New Day

Institution: VSP

A New Day Victim Impact Program is a 35 participant, 6 ½ hour monthly workshop. Seven (7) Legacy Alliance Outreach staff facilitate each workshop along with fifteen (15) law enforcement volunteers. Incarcerated community members and law enforcement intersect throughout a workshop and engage in a healing dialogue. The workshop guides participants in identifying commonalities between the two groups, foster relationships, and prompts shifts in previous perceptions of law enforcement and incarcerated community members. Each month, a new group of ICMs are chosen to participate in the workshop.

Program Name: Houses of Healing

Institution: CHCF

This is a program to prepare lifers and long-term prisoners to facilitate a High Impact Social-Emotional Rehabilitation Program. Trainers will prepare lifers and long-termers to facilitate the Houses of Healing program.

Program Name: Restorative Justice

Institution: CMF

The Traditional Arts as Restorative Justice program will include five interconnected modules led by traditional artists and cultural facilitators designed to rotate concurrently between three cohorts of participants at the same institution. These modules are designed for participants to be able to embody traditional arts practices that are pathways to recognizing, understanding, and implementing Restorative Justice to move beyond trauma.