The importance of Restorative Justice
Restorative justice enables victims to meet or communicate with their offender to explain the real impact of the crime; it is part of a wider field called restorative practice.
Restorative Justice has become an increasingly important feature of the UK’s response to crime over recent years; for example there was considerable emphasis on RJ in the recently completed Transforming Rehabilitation process with new providers urged to include restorative work. Official MoJ figures state that every £1 invested in RJ saves up to £8 by reducing the cost of reoffending.
The popularity of Restorative Justice is also growing on an international basis; indeed eighteen countries have signed up to this year’s International Restorative Justice Week which runs from 15 – 22 November 2015.
The Restorative Justice Council
The Restorative Justice Council (RJC) promotes quality restorative practice for everyone. It is the independent third sector membership body for the field of restorative practice. It provides quality assurance and a national voice advocating the widespread use of all forms of restorative practice, including restorative justice. The RJC’s vision is of a society where high quality restorative practice is available to all.
One way in which the RJC is putting that vision into practice is by commissioning the Institute of Criminal Policy Research to map all the RJ provision in the criminal justice system in England and Wales.
The RJC will host the results of this mapping exercise online to enable both professionals and victims to locate their local RJ provider in order to get in touch and make a referral if they wish. This resource will be free and will require no registration details nor any other barrier to access.
I am part of the ICPR team doing the mapping and we’re very keen to make sure the database is as complete and accurate as possible.
This post is part of a publicity campaign to encourage all organisations delivering RJ in the criminal justice system – police, probation, prisons, YOTs, local authorities, voluntary and private sector – to fill in the mapping survey.
The survey has been designed to take 5-10 minutes to complete and can be found at:
Please spread the word.
