Conferencing

Articles discussing restorative conferencing models.

Releasing control

by Lynette Parker As a facilitator, I occasionally face situations that give me pause. Do I really want to facilitate this case? Am I competent to facilitate such a case? There are times I walk into the situation with real concerns and doubts, but simply have to trust the process.

Review: Restorative justice in practice: Evaluating what works for victims and offenders.

by Eric Assur Three British criminology researchers and educators, affiliated with the University of Sheffield, have offered a very rich book on the use of victim-offender mediation programs (what they call schemes) in adult criminal justice venues in England. Most early Restorative Justice (RJ) writing has focused on juvenile justice programs, generally with a concentration on diversionary approaches for first time offenders. The Shapland, Robinson and Sorsby book looks exclusively and intensely at three ‘schemes’ and several hundred ‘cases’ involving adults. The criminal justice programs they studied were funded by the British Ministry of Justice – Home Office between 2001 and 2008. They worked with adults at arrest, while going through the courts and even with some while imprisoned. In a nutshell, this is a thought provoking book that has few significant weak points. This is not a primer on Restorative Justice. It assumes that readers are at least moderately informed about RJ. It belongs in the hands of North American justice administrators. While not designed as a textbook (no end of chapter discussion questions), it concludes with end notes and references that make it a useful reference for anyone seeking to look further into transformative justice and RJ, especially as found in the United Kingdom and Australia.

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

from the article by Vidia Negrea: 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.

HMP Thorn Cross Restorative Justice

This is great news. I run several RJ interventions at HMP Thorn Cross where I serve as the co-ordinating chaplain & I am very passionate [...]

The Salvation Army and restorative justice

from the article in The Dignity Project: “I will never forget my first brush with injustice” says Matt Delaney. “I was so hurt. I wanted pay back. I wanted to retaliate, to return the favour that I didn’t ask for. I did fight back. Strange though, after I unleashed my vengeance, all I felt was empty and alone. What was wrong with me? Where was the justice I was looking for? Why didn’t I feel justified?

Conferencing

Christa, Thanks for your thoughts. I agree with the point about team work. As facilitators, we have to permit the participants the opportunity to decide [...]

Conferencing Needs Team & PR Work

After several days of thinking about the idea of ‘no script’, I’d like to put out some thoughts about what restorative justice advocates can overstep [...]

facilitating the conferences

I agree that asking the questions is almost an art form. The facilitator has to be able to use creativity to guide the process between [...]

No script for the journey

by Lynette Parker I recently started reading The spirit and art of conflict transformation: Creating a culture of justpeace by Thomas Porter. Early in the book he says, “The work of conflict transformation is best described as the art of improvisation. Human interaction cannot be programmed, and there is no script for this journey.” Mentally, I said, “You’ve got that right.”

We can write the stories of peace with our lives

from the Fambul Tok website: Fambul Tok (Krio for “Family Talk”) emerged in Sierra Leone as a face-to-face community-owned program bringing together perpetrators and victims of the violence in Sierra Leone’s eleven-year civil war through ceremonies rooted in the local traditions of war-torn villages. It provides Sierra Leonean citizens with an opportunity to come to terms with what happened during the war, to talk, to heal, and to chart a new path forward, together. Fambul Tok is built upon Sierra Leone’s “family talk” tradition of discussing and resolving issues within the security of a family circle. The program works at the village level to help communities organize ceremonies that include truth-telling bonfires and traditional cleansing ceremonies—practices that many communities have not employed since before the war. Through drawing on age-old traditions of confession, apology and forgiveness, Fambul Tok has revived Sierra Leoneans’ rightful pride in their culture.

Restorative Justice Dialogue: An essential guide for research and practice

Restorative Justice Dialogue: An essential guide for research and practice. Mark Umbreit and Marilyn Peterson Armour (2010). New York: Springer Publishing Co. 339 pages.

Going Off Script: What is appropriate for a facilitator to say?

The conversation did cause me to re-examine my role and ask what is appropriate for a facilitator to say in a pre-conference setting.

Reflections on the restorative conference facilitator’s script

In mathematics and science, the term elegant is used to describe a formula or explanation that is both simple and comprehensive. Elegant ideas use evidence to braid together many of the messy strings dangling from a problem. They reveal core mechanisms and are easily related between individuals. Though it inhabits a world seemingly separate from the rigid logic of science and math, restorative conferencing is extremely elegant. The organization of conferencing approaches emotionally chaotic situations and provides structured opportunities to create solutions.

What are we looking for?

“Did you see remorse?” “What are we looking for?” “Why didn’t you ask about previous offending?” For the last four years, I’ve volunteered as a restorative conferencing facilitator with a local community organisation. As a part of that work, I now ‘mentor’ new facilitators. Inevitably, I get questions like the ones listed above. It’s always interesting to see the focus of new volunteers as they go through pre-conferences.

Lynette Parker: Listening to stories

“You don’t know what it means to have a member of the community listen to my story before making his decision.” One young man summed up his experience in a restorative conference with a community representative. Convicted of armed robbery, he had already served two years in prison and returned to his family when the conference took place. His statement reminded me of how powerful a restorative process can be.

Mediation and conferencing in child protection disputes: special issue of Family Court Review

In 1997, Family Court Review published the first special volume focused on child welfare mediation. At the time it was a relatively new field gaining ground in a number of states and provinces. Since then mediation and other alternatives to traditional and adversarial child welfare proceedings have been emerging and evolving across the United States, Canada, and the world. In this follow-up to the first special volume, the articles trace the history of the development of mediation and family group decision-making programs in the child welfare arena.

Bates, Brian. A diverse approach to juvenile offending in the Northern Territory

Brian Bates, Commissioner of Police in the Northern Territory, presents a Juvenile Pre-Court Diversion Scheme being used in that territory as an alternative approach to juvenile offending. Specifically, it is an alternative to an adversarial system in response to juvenile offending. This alternative scheme provides a range of interventions to divert juveniles from the criminal justice system. The paper sketches the background to this approach, describes each of the diversionary interventions, and reports on results from the first nine months of the program’s operations.

Alder, Christine and Wundersitz, Joy. New Directions in Juvenile Justice Reform in Australia

Reviews the adaptations of the New Zealand juvenile justice reforms to Australia, especially the use of family group conferences. After reviewing the history of juvenile justice reforms in Australia, the authors discuss the features of family group conferences, the differences between the New Zealand and Australian versions, and the implications for juvenile justice practice

Alder, Christine and Wundersitz, Joy. Family Conferencing and Juvenile Justice: The Way Forward or Misplaced Optimism?

An anthology of 11 papers assesses the use and dimensions of family group conferencing (FGC) in Australia and New Zealand. FGCs involves a meeting between the offender and his/her extended family, the victim and his/her supporters, and other relevant parties to discuss the offense and to negotiate appropriate responses. The most innovative and potentially positive aspects of family group conferencing are the involvement of the victim and the young offender's family in decision making. The papers address whether punishment without stigmatization is possible, whether reoffending can be prevented, and if family conferencing represents the best alternative.

Taussig, Isabel. Youth justice conferences: Participant profile and conference characteristics.

Aim: The aim of this brief is to describe the experience of attending a Youth Justice Conference (YJC), with regard to how long conferences take, who attends, what kinds of outcomes are agreed on, and whether these factors change in respect to the age, Indigenous status or gender of the young offender, or the location of the conference. Method: This study utilised data from the Re-Offending Database (ROD) maintained by the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) for 2010, together with data from the Client Information Management System (CIMS) maintained by the Department of Juvenile Justice for the 2009–2010 financial year. Results: 54.2 per cent of referrals to a YJC came from a court, however this varied by offender demographics and location. Four-fifths (81.4%) of young offenders were male, 23.9 per cent identified as Indigenous, and the average age was 15.6 years. One-half (52%) of YJCs were held in the Metropolitan region. The most frequent outcome task was an apology (1,484 plans, 79.6%) however the content of plans and the number of tasks varied by offender demographics and location. Most (88.7%) outcome plans were completed and this varied by offender demographics and location but not by type or number of tasks. A typical conference took place two months after referral, lasted 71 minutes, and nine weeks later the Outcome Plan was completed, although there were regional differences. The victim attended 41.5 per cent of the time and in 51.2 per cent of conferences the young offender’s mother attended. (excerpt)