Restorative Justice: A practice whose time
has come
Quakers in Criminal Justice Conference
22-24 February 2013
Marian Liebmann
Definition of Restorative Justice
Restorative processes bring those harmed by
crime or conflict, and those responsible for the
harm, into communication, enabling everyone
affected by a particular incident to play a part in
repairing the harm and finding a positive way
forward.
(Restorative Justice Council, UK 2012)
Principles of Restorative Justice
•
Victim support and healing is a priority
•
Offenders take responsibility for what they have done
•
Dialogue to achieve understanding
•
Attempt to put right the harm done
•
Offenders look at how to avoid future offending
•
The community helps to re-integrate both victim and
offender
Importance of Restorative Justice
We have a punitive system:
• Prisons full to bursting
• Prisoners re-offend very quickly
• Victims’ needs are not met
Processes of Restorative Justice
• Victim-offender mediation – bringing victim & offender together
• Restorative conferencing – larger groups using ‘script’
• Family group conferencing – family private time
• Victim-offender groups – e.g. burglary victims and burglars
• Reparation – putting things right for victim or community
Benefits of Mediation/ Conferencing Victims
• Put a face to the crime
• Ask questions of the offender
• Express their feelings
• Receive an apology/ reparation
• Educate offenders about the effects of their offences
• Sort out any conflicts
Benefits of Mediation/ Conferencing Offenders
• Own the responsibility for their crime
• Find out the effect of their crime
• Apologise and/or offer reparation
• Reassess future behaviour
Benefits of Mediation/ Conferencing –
Courts and Community
Courts:
• Learn about victims’ needs
• Make more realistic sentences
Communities:
• Accept apologies and reparation
• Help reintegrate victims and offenders
Brief History of RJ in UK
•
1964-79
•
1983-90s
Victim-offender mediation with adults (probation), and
expansion of community mediation (NGOs) - no legislation.
•
1995-now
Growth of RJ with young people. Criminal justice acts 1998 &
1999 introduced some RJ.
•
2008-9
•
2001-2010
Some (muted) interest in RJ with adults. Reports, big
research project 2001-7, criminal justice act 2003.
•
2010-now
New interest from Coalition Government. Training grants for
YOTs (Referral Panel members), probation, prisons, neighbourhood justice
panels.
Start of victim services: compensation and Victim Support.
Youth Restorative Disposal (pilot in 8 police areas)
Fields of Restorative Justice in the UK
• Youth Offending Teams
• Police
• Schools & children’s homes
• Adults
• Prisons
Youth Offending Teams
Opportunities for Restorative Justice
Crime & Disorder Act 1998
• Final Warning; Reparation Order; Action Plan Order; Supervision
Order; Detention & Training Order
Youth Justice & Criminal Evidence Act 1999
• Referral Order and Youth Offender Panels
Criminal Justice & Immigration Act 2008
• Youth Rehabilitation Order with ‘menu’ of options
YOTs: Different Arrangements for RJ
• RJ team within the YOT
• Victim contact workers
• Link with community mediation services (NGOs)
• Community reparation only
• Victim involvement varies from 10% to 70%
• RJ in children’s homes
Case Study (YOT)
Smashed milk crate
Police involvement in RJ
Police diversion pilot
• Youth Restorative Disposal – diversion pilot 2008-9 in 8 police areas
involving RJ
• First (minor) offence
• Evaluated 2011: positive results
• Spread to 25 more police forces
• A few also include adults
• Neighbourhood Justice Panels: 15 pilot areas, now 100 schemes
RJ in Schools
History:
•
1980 Conflict resolution work in schools, leading to peer mediation
schemes
•
1995 First police-based RJ in schools
•
1999-now YOTs take RJ into schools
Work being done:
•
Conflict resolution lessons
•
Peer mediation
•
Restorative conferencing for bullying & exclusions
RJ with Adults in the Community
Criminal Justice Act 2003
•
Conditional caution; Deferred sentence; Community sentence
Lack of resources meant little RJ took place except:
•
Thames Valley Restorative Justice Service (probation)
New initiatives 2012
•
Neighbourhood Justice Panels (volunteers) based on Somerset model
•
Training for prisons and probation
•
Proposed legislation for deferred-sentence RJ and as part of sentence for
first-time offenders
Community mediation services – conflict between neighbours or in community
Case Study (Adult)
Aggravated burglary
RJ in Prisons – Making Amends
• Community service projects – e.g. mending bikes
• Victim awareness (e.g. Sycamore Tree) – Prison Fellowship
• Victim-offender groups – e.g. burglary victims & burglars
• Victim-offender mediation/ conferencing – direct meetings
• SORI project (Cardiff Prison & others) – victim awareness &
victim-offender groups
RJ in Prisons – Relationships in Prison
• Conflict resolution skills
• Adjudications using mediation/ conferencing
• Prisoner conflicts
• Staff-prisoner conflicts
• Training prisoners as mediators
Case Study (Prison)
Robbery at petrol station
RJ in Scotland and Northern Ireland
Scotland
• 1969 Children’s Hearings
• 1987 Victim-offender mediation for adults (3 projects, still exist)
• 2006 RJ for young people widely available
Northern Ireland
• 1998 Loyalist and Republican RJ schemes after ceasefire
• 2002 Northern Ireland Youth Conferencing Service – RJ the norm
New fields for RJ
• Domestic violence
- Cardiff Prison
- Daybreak Project Hants & Greenwich
• Rape cases
- Denmark scheme
- Jo Nodding in UK
• Social Care
- Children’s homes & foster care
- Elderly people’s care
Restorative Justice Council
• Membership organisation
• Quality assurance – practitioners’ & trainers’ registers
• CPD courses
• Resources library
• Publish ‘Best Practice’, quarterly ‘Resolution’, monthly bulletin
• Restorative Services map
• Stories of RJ cases
• Advocacy re RJ
RJ in UK: Summary of Current Situation
•
Juveniles
England & Wales: Youth Restorative Disposals; Referral Orders; Reparation
Orders; Youth Rehabilitation Orders; Children’s homes
Scotland: Children’s Hearings + RJ
Northern Ireland: Youth Conferencing Service
•
Adults in community
England & Wales: Thames Valley Probation; Neighbourhood Justice Panels;
training being rolled out to others
Scotland: 3 projects
•
Prisons
Community service projects; Victim awareness; A few mediation/
conferencing projects; training being rolled out to others
•
Schools
Growing number of schools; moves towards Restorative Cities
Developments in process
• Deferred sentences – amendment to crime bill agreed,
guidance still to be worked out.
• Current training for probation & prisons – but all non-core
NOMS functions (including RJ) to be outsourced.
• Neighbourhood Justice Panels – many different models
• Community Remedy proposed – victims choose from
locally-compiled list of punishments – RJ could be one of
these.
Worldwide Statements
European Union Council Framework Decision (2001)
• Each Member State to implement victim-offender
mediation by March 2006
UN Resolution 2002
• Encourages Member States to draw on RJ principles,
disseminate them and help other States to develop
programmes
RJ in Europe
• Most European countries have had RJ provision for
years
• European Forum for Restorative Justice formed in 2000
Does RJ work?
• General evidence on RJ mostly very encouraging
• Victim and offender satisfaction
• Reduces post-traumatic stress symptoms for victims
• Results for recidivism mostly positive, though somewhat variable
• Important to ensure schemes studied are truly restorative
• Meta-analyses now available give more reliable data
• Confidence in RJ if follow good practice guidelines
(Sherman & Strang: RJ: The Evidence 2007)
Conclusion
Dame Helen Reeves (Victim Support)
‘Restorative justice can only be called restorative if the
victim is actually involved in initiatives to help restore
them.’ (2003)
Some Questions
• Rival views of RJ?
• Re-inventing the wheel? Overlap between
Neighbourhood Justice Panels and Community
Mediation – and other initiatives
• Take-over by a few large training providers?
• Redundancies in YOTs and privatising Probation – how
will this affect implementation?
Contact details
Dr Marian Liebmann
52 St Albans Road
Bristol BS6 7SH
UK
Tel/fax:
E-mail:
+44 117 942 3712
marian@liebmann.org.uk