England and Wales

Provides a listing of articles on restorative justice developments in England and Wales. Articles appear in the order in which they were added to the site with the most recent appearing first.

The conversation: Does restorative justice work? Yes!

from the interview by Oliver Laughland in The Guardian: The Ministry of Justice is considering increasing the use of restorative justice – in which offenders are encouraged to meet their victims – as part of its forthcoming green paper on criminal justice reform. Oliver Laughland brings together 34-year-old Reggie Aitchison, a prolific offender and drug user from Widnes, Cheshire, and 72-year-old grandmother, Kathleen, whose house he burgled, to discuss their experience of going through the restorative justice process and their reflections on the crime.

. Community safety and community justice. The Thames Valley Partnership's journey, 1993-2008.

The Thames Valley Partnership held a conference on 18 March 2008, to celebrate the work of its retiring Chief Executive, Sue Raikes, and to review the Partnership's experience over the 15 years of its existence and the twelve years which Sue Raikes had been Chief Executive. About 35 people were present, from a wide range of backgrounds including representatives of national organisations and central government, most of whom were working with the Partnership in one capacity or another or had done so previously. The title "The Journey" was intended to convey a sense of the movement and progress which had taken place over that period and to look forward as well as to the past. This paper records and reflects on the main points which were made at the conference and in subsequent discussion. Information about the Partnership, its work, its people and the projects and programmes mentioned in the paper , together with most of its publications, is available on its website www.thamesvalleypartnership.org.uk. (excerpt)

Editor. Restorative Justice with adult offenders, post-sentence is safe, reduces re-offending, cost less, saves money and delivers better outcomes

A summation of Joanna Shapland's fourth and final report about conclusions drawn from seven restorative justice projects established in the UK.

Goldstone, Sharon. Can Murder ever be Forgiven? A Restorative Justice Case Study.

For Christmas in 1985, Marlon* went to visit his daughter who was living with his ex-wife, her aunt and her four year old cousin, Tanya. Marlon went with the intention of giving both girls a Sindy doll as a Christmas present but the visit resulted in the murder of Tanya's mother in front of her eyes. Sharon Goldstone describes an exceptional restorative meeting in which Tanya and Marlon met for the first time in twenty-four years. (excerpt)

Wachtel, Joshua. Restorative Community Policing in the UK: Dorset, Cheshire and Norfolk Constables Point the Way.

Police in roughly 50 percent of counties in England and Wales employ some form of restorative justice (RJ). Constables in districts including Dorset (southwest), Cheshire and Lancashire (northwest), Hull (northeast) and Norfolk (east) are actively making restorative practices (RP) their first line of defense — at officers’ discretion — for dealing with neighborhood disputes, first-time and low-level youth offenders, youth crime in schools, and some adult cases. (excerpt)

Balahur, Doina and Littlechild, Brian and Smith, Roger and Littlechild, Brian. Restorative Justice Developments in Romania and Great Britain: Sociological-Juridical Enquires and Applied Studies of Social Work.

This book provides contributions from the research and academic world on the movement and development of restorative justice within the reform of the juvenile justice systems of Romania and Great Britain. The authors present the potential the new movement for restorative justice could have on the reform of juvenile justice systems. Contributing authors present two critically different experiences, from Romania and Great Britain. They argue for rejecting the punitive interventions in youth justice and bring arguments for the effectiveness of restorative justice practices for dealing with the victims of crime and for diverting children and young offenders from criminal activity. This book is the result of the scientific cooperation between researchers and academics from Romania and Great Britain, and represents an important trend of the Europeanization of the scientific research and of comparative analysis among different countries in Europe. Multidisciplinary scientific approaches to the changes in criminal justice and in juvenile justice systems are welcome as they could contribute to the development of better strategies in crime prevention. (Abstract courtesy of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, www.ncjrs.gov).

Poursanidou, Dina and Froggett, Lynn. Offender-based Restorative Justice and Poetry: Reparation or Wishful Thinking?

Increasingly, arts-based interventions are being implemented as a means of engaging young offenders, resulting in a public debate over the value of such projects. Whilst there is evidence that many Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) throughout England and Wales endorse such approaches, the processes by which they may benefit young people and have the potential to change attitudes to offending remain under-theorized. In this article we examine a YOT-related creative writing project that embraces an offender-based restorative justice model that depends on a reparative mind-set. We argue that such arts-based projects are complex and potentially far-reaching in their effects. (author's abstract)

Smith Institute. Seminar 3: tackling antisocial behaviour and building social capital.

Summary of seminar proceedings featuring presentations on the following topics: What is Restorative Justice? How can it tackle antisocial behaviour and build social capital?; Solving Neighbourhood Conflict and Building Community Cohesion in Chalgrove, Oxfordshire; RJ and antisocial behaviour contracts in London; Tackling antisocial behaviour with lasting solutions in Torquay.

Smith Institute. Seminar 2: Raising achievement through restorative approaches.

Summary report of a seminar featuring the following presentations: Restorative Approaches in Schools: a police conference with Lord Grey School, Bletchley, Milton Keynes, Bucks; A Restorative Action Group with Chilton Trinity Technology College, Bridgwater, Somerset; How Effective is Restorative Action in Schools?.

Goldstone, Sharon. What place for Restorative Justice in the Probation Service?

. s a qualified mediator and trainer,I have been able to use my training and experience in my work in the Victims Unit to work between victims, family members and offenders to mediate and facilitate transformational experiences which have impacted into the lives of the people concerned. I am repeating one case study so that those working with offenders are aware that there is some potential for Victim Offender Mediation from a Restorative Justice perspective. (excerpt)

Mirsky, Laura. Hull, UK: Toward a Restorative City.

Hull, UK, led by the Hull Centre for Restorative Practices (HCRP) and the International Institute for Restorative Practices (IIRP), is endeavoring to become a “restorative city.” The goal is for everyone who works with children and youth in Hull, one of England’s most economically and socially deprived cities, to employ restorative practices. (excerpt)

Hoyle, Carolyn. Restorative Justice Working Group Discussion Paper.

This discussion paper provides the background to the issues we considered at the first meeting of the Restorative Justice Working Group and a précis of the focus of our discussion. (excerpt)

Robinson, Gwen. Late-modern rehabilitation: The evolution of a penal strategy.

In a number of recent analyses, rehabilitation has been portrayed as a casualty of processes of penal transformation, coming to be frequently characterized as ‘dead’ or ‘irrelevant’. This article takes issue with such a characterization in the specific penal context of England & Wales, and seeks to explain why rehabilitation is currently enjoying a renewed legitimacy. The central argument is that rehabilitation, in this jurisdiction, has adapted and survived into the 21st century by transforming and remarketing itself in important ways. Central to this transformative process has been a successful appeal to three dominant ‘late modern’ penal narratives: utilitarian, managerial and expressive. It is argued that in the contemporary (Anglo-Welsh) penal context, rehabilitation enjoys legitimacy to the extent that it is compatible with each of these narratives. (author's abstract)

Stahlkopf, Christina. Political, structural, and cultural influences on England's youth offending team practices.

Using varied qualitative methodologies, this research examines England's youth offending teams (YOTs) as an organization to better understand the realities of the translation of restorative justice from policy to practice. Specifically, this research examines the political, structural, and cultural influences on one YOT as an organization, on its practitioners, and on the production of restorative practice. Examining the referral order, which comprises one quarter of all youth justice court disposals, a discernable impact in practice was observed in all cases throughout this research. The analysis from the present study shows that the triad of politics, structure, and culture has combined in a way that has strained the ability of the YOT organization to succeed and created a lethal atmosphere for restorative practices. (Author's abstract).

Debra Clothier. From England: Restorative Justice: What's That Then?

"...Our criminal justice system is built around the ethos of crime being against the state, not against the person; and about punishment, not problem-solving. It is adversarial; it does not bring people together. For RJ to work effectively, criminal justice professionals need to give up some of their power and allow stakeholders to participate fully so that the system is not imposed on them. Looking around the world at where RJ is developing quickly, it seems to do particularly well in areas where there has been conflict or massive political change, for example in Northern Ireland and Eastern Europe. Perhaps things have to get very bad before significant changes are embraced and promoted? Let's not allow the UK to fall behind with what many other countries now know can improve the life of victims and communities and have a positive effect on crime." (excerpt)

Editor. How restorative justice turned my life around.

Crime was a way of life for Peter Woolf - until he met two of his victims. Seeing their pain, the tough guy crumpled. He tells how their friendship turned his life around. (Publisher's description)

O'Mahoney, Jo. Relationship Building between Panel Members and Young People in the Referral Order.

The most explicitly restorative of your justice reforms in England and Wales is the referral order, introduced into legislation by the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999. Presser and Van Voorhis (2002) point to relationship building as a key part of the process if restorative programmes are to achieve the outcomes of restoration and social well being. If positive relationships are to be achieved, McCold and Wachtel (2002) stress how important it is in restorative conferencing for panel members and supporters to include those people from the local community whom young people feel they respect, and by whom they can feel they are respected. With this in mind and drawing on data gathered from observations and semi-structured interviews wtih youth justice professionals, voluntary community panel members and young people who were undertaking a referral order, I explored the interaction between voluntary community panel members and young people referred to the panels. In particular, I explored how the age and gender of panel members and the process of following through contract agreements might affect the relationship building between these stakeholders. In this article, I also describe how the youth justice professionals with whom I had built a research relationship received my findings. (excerpt)

Shapland, Joanna and Robinson, Gwen. Reducing Recidivism: A Task for Restorative Justice?

In this paper, we draw on our experience as evaluators of three restorative justice schemes in England and Wales which were funded under the auspices of the Home Office's ‘Crime Reduction Programme’ to reflect upon the theoretical and empirical potential of restorative justice (in particular, conferencing) to bring about reductions in reoffending on the part of participating offenders. We propose that there is a case to be made for a subtle shift in ways of thinking about the recidivism reduction potential of restorative justice: that is, as an opportunity to facilitate a desire, or consolidate a decision, to desist. (author's abstract)

Holland, Sally and Rivett, Mark. ‘Everyone Started Shouting’: Making Connections between the Process of Family Group Conferences and Family Therapy Practice.

This article presents findings from a qualitative study of family group conferences (FGCs) in Wales, UK. The study examined the process of seventeen FGCs involving twenty-five young people, using semi-structured interviews, analysis of documents and collection of data on welfare outcomes. Young people were re-interviewed after six months. The article focuses on the data concerning reported communications between family members during the family meetings. These data are discussed in relation to similarities and differences between FGCs and family therapy sessions. The authors conclude that each method of intervention presents potential lessons and challenges to the other. FGC co-ordinators might wish to reflect on how to manage and prepare family members for the potential for expressions of emotion and disclosures of confidential information that might arise in a family meeting. Family therapy has a long history of successfully working with such processes. Additionally, family therapists may wish to reflect on the successful management of intra-familiar conflict and disclosure by many families acting without a therapist or other professional present in a FGC. (author's abstract)

Deutschmann, Linda and Petrunik, Michael. "The Exclusion–Inclusion Spectrum in State and Community Response to Sex Offenders in Anglo-American and European Jurisdictions"

Continental European and Anglo-American jurisdictions differ with regard to criminal justice and community responses to sex offenders on an exclusion–inclusion spectrum ranging from community protection measures on one end to therapeutic programs in the middle and restorative justice measures on the other end. In the United States, populist pressure has resulted in a community protection approach exemplified by sex offender registration, community notification, and civil commitment of violent sexual predators. Although the United Kingdom and Canada have followed, albeit more cautiously, the American trend to adopt exclusionist community protection measures, these countries have significant community-based restorative justice initiatives, such as Circles of Support and Accountability. Although sex offender crises have recently occurred in continental Europe, a long-standing tradition of the medicalization of deviance, along with the existence of social structural buffers against the influence of victim-driven populist penal movements, has thus far limited the spread of formal community protection responses.