Restorative Practice

THE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF TIM NEWELL, RETIRED PRISON GOVERNOR

Justice should strive towards•Inviting full participation and consideration•Healing what has been broken•Seeking full and direct accountability•Reuniting what has been divided•Strengthening the community to prevent further harm

Characteristics include

•Future looking not past focused•Considers needs that are to be healed, needs to be repaid, what needs to be learned in the wake of a crime•What should be strengthened if such things are not to happen again

PrinciplesThree principles through which restorative justice works are -•the principle of repair – justice requires that we work to heal victims, offenders and communities that have been injured by crime•the principle of stakeholder participation – victims, offenders, and communities should have the opportunity for active involvement in the justice process and as fully as possible.•the principle of transformation in community and government roles and relationships – the relative roles and responsibilities can be rethought, and this might be the most challenging aspect of restorative justice. In promoting justice, government is responsible for preserving a just order, and community for establishing a just peace.

My experience• as a Borstal Housemaster (face to face)

•As Deputy Governor, Leeds Prison, and Governor of Winchester Prison (raising awareness)

Forgiveness Project - John

Forgiveness Project - Marian

Forgiveness Project - David

Grendon Prison, therapeutic community

Restorative Justice in Prisons

Ministry of Justice Evaluation: Does restorative justice affect reconviction? The fourth report from the evaluation of three schemes

Shapland, J et al (2008) Restorative Justice: Does Restorative Justice affect reconviction. The fourth report from the evaluation of three schemes. Ministry of Justice Research Series 10/08. London: Ministry of Justice

In June 2008, the Ministry of Justice released its final report into the Restorative Justice trials that began in 2001.The concluding report covers the results of the research regarding the impact of RJ on reconviction rates as well as how cost effective the intervention is.

The report shows:A significant decrease in the frequency of reconviction over the following two years, looking over all the trials, schemes and groups. Offenders’ reoffending decelerated.A large impact on the JRC Northumbria court property trial that there was a reduced likelihood and severity of reoffending for the following two years against the control group - and significantly fewer reconvictions for the JRC Northumbria site as a whole.RJ can produce costs savings - from £1 per £1 spent on RJ to £9 per £1 spent on RJ depending on the setting.

Escaping Victimhood

Circles of Support and Accountability

New Leaf Providing help to short term offenders

Thames Valley Restorative Justice Service

People•Barbara Tudor•Lesley Moreland•Marian Partington•John and David•Circles volunteers•Mentors•Claire Chung

33rd Annual Police ConferenceThe Limits of Criminalisation

Rehabilitation, Punishment or Informal Social Controls?

33rd Annual Police ConferenceThe Limits of Criminalisation

Rehabilitation, Punishment or Informal Social Controls?

• Making sense of crime & criminalisation

• Punishment

• Social control

• Rehabilitation

33rd Annual Police ConferenceThe Limits of Criminalisation

Rehabilitation, Punishment or Informal Social Controls?

Punishment

• Whatever else punishment achieves it does not aid rehabilitation either through prison or within the community – it often makes the rehabilitative endeavour even more difficult

• Prison as a metaphor for punishment gives it a political currency which leads to a penal arms race and high levels of incarceration which achieve little but closes down the more imaginative use of scarce resources

• It corrupts community supervision by perpetually trying to recreate the conditions of

imprisonment within the community.

33rd Annual Police ConferenceThe Limits of Criminalisation

Rehabilitation, Punishment or Informal Social Controls?

Social Control

In England and Wales there are over 300,000 individuals subject to the formal control of the criminal justice system. In the USA the situation is frightening - 1 in 45 citizens is subject to correctional supervision in the community and if you are a young black man you are more likely to be in prison that in university.

33rd Annual Police ConferenceThe Limits of Criminalisation

Rehabilitation, Punishment or Informal Social Controls?

Rehabilitation

Supervision is not about correcting offenders so that we can reinsert them into solid society but rather supporting service users and communities in working out how to travel together towards better lives

McNeill 2012 (emphasis in original)