April 2008 Edition

Howard League Commission on English Prisons Today; New Report Highlights Australia’s Use of FGCs in Child Protection Cases; Meet Carolyn Hoyle; Book Review: Restorative Justice and Practices in New Zealand: Towards a Restorative Society.; Website of the Month: Restorative Justice Community

Howard League Commission on English Prisons Today

The Howard League Commission on English Prisons Today (Commission) was established in May of 2007 to explore various issues related to prisons and prisoners including the appropriate use of prisons and best use of community sanctions. To this end, the Commission created a Restorative Justice Working Group. In this article, Dr. Carolyn Hoyle, chair of the working group, describes the work of the Commission related to restorative justice and asks several questions seeking feedback from practitioners around the world.

New Report Highlights Australia’s Use of FGCs in Child Protection Cases

In the child protection arena, family group conferencing (FGC) allows nuclear families, extended family members, and friends discuss concerns about the safety of children and strategies for addressing those. First developed in New Zealand in 1989, FGCs quickly spread to other countries in the early 1990s. In Australia, the first FGC pilot project with child protection was launched in 1992 in the state of Victoria and since then has been implemented in all but one of Australian states and territories. Recently, the National Child Protection Clearing House released an article by Nathan Harris highlighting the FGC development in Australia since 1992. This article summarizes the paper with a link to the full text.

Meet Carolyn Hoyle

Dr Carolyn Hoyle is Reader in Criminology at the Centre for Criminology, and Fellow of Green College, University of Oxford.

Book Review: Restorative Justice and Practices in New Zealand: Towards a Restorative Society.

Restorative justice provides more than a programme in the criminal justice system. It provides a framework that can be applied to and between societies for resolving conflict and responding to many different issues.

Website of the Month: Restorative Justice Community

The Restorative Justice Community (RJC) provides a web based technology framework for the various agencies and organisations working in prisoner re-entry to collaborate and improve services to clients.