State Support Helps Restorative Justice Program Expand Into Lake County

Cook County MN Restorative Justice, which has operated under the Vital North Foundation since 2018, announced plans to reorganize as an independent nonprofit and expand its services into Lake County. The organization will rebrand under the name North Shor as part of the transition.

The expansion arrives in a county that has been steadily building its own alternatives-to-incarceration infrastructure. In August 2021, federal and private grants allowed Lake County to reopen and expand the Living Room Wellness Center, run by the Independence Center, which serves as a crisis center for individuals undergoing acute episodes of mental illness. Under current policy, police handling non-violent offenses may use their discretion to take individuals to the Wellness Center rather than to jail or the emergency department, while retaining the authority to weigh the safety of the individual, themselves, and the community in making that call. The Lake County State's Attorney's Office provides staff to train police on how the center operates.

Beyond crisis diversion, the State's Attorney's Office runs several diversion programs across different case tracks. In the Juvenile Justice Division, the Step-Up Program targets young offenders charged with domestic battery cases involving family members, steering them toward holistic counseling. In the Felony Division, the Alternative Prosecution Program allows individuals charged with non-violent offenses to complete rehabilitative programming in exchange for dismissal of their case. The program is monitored by the Lake County courts and, according to the State's Attorney's Office, should be scaled up.

The office has also claimed measurable progress on equity. According to the State's Attorney's Office, historic racial disparities in diversion outcomes that existed between 2014 and 2020 have been eliminated under the current administration through a shift in philosophy, improved screening, and personnel changes. No supporting data or methodology was made publicly available alongside that assertion.

Public understanding of restorative justice remains a gap the county is working to close. Past focus groups and surveys found that Lake County residents broadly support the principles behind restorative justice but have little familiarity with what the term actually means in practice. To address that, the Gun Violence Prevention Initiative plans to hold community forums, town halls, and stakeholder summits to explain how restorative justice programming works and what programs currently exist within the State's Attorney's Office. The GVPI has also indicated plans to advocate before the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit, though the full scope of that advocacy was not disclosed.

The arrival of North Shor as an independent nonprofit would add a community-rooted voice to that landscape, one with six years of restorative justice practice already behind it.