Terry O’Connell is the Australia Director of Real Justice. He spent 30 years with the New South Wales Police Service and is best know as the ‘cop from Wagga Wagga’ who developed the Real Justice conference script.

Since 1990, Terry has made a significant contribution to restorative justice.  Instrumental in developing the Australian conference model, Terry has trained police (Reintegrative Shaming Experiments project in ACT, Australia) and justice officials (South Australia) as well as teachers in Queensland and New South Wales.  

In 1994, he was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to research victim/offender programs in North America, United Kingdom and South Africa. While in Pennsylvania, Terry made a presentation on conferencing.  After hearing Terry’s presentation, Ted Wachtel established the Real Justice organisation.

Similarly when Terry visited the UK, Sir Charles Pollard who was the Chief Constable, Thames Valley Police invited Terry to train his police in restorative practices. The Thames Valley restorative justice experience has since become an important influence within youth justice in the UK.

In 1995, Terry established and managed a Restorative Justice Group in his own Police Service. This group used restorative approaches for dealing with internal complaints, conflicts and grievance issues. Terry had nearly 16 years as a senior elected Police Union Official in New South Wales (14,000 members).

Since 1995, Terry has been involved in promoting restorative conferences for serious crimes. One of the better known example is protrayed in the Australian documentary “Facing The Demons’ in which Terry facilitated a murder conference. This work was influential in the New South Wales Corrective Services' 1998 decision to establish its own Restorative Justice Unit specialising in restorative conferences for serious crimes.  

In 2000, Terry (with his colleague Matt Casey) provided training to police, schools and various community and aboriginal groups in the Northern Territory (Australia) as a governmental alternative to mandatory sentencing.

Terry has a degree in Social Welfare. For his work, Terry has received several prestigious awards:

• Order of Australia Medal

• Paul Harris Fellowship (Rotary International)  

• Fourth Michael Franz Basch Memorial Award from the Silvan Tomkins Institute, Pennsylvania.

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The greatest challenge is to move restorative justice thinking and practice from a narrow programatic focus to a set of broader philosophical insights and normative practices.

This requires moving to a set of explicit practices so there is a clear rationale for why we do what we do, and importantly, so we are certain of making a difference.

For example, around family violence, restorative justice is seen only in terms of a discrete conference. Yet my own practice very often does not involve a conference, but rather a restorative journey in which I engage all stakeholders so they are able to tell their story.

In schools, there is a need to promote restorative practices in a ‘normative way’ to ensure that the emphasis is on modeling healthy behaviours to promote stronger relationships, not a fixation about problematic behaviours.

We cannot be effective as practitioners unless we are able to integrate  restorative justice principles and practice into our own lives and professional practices.

--Terry O'Connell

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Leading Edge.  Terry’s restorative work has now broadened to include:

•  Family violence

• Institutional and other sexual abuse

• Schools

• Organisational and institutional practices.

 

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Reach Terry O'Connell at terryoconnell@realjustice.org

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