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Ireland Exploring Further Restorative Justice Implementation

The National Commission on Restorative Justice (Commission) in Ireland has released an interim report on its work to develop a policy framework for expanding the use of restorative justice throughout the country. The report suggests possible pilot projects and describes issues still to be studied.

Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights. Report on Restorative Justice.

The Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women’s Rights of the Houses of the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) undertook the review of restorative justice as a part of its ongoing work of evaluating criminal justice policies. The report considers the work of four restorative justice pilot programmes currently operating in Ireland as well as international experiences. It also includes evidence gathered from a meeting of prominent criminal justice figures held in October 2006.

Houses of the Oireachta. Children Act, 2001.

This legislation contains provisions addressing family welfare conferences and diversion programmes.

Arsovska, Jana. Cost A21: New WG on RJ, Violent Conflicts and Mass Victimisation

A new Working Group within the COST A 21 was established in August 2005. The main objective of the Cost A21 is to enhance and to deepen knowledge on theoretical and practical aspects of restorative justice in Europe. The intention of this Working Group 4 is to provide a better view on whether and how restorative justice can help in bringing more valuable solutions aiming to support people living in various (post)conflict areas. The Working Group will mainly look at a number of conflicts occurring in different regions through the lenses of the UN principles on restorative justice, and it will try to evaluate the relevance and the use of these principles in the different contexts. The Working Group met for the first time in Maastricht (The Netherlands) in October 2005 in order to discuss the agenda for 2005.2006. The next meeting of this group will be in Tel Aviv (Israel) in March 2006 linked to a workshop organised by the Bar Ilan University and that will take place on 5 March. (excerpt)

O’Donnell, Ian. "Crime and Justice in the Republic of Ireland"

Criminology remains underdeveloped in the Republic of Ireland and, although some excellent pieces of scholarship have appeared down the years, an adequate body of knowledge is still some way distant. Despite the limitations of the available information, a number of trends can be discerned. The rate of recorded crime reached a peak in the early 1980s and then fell for four years. This pattern was repeated in the mid-1990s. In 1996 the debate about law and order became hotly politicized. This marked the beginning of a steady increase in the prison population. Despite surging costs, the criminal justice agencies have been slow to embrace a culture of performance management and evaluation. Policymaking is characterized by a mixture of inertia and sudden upheaval.

Moore, Barry and Sweeney, Rose. Interagency Cooperation-- The Way Forward.

The SRSB is an independent statutory body set up under the Children Act 2001. Its functions include liaising with the various agencies and advising the Courts in relation to appropriate accommodation and services for children who offend. This function is carried out in keeping with the ethos of the Children Act: Detention as a last resort. (author's abstract).

King-Irani, Laurie. To Reconcile, or to be Reconciled?: Agency, Accountability, and Law in Middle Eastern Conflicts.

As have other countries and regions around the world, the Middle East has experienced much conflict, injustice, and violence within and between countries of the region over decades. In this paper, Laurie King-Irani asks whether international human rights ideas and laws apply to the region. Should, for example, Middle Eastern countries seek reconciliation and transformation of conflict among their people by dealing with past injustices and human rights violations through one or another of the various mechanisms used in other countries? Or, as King-Irani reports the perspective of a U.S. government official in the late 1990s, should people in Middle Eastern countries reconcile themselves to the realities of life in troubled, autocratic regimes? In this context, and with a focus on addressing injustices in Lebanon and between Israel and Palestine, she uses anthropology to examine moral, legal, and cultural issues relating to impunity, accountability, stereotypes, tribal identities, and politics.

Griffin, Diarmuid. The Juvenile Conundrum - Ireland's Responses to Youth Offending

This essay examines Ireland's treatment of juvenile offenders within the legal system. Legislation in the form of the Children Act 2001 (hereafter the 'Act') provides for drastic reform of the juvenile justice system, yet the procrastination in the implementation of the Act, and the provisions of the Act itself, raise questions of Ireland's treatment of an increasingly stigmatised sector of society. (excerpt)

O'Dwyer, Kiernan. Victim-Offender Mediation with juveniles in the Republic of Ireland.

The European Commission’s Grotius II Criminal Programme initiated a project to address the need for better understanding of victim-offender mediation practices with juvenile offenders and justice systems in Europe. Under this project, studies were contracted and research papers produced to examine the situation in a number of European countries. Each study covered the following matters: norms and legislation allowing for the implementation of VOM programs; theoretical frameworks of VOM centers; organizational structure of VOM centers; categories and profiles of juvenile offenses; professional characteristics and job satisfaction of mediators; and advantages and criticisms of VOM. The papers were presented and discussed at a final seminar in Bologna, Italy, September 19-20, 2003. Within the categories mentioned above, this particular paper surveys victim-offender mediation with juvenile offenders in the Republic of Ireland.

Griffin, Diarmuid. Restorative Justice, Diversion and Social Control: Potential Problems

This paper will highlight some potential dangers of pursuing the use of restorative justice (RJ) for juvenile offenders in Ireland. It will look at penal reforms of the past; in particular it will look at the work of Stanley Cohen and his examination of the development of “community corrections.” Social control theorists, like Cohen, often view changes in penal structures differently to reformists and examine the underlying impact of expanding the social control apparatus beyond the prison system. In this presentation I intend to use the template used by Stanley Cohen in the 70’s to analyse the development of restorative justice in the juvenile justice system. The dangers highlighted by Cohen will then be applied to restorative practices in order to provide a framework for the critique of this approach. While it is acknowledged that the development of such programmes are essential in developing an appropriate response to juvenile offending it is also important to critically discuss these projects to highlight the problems and potential dangers emerging out of their adoption. The focus of the paper will remain primarily on restorative programmes although many of the criticisms discussed can also be levied at diversionary programmes.