The idea of restorative justice came to me in a lightbulb moment.
At a party, more than 15 years ago I was introduced to Dr Martin Wright, the former director of the Howard League and a lifelong champion for Restorative Justice. This exciting encounter led me to pursue the study of Restorative Justice and Criminology, and I also trained as a Community Panel Member in 2010 - hoping that this new initiative in the justice system would enable me to facilitate restorative work with young people who had committed crime. My time as a panel member has been fascinating in so many ways, and wanting to be more involved, I applied for the position as a Restorative Justice Practitioner at the Youth Justice Service in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. I have been working directly with young people, their families, and the victims impacted by the youth crime now since 2018.
As a Restorative Justice practitioner working within the Youth Justice Service, and together with my colleagues, we seek to embed the principles of Restorative Justice into our work. Though it has been far from straightforward, the theory of Restorative Justice now shapes our day-to-day practice. In this short article, I will share how we make restorative approach relevant to our work ,and what difference it makes to the lives of our young people, victims and the community in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.
Some Background
Advocates of restorative justice claim that the harm caused by criminality can be repaired through a process of mediation between the victim and the perpetrator. Through this process, practitioners attempt to restore the broken relationship, reintegrate the perpetrator back into the community, and help them understand the harm they caused in order to prevent future reoffending. The Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act (1999) and subsequent legislative reforms further integrated these core principles of restorative justice into law. The aim was to move “away from an exclusionary punitive justice and towards an inclusionary justice capable of recognizing the social context in which crime occurs”. The then government summarised its vision in the “3-Rs”:
1. Restoration through a young person who committed the offence apologising and making amends to the victim;
2. Reintegration of the young person as a law-abiding citizen; and
3. Responsibility taken by the young person for their previous behaviour.
This led to the creation of Community Panels as part of Referral Orders (ROs). Community Panels are made of trained volunteers who either live or work in the local community. Their role is to engage with the young person at the onset of the referral order, and come to an agreement as to what interventions will the young person need to complete during their order, with the aim to promote their wellbeing and prevent reoffending.
With the “3-Rs” guiding the creation of Community Panels within Referral Orders, all stakeholders – the young person, the victim and the community – would now play a part in the justice process. Since 1999, ROs have therefore been used when sentencing young people who have pleaded guilty to an imprisonable offence. They are set for a period of 3 to 12 months proportionate to the seriousness of the offence and ROs can now be applied more than once to a young person.
So what is the reality and practice of engaging young people through young people’s community orders, which help victims and the local community in a meaningful restorative way?
Here in the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham, for example, we work closely with the police, and this helps to put us in contact with the victims of youth crime – including knife offences. The aims of Restorative Justice are outlined to each victim. Victims are then the opportunity to be involved in the process. However, the take-up rate is relatively low, with most victims opting out. This is due to host of reasons some of which are preventable. There are delays in the justice system, sometimes a ack of trust in the police or government agencies, a fear of being revictimized, or simply just a desire to move on.
The fear of revictimization (and being seen as cooperating with the police i.e. snitching) is particularly relevant to victims of knife crime, many of whom are young. Most of such attacks go unreported. As a result, it is rare for the young person who committed the offence to meet face to face with their victim, especially in knife crime offences. But this is only one method to achieve a positive result. But we can still use a range of options and useful Restorative Justice tools.
Victims who agree to be contacted by the Restorative Justice team have rights stipulated by the Victim Code1 which guides our practice, e.g. to be updated, supported, and to take part in restorative justice interventions, other than a face-to-face meeting. For example:
∙ many victims request a letter of reflection from the young person,
∙ some ask us to act as ‘surrogate victim’ and voice their concerns and the impact of the crime at panels or when working directly with the young person,
∙ others express a specific wish as to how they consider a young offender should work during their reparation hours. For example, they may suggest that they would like the young person to help out at their local youth club, to be involved in a sporting activity, or simply help out at a community event.
Reparation is a specific element of our Restorative Justice work – as is the Referral Order programme - that we take seriously. It is an opportunity for the young person to repair the harm caused by the offence directly to the victim, or to the wider community. Reparation presents a particular invitation in terms of our work with young people. The hours that must be completed as part of Referral Orders (typically 10 – 40 hrs) and decided with the volunteer community panel members, combine to provide a unique opportunity for young people to engage with our local community and organisations in a meaningful way. We cooperate closely with a range of projects. For example, the Fulham Palace Gardening scheme, QPR football club, Trinity Hospice charity shops, the Nourish Hub, Refugees Welcome charity, the Macbeth bike project to name but a few. Here, young people have the chance to volunteer, and whilst doing so, to learn new skills, engage with members of public and other volunteers of all backgrounds and generations. We tailor each programme specifically to the young person’s needs and circumstances, understanding their individuality as well as their wider context, culture, and risk in the community. We link each project closely with restorative principles, so our young people understand how their work is relevant to their offending and how they are making amends.
We hope that our reparation offer is an opportunity for our young people to achieve something positive, to be praised, and to feel useful.
Such an experience can be very rare for our young people in their contexts, so can be powerfully transformative when they experience it! On occasion, we have also agreed that the child can do something positive for their family as part of their reparation – make a special meal, or help elderly relative with their shopping – to begin to repair some of the broken trust at home and learn about empathy and the impact of the offence on the closest to them.
One of the most prevalent offences for the cohort of the young people is a possession of a bladed article where there might appear to be no direct victim. In such cases, the victim is the community as whole. We have to be acutely aware that the young person might have been a victim themselves previously. We believe that majority of young people do not carry knives actively to hurt somebody, but for their own protection, and through fear deeply rooted in trauma. Our job is to explore these issues, support the young person in changing their understanding of their risks and learn about the increased risk when they do carry knives. We believe that this work is generally more productive when done on 1-2-1 basis with young people and have moved away from group knife-awareness workshops. Those young people with apparent direct victim are also expected to complete reparation with the aim to further engage them in local community, and introduce them to positive interactions within the community.
Mending Perceptions
The ongoing breakdown in the police and young people relationships and general lack of trust is widely reported. As restorative justice practitioners in our team we are for example keen to hear in more depth about our young people’s experiences with the police and engage them in an ongoing Stop and Search discussions to contribute to more positive relationships with the police. Those who are willing can participate in small groups with newly trained Metropolitan police officers in a restorative meeting, share their experiences and move away from derogatory and dehumanising perceptions of each other towards a place of understanding. We have also organised many 1-2-1 meetings with officers from the Met within our YJS Team, particularly for those young people who feel particularly victimised by the force. We were able to support them with de-escalation techniques and discuss their experiences. The outcomes developed through our survey of young voices concerning Stop and Search, are shared periodically with the wider community and the borough command, and have been used in training newly qualified officers.
Summary
One goal of Restorative Justice is to enable the perpetrators and victims to meet face-to-face. This is not always possible within the youth justice setting and the time frames we are set. But when we understand Restorative Justice in its widest terms - and are willing to be creative – its principles can permeate everything we do, and the way we achieve results with young people. This avoids the less positive results of entering the justice system.
A Restorative approach allows young people to pause, have time to be guided, to reflect on their actions, and engage meaningfully in the community. Where we can speak with victims, even though they often decline direct communication with the young person, we as practitioners are still able to acknowledge the harm done, hear and support the victim, and make them part of the process indirectly. Though restorative practice within the Justice system is not perfectly aligned with theoretical ideals, in my experience, it does bring the community, the victims, and the young people that bit closer together. As a result, lives can
be changed.
Tereza is a Restorative Justice Practitioner in the Youth Justice Service, London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. She has been working in the field of restorative justice since 2010.
Tereza Harvey
Restorative Justice Practitioner, LBH&F
www.lbhf.gov.uk
