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| | From Wagga Wagga to Minnesota |
 | | The birth of family group conferencing in New Zealand in 1989 provided me, then a police sergeant in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia, with the initial realisation that there might be a better way of responding to juvenile crime than what we were currently doing. |
 | | I propose to examine the journey from Wagga Wagga in 1991 to Minnesota in 1998, not strictly for its story value, but to recognize significant steps in the journey and individuals, whose leadership, courage and insight has helped to sustain conferencing and bring it to this point. |
 | | The initial development of the Wagga Wagga model of family group conferencing occurred within a community policing context, one with a history of experimentation with a range of innovative local youth initiatives: truancy programs, crime prevention workshops and drug forums for young people. |
| www.restorativepractices.org /library/nacc/nacc_oco.html (4265 words) |
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