Learning from Latvia: Adoption, Adaptation, and Evidence-Based Justice Reform

Abstract

Justice reform through legal technical assistance has emerged since the 1990s as a means to support developing and transition countries to reform governance structures. To date, few studies have examined which aspects of capacity development can best support the adoption, adaptation and local acceptability of international norms within local justice systems. This paper presents the findings of a mixed methods study of 14 Latvian participants involved in a Canadian justice reform project that established the Latvian State Probation Service (SPS). It provides empirical support for the view that development actors must support organizational policies that build the individual capacity required to engage in the reform process.

Keywords:

• legal technical assistance
• justice reform
• mind maps
• mixed methods
• probation
• training
• capacity building
• CEE
• FSU

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my thanks to Simon Verdun-Jones, Lisa Sundstrom, Curt Griffiths, and Yvon Dandurand for their advice, suggestions, and continued support. I would also like to acknowledge the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada and the Latvian State Probation Service for providing documents and additional resources. Finally, this paper has benefitted from the comments and suggestions of the reviewers at JBS and the support and assistance of Dr. Terry Clark.