The purpose of this Guide is to help familiarize readers with Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA), a unique and restorative justice-informed approach to the safe community integration of persons who have sexually offended and who typically present as both high-risk and high-need.
To date, CoSA has been researched and evaluated in a number of different jurisdictions, including Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Europe. The results are presented in this Guide by lead researchers and evaluators of CoSA. The Guide is a presentation of those core elements of CoSA in the favored model. Readers are encouraged to make these core elements the defining features of a CoSA model. It is community-based, volunteer-driven, and professionally guided.