Prisons

Experiments with restorative processes in prisons and the creation of a restorative prison environment are growing.

. "Active citizenship together" -- Integrating the prison into the lives of the local community in the United Kingdom.

"Active Citizenship" is about being involved in the community, having one's say and taking part in decisions that affect one. It is essential that it involves the governor, senior managers, the prison staff, the offenders and the local community outside. With this in mind the vision statement for Standford Hill Prison is "Together we make Standford Hill a Safe, Decent and Positive Community." (excerpt)

. "Restorative prison" projects in Hungary.

The Hungarian "restorative prison" projects has nothing to do with the procedure-oriented restorative practices. Instead, these programmes do not involve the party directly injured by the crime but offer a chance to convicts who show remorse to make amends while they serve their prison term. The inmates make reparations to the local community, which is indirectly affected by the crime (due to the violation of the law), and not to the specific and directly injured party, the victim. This means that instead of providing compensation for the specific injury they caused, the criminals improve the local community's life by producing useful and visible results.The common qualities of good practice that enable the prison to be a part of the host town's or area's life are presented below. (excerpt)

. Mediation in prisons and restorative justice in the Republic of Slovenia.

As already mentioned, in the year 2000, the Criminal Code introduced victim offender mediation as an alternative method for resolving criminal cases. The purpose of this solution was especially to achieve settlements between victims and offenders and between juvenile offenders and their victims. In the year 2007, the first training for mediators in prison was organised which was attended by seventeen employees of the Prison Administration of Slovenia. An advanced training programme for mediators is also being prepared. All the trainings qualify workers in prisons to use mediation in formal and also informal ways in particular cases. (excerpt)

. Restorative justice in Belgian prisons.

In 2000 the positive evaluation of this research led to the decision of the federal government that all Belgian prisons should evolve towards a restorative justice-oriented detention system. In order to guide this process of change one restorative justice adviser was appointed in each prison. An important remark here is that the size of the prison was not taken into account. Small prisons (with for example only 60 or 100 inmates) as well as bigger ones (with a few hundreds of inmates) all got one adviser. The reason for this was that the advisers were hired to work at the management level of the prison. They were supposed to work at the policy level of the prison, their task not being to work individually with inmates. The restorative justice advisers started working at the end of 2000. A circular letter of 4 October 2000 set up the framework within which the task had to be developed and which described, amongst others, the role of the restorative justice advisers. (excerpt)

. Restorative practices in Hungary: An ex-prisoner is reintegrated into the community.

As the representative of Community Service Foundation of Hungary, the Hungarian affiliate of the International Institute for Restorative Practices (IIRP), I participated in a group session of the Hungarian Crime Prevention and Prison Mission Foundation in summer 2009 (Sycamore Tree Project — www.pfi.org/cjr/stp/introduction — or Zacchaeus Program in Hungary). There I met the governor of Balassagyarmat prison, where inmates were working in groups on issues related to their crimes and exploring ways to repair relationships they had damaged. Some inmates began accepting responsibility for what they had done and were motivated to make things right and earn forgiveness of victims and their families. Prisoners made symbolic reparation in the form of community service within the prison, but there was still a lot to do to create opportunities for offenders to make contact with victims and shed the stigma of their offense by means of direct reparation. Also, prison management believed it important to support processes,acceptable to victimized families and communities, to help prisoners regain control of their lives and prevent reoffending.(excerpt)

. The use of family group conferencing/Decision-making with prisoners in prison probation and during after-care in Hungary.

For years now, the Hungarian Probation Service has considered it one of its main tasks to use the methods of restorative justice more extensively in their work with offenders. These efforts were supported by the fact that the probation service is now responsible for the tasks related to mediation and as such mediation in criminal cases has become an institutional form of restorative justice. The Probation service is working on the implementation of restorative justice principles in other types of cases also, and is trying to ensure that the various techniques and procedures become integral parts of the probation officers' case management methodology. To this end, various experimental projects were launched. One of these was a project which the purpose was to include the method of family group conferencing/decision-making in the case management of probation officers. (excerpt)

. Victim offender mediation in severe crimes in Belgium: "What victims need and offenders can offer."

[M]ediation is also carried out in prison when the punishment is being served. In 2000 the Minister of Justice decided that restorative justice practices should be used in prisons. Since November 2000 restorative justice advisers have been working in almost every Belgian prison and one of their tasks has been to facilitate communication between victims and offenders. Mediation was first used in prisons in 2001 for convicted offenders and their victims.Mediation sessions were located outside the prison system in order to keep in line with the principles of restorative justice. Mediation started on an experimental basis; the inmates of three prisons and all the victims in the Flemish part of Belgium were offered the possibility to join a mediation programme. We did not want to discriminate the victims whose offender was in another prison. Since the Act on Victim Offender Mediation each party involved in a crime can ask for mediation. (excerpt)

Awesome things happen when people come together

by Lynette Parker Recently, I met with representatives from Prison Fellowship Italy (PF Italy) visiting the Washington, DC area. In early 2010, a colleague and I had visited Italy to train members of the new organisation in the Sycamore Tree Project® so I was really looking forward to hearing about their experiences and the lessons learned. I wasn’t prepared for the awe inspiring stories that they told. The Sycamore Tree Project® is an in-prison restorative justice programme bringing together unrelated victims and prisoners for a series of six to eight sessions. Through the sessions, participants explore the impact of crime, taking responsibility, confession, repentance, making amends, forgiveness and reconciliation. PF Italy worked quickly to implement this programme in Italian prisons but faced a few obstacles. In the end, the prison administration allowed them to start but with the proviso that the first group consist of prisoners who were mafia members convicted of committing murder and survivors of victims of such mafia activity. I remember receiving that news and thinking, “That’s not where I would want to start.”

Biermans, Nadia And d'Hoop, Marie Nathalie. Development of Belgian Prisons into a Restorative Perspective

Biermans and d’Hoop explore in this paper the development of a restorative approach in the Belgian prison system.

Biermans, Nadia. Restorative justice and the prison system

For about two years now, Nadia Biermans, along with others, has been trying to apply restorative justice ideas and practices in Flemish prisons. Based on her experiences, in this paper she raises some questions and makes certain observations about restorative justice in the prison system. She begins by explaining how restorative justice in Belgian prisons began and how it is organized. This leads to discussion of the question of whether restorative justice has a place in prison, the issue of educating and persuading the wider public about restorative justice, and successful ingredients for introducing restorative justice in prisons.

Chickens and chats form basis of new prison life

from the entry on This is Corwall: ...."It may sound gimmicky, because this is supposed to be a prison and a place of punishment, but the people I'm charged with looking after are some of the most troubled and troublesome members of society," he said. "Their individual backgrounds are horrendous in terms of not having a father figure, and a lack of education and the opportunities that you and I experienced." Through treating prisoners with "decency" and giving back a sense of respect, staff are already seeing a drop in incidents of bullying and drug abuse. A large number of prisoners have volunteered to sign up to a scheme to donate a small weekly sum to the Victim Support Service.

Criminal Justice System (England). Restorative Justice Mapping Exercise of UK Prisons

As part of the Government’s commitment to raise the profile of Restorative Justice (RJ) throughout all Criminal Justice agencies, last July we carried out a mapping exercise involving all establishments to find out how much RJ activity, victim awareness and reparative work is currently taking place. We would like to thank everyone who was involved with the replies. RJ is about managed contact between victims and offenders, in order for victims to get answers to their questions, tell the offender what the real impact of their offending was and receive an apology. Offenders are given the opportunity to make amends for their crime, either to the victim themselves or to the community. The strategy document on RJ, issued in 2003 stated that the Government aims to maximise the use of RJ in the Criminal Justice System as it serves to increase victims’ satisfaction and may reduce re-offending. (excerpt)

Criminals could cut sentences by saying ‘sorry’

from the article by Anushka Asthana and Jamie Doward in The Observer: Tens of thousands of offenders may be able to reduce their sentences by making personal apologies to their victims, under plans for a “rehabilitation revolution” in the criminal justice system. Crispin Blunt, the prisons minister, is considering the move as part of a drive to offer victims the chance to come face-to-face with the person who committed the crime against them. A report released today by two charities, Victim Support and the Restorative Justice Consortium, suggests the policy could save £185m in two years by cutting reoffending.

Curry, Devinder and Semenchuk, Mike and Patel, Sunita and Owens-Rawle, Derek and Knight, Victoria and Williams, Brian. Restorative Justice in the Juvenile Secure Estate

This research was funded by the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales in order to establish the scope of restorative work currently being undertaken within custodial and secure establishments, and to identify and disseminate good practice. It was undertaken by the Community and Criminal Justice Division at De Montfort University, Leicester between 2002 and 2003. The full report describes the use of a range of restorative interventions in Young Offender Institutions (YOIs), Local Authority Secure Units (LASUs)1 and Secure Training Centres (STCs) (collectively known as the juvenile secure estate). The research aimed to establish the extent to which restorative justice influences the regimes and programmes in secure institutions, as well as to identify good practice that might usefully be replicated elsewhere. (excerpt)

Daelemans, Ann. Guiding the Change Process in Belgian Prisons: Towards a Restorative Prison Policy.

The presentation will deal with the implementation of restorative justice in the Belgian prison system. In 2000, the position of the restorative justice consultant was created in order to realise a ‘restorative detention’. RJ-consultants are working within the prison walls and are employees of the Federal Department of Justice. In their mission of guiding the change process towards a restorative prison policy, they have an advisory role towards the prison governor. (excerpt)

Dinsdale, Jennifer. Restorative Justice in HM Prison Holme House: A Research Paper

The International Centre for Prison Studies initiated the Restorative Prison Project to examine the conceptual framework for imprisonment and to work with the Prison Service in Great Britain to apply restorative principles in the prison setting. One site for this work is HM Prison Holme House in northeast England. In 2001 Jennifer Dinsdale, a graduate student unaffiliated with the Restorative Prison Project, conducted research into the feasibility of restorative schemes in Holme House. She looked particularly at prisoners’ perceptions of the impact of their crimes on their victims, the openness of prisoners to engaging in reparative activities, and prisoners’ perspectives on their relationship to the community outside the prison. This paper reports her research findings.

Do Better Do Less: The report of the Commission on English Prisons Today

 

Eyckmans, David and Dufraing, Dirk and Regelbrugge, Marianne and Dufraing, Dirk. The concept of restorative justice in prison seen from the community and illustrated by the practice of victim-offender mediation

As David Eyckmans, Dirk Dufraing, and Marianne Regelbrugge point out, to understand the topic they address in this presentation, it is important to recognize that Belgium is a federal state consisting of communities and regions. Determination of law and policy in Belgium is shared by the federal government and regional communities and their authorities. The Flemish region is one of those communities. In general, with respect to criminal justice the federal government has responsibility for major functions concerning sanctions and incarceration of offenders. The communities have responsibility more for aid and social services, including those to prisoners and their victims. Since 2000 the federal Minister of Justice has begun to incorporate aspects of restorative justice in prison policy. Against this background, the authors detail the way the Flemish community, in cooperation with federal justice authorities and other organizations, is trying to pursue a restorative initiative toward prisoners and their victims. The authors discuss in this regard the conceptual framework for and outcomes of victim-offender mediation in prison.

Father of Adam Rogers meets son’s teenage killer in prison

from the story by Sam Chadderton in Lacashire Telegraph: Adam Rogers’s father and his teenage killer have come face to face in an ‘emotional’ prison meeting. .... Dave Rogers who has campaigned with wife Pat for an end to senseless violence in their 24-year-old son’s memory, said he would recommend the ‘restorative justice’ process to other grieving families.

Feasey, Simon and Williams, Patrick and Clarke, Rebecca and Williams, Patrick. An Evaluation of the Prison Fellowship Sycamore Tree Programme: based on a statistical analysis of Crime Pics II data.

Within the context of the Sycamore Tree Programme, the questionnaire has been used as an evaluative measure, assessing at both the pre and post programme stages. In doing so a difference measure can be calculated that looks at the degree of change from before to after the programme and therefore can be used to inform about programme impact/effectiveness. Central to the Sycamore Tree programme is the victim empathy area. In this regard, analysis of the V (victim empathy) scale is crucial in terms of evaluating the effectiveness of the Sycamore programme for its participants. (excerpt)