What We Do

Improve Criminal Justice Systems

Criminal justice systems protect human rights and civil and political liberties. In many parts of the world, people struggle daily with poor access to justice. Ill-equipped and poorly trained authorities often do not have the means to tackle violent crime, corruption, or a lack of security. JES’ work focusses on building the capacity of justice systems worldwide.

We do this by:

• • Diagnosing the needs and issues
• • Creating country appropriate training resources and procedures to provide needed skills and policies
• • Creating an implementation plan for system change (training strategy, new procedures, support resources)
• • Coaching and evaluation

Increase Access to Justice for Women, Girls and Marginalized People

Women, girls and marginalized people are disproportionately affected by injustices across the world. In many countries domestic violence and rape are seldom reported due to a lack of trust in the justice system and poor track record in convicting the perpetrators.

Criminal justice systems are also often unprepared to effectively deal with issues surrounding these disproportionate injustices. JES addresses these challenges by:

• • Training authorities on how to deal with violence against women, minorities, and marginalized people, and the discriminatory practices that target them.
• • Working with local authorities on how to effectively process forensic evidence, and manage and resolve cases.
• • Producing training materials tailored to local requirements on topics such as domestic violence and other forms of violence against women and minorities.
• • Producing written handbooks specifically designed to address the challenges faced by women and marginalized people.
• • Measuring gender-based statistics in our projects.
• • Prioritizing the participation of women and minorities in our work worldwide.
• • JES is currently developing future project proposals with a focus on access to justice for women and children.

Provide Public Legal Education and Information

Hand in hand with building capacity in criminal justice systems, it is essential for the public to understand how their justice system works, what their rights are, and how to access justice services.

JES helps the public understand their justice system by:

• • Developing educational and training materials with clear and straightforward information, tailored to specific groups in different countries;
• • Helping build access to legal assistance and needed support; and 
• • Producing websites, networks, and training sessions that help make legal processes accessible and understandable, and break down barriers of fear, intimidation, and lack of awareness.

JES is currently developing future project proposals with a focus on access to justice for women, minorities, and marginalized people.