Page 123 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 10 February 2016
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(f) the ongoing efforts of ACT schools adopting restorative practices to promote effective and peaceful conflict resolution in these primary sites of socialisation; and
(g) the success of the Restorative Communities Conference in July 2015, and the well attended inaugural Restorative Communities Network meeting in November 2015, which demonstrated an international and local enthusiasm to see Canberra continue as a leading innovator of restorative practices; and
(2) calls on the ACT Government to work towards the declaration of Canberra as a restorative city, which will confirm its commitment to exploring and implementing creative solutions to shared problems using restorative processes and continue the ACT’s vision for safer, more connected communities.
It gives me great pleasure to have the opportunity to speak on this most critical matter. As some of you already know, I am a passionate advocate for restorative justice and I truly believe in its potential for the community and beyond. Not only does it provide a way of restoration when someone or something has been harmed but it also gives the person or persons who have offended or caused the harm a way of being restored themselves. It gives those who experience harm and pain a voice. It helps those who harm others to hear those voices, to understand more clearly the impact of their actions, which they often carry out without any thought. I would gladly use up all of my time here today telling stories of when a victim of crime comes face to face with their offender and the results are life-changing for all parties.
The old paradigm of locking someone away from society is not effective in stopping re-offending and reducing crime. In January 2001 I met with Steve Love, Deputy Chief Constable and leader of the Restorative Justice Unit in the Thames Valley Police Service in the UK and I asked him, “Do prisons work?” He replied, “Yes, jail works, as long as the person is in jail. After that, it doesn’t work.” I was somewhat surprised by that answer, because I knew that he was an advocate for restorative justice. The first part of his answer really shocked me but then I got to understand what he was talking about. How effective is it to arrest, punish and release a person when there is no effort taken to restore or rehabilitate? Fortunately, we do not have that type of system here in the ACT.
I was most impressed with the extensive restorative justice unit in the Thames Valley Police Service commanded by Chief Constable Sir Charles Pollard, after the then home secretary, Jack Straw, at the time saw the results of an ordinary court case compared with the restorative justice conference and decided to substantially fund RJ. The unit Steve Love commanded had five other senior police officers, each responsible for a separate aspect such as community disputes, police complaints, restorative justice in schools and justice matters.
I am proud to say that Canberra has come a long way with restorative justice practice, particularly in the justice system, which saw the re-integrative shaming experiments or RISE commence in 1995, fuelling an international appetite for more restorative
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