Mediation Hertfordshire
Monthly Bulletin
May 2010
Welcome to the May edition of the Newsletter.
This month we have some news of mediators, a reminder about the Team Meeting to be held on Wednesday 23rd June and an update on numbers of cases. The feature article is taken from the Restorative Justice Consortium’s website and looks at the issue of Restorative Justice in Prison Reform. The first part of the article deals with different ways of exploring Restorative Justice within a prison regime and describes a number of restorative programmes, which are already established in a range of countries and communities. The second part, which will be in the June newsletter, addresses the realities of prison life and some barriers to establishing these programmes.
It would be good to have contributions from mediators for future editions, whether these focus on your work or leisure activities, so please do send them in and they will be included.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
News of Mediators etc.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Most restorative programmes take place outside prison. There are several reasons for this. One is that it is far easier for offenders to make amends if they are not in prison. Another reason is that restorative justice is often community-based. A third reason has been the hope of policy makers that restorative justice will be a method of reducing court and prison overcrowding. It may contribute to that if the people sent to restorative programmes would otherwise have gone to prison.
However, there have also been efforts to explore how restorative justice might fit into the context of a prison, and further, whether it would be possible to conceive of a restorative prison regime – one based fully on restorative principles and values.
There are at least four ways these efforts have started.
One is when groups of prisoners have decided that they want to find ways to make amends and to meet with their victims.
A second is when leaders in criminal justice in their countries become champions of restorative justice. As restorative ideas have been tried successfully in the community, these leaders have decided to see whether the programmes could be useful inside prison.
A third is when people working on prisoner rehabilitation have discovered that it is necessary to deal with prisoners’ responsibilities to those they have harmed as part of their reintegration process.
A fourth is when victims of serious crime decide that they would like to meet with their offender. This is usually years after the crime took place, and the offender will have gone through the criminal justice system and been sent to prison.
What the author does is briefly review attempts that have been made to introduce restorative practices or programmes into the prison setting. These efforts range from relatively modest experiments to those that are extremely ambitious. He organises these programmes by categories based on their objectives, and gives illustrations of each. He concludes by reviewing issues that should be considered in attempting to include restorative justice programming into prison, and that must be considered if the intention is to permeate the prison with restorative values and principles.
The reality of prisons and of prison life raises substantial barriers to the success of restorative programmes, which may be categorized based on their objectives. They are presented in order based on the increasing ambitiousness of those objectives.
1. Some programmes seek to help prisoners develop awareness of and empathy for victims.
a. An example is the Focus on Victims programme in Hamburg, Germany, which takes place during the prisoners’ first three months in the institution. The project helps prisoners think generally about victimization, then consider people they know who have been victims, reflect on their own experience of being victims, and then look in more detail at the consequences and aftermath of victimization. It concludes with an introduction to victim offender mediation.
b. The Victim Offender Reconciliation Group, initiated by prisoners at the California Medical Facility, operates weekly meetings to which they invite various victims groups to make presentations and participate in dialogue. For example, representatives of the Bay Area Women Against Rape victim support organization have met with them on a number of occasions to discuss the trauma of rape and its aftermath, and to lead discussions about the attitudes of men who rape. This has led to prisoners doing service projects or making products for sale so that proceeds can go to the victim rights groups that have participated in the programme.
c. Still other programmes organise conversations between prisoners and surrogate victims – people who have been victims of crimes, but not those committed by the particular offenders they are meeting with. An interesting side-benefit of these programmes is that not only do prisoner attitudes change, so do those of the victims, as they come to know the prisoners.
2. A second objective is to either require or make it possible for prisoners to make amends to their victims.
a. In some of these programmes, amends are made to the actual victim. Belgium gives prisoners access to a fund that allows them to earn money by doing community work. This money is applied to restitution to their victim.
b. In others the emphasis is on the community as an indirect victim.
The International Centre for Prison Studies in the UK initiated a “restorative prison” project in three prisons. One of the four key objectives was to create opportunities for prisoners to perform community service projects in and outside of prisons, such as reclaiming public parkland.
3. A third group of restorative programmes are aimed at facilitating mediation between prisoners and their victims, their families and their communities.
a. The State of Texas developed a programme at the request of victims that facilitates meetings between crime victims or survivors with their offenders. Most of the offenders are serving very long sentences; some are on death row. The programme does not affect the prisoners’ sentence length; however, the victims’ opinions are very influential in parole hearings and some victims have decided not to contest parole after their meetings. Typically, the victim requests the meeting, although this is not always the case. There is, however, a lengthy preparation process designed to ensure that the victims and prisoners are ready for such a meeting and that it will not result in secondary victimization.
b. Many prisoners have alienated their families because of their involvement in crime, the embarrassment and harms they have caused their families, and in some cases because of the crimes they have committed against family members. Consequently, it may be necessary to facilitate interaction between prisoners and their family members in order to discuss how to reestablish a meaningful relationship together. An example of this would be a project of Prison Fellowship Cambodia that is part of their non-residential aftercare programme for prisoners. Volunteers with Prison Fellowship will initiate conversations with family members about the prisoners’ expected re-entry, and where there is interest will facilitate meetings between family members and the prisoner.
c. Communities can be fearful and angry at the prospect of a prisoner returning. Restorative justice programmes have emerged to address this particular problem. In Zimbabwe, the Prison Fellowship affiliate acts as a facilitator in conversations between the head man of the prisoner’s village and the prisoner related to the prisoner’s return to the village.
A remarkable Canadian programme, now used in England as well, is called Circles of Support and Accountability. These programmes assist in the reintegration of serious sexual offenders, usually men who are paedophiles, into communities. There is understandable apprehension on the part of both the communities and the released offenders. The Circles work with the offender, social services, the local police force and community members to organize a treatment programme and to negotiate conditions related to community safety and security.
4. A fourth objective was set by the Restorative Prison Project in the UK: to strengthen ties between prisons and the communities in which they are situated. This was an institutional objective that acknowledged that isolation of prisoners from the community while within prison is exacerbated by the lack of productive ties between prisons and the communities in which they are found. The strategies used to overcome this included public awareness activities, recruitment of volunteers to help in the prison, and negotiation of community service projects that would be valued by members of the community.
5. A fifth objective of restorative justice programmes in prison is to create a culture within prison in which conflict is resolved peacefully. There are multiple layers to this objective.
a. The first is to teach prisoners how to deal with conflict in a peaceful way. One example of this is the Alternatives to Violence Workshops developed by Quakers at the request of prisoners in Attica, New York. It helps prisoners recognize when potentially violent situations are likely to arise, learn communication skills to alleviate the potential for violence, and learn to value others, which it is believed will reduce their resort to violence.
b. A second kind of programme helps prisoners who come into conflict with other prisoners find peaceful ways to resolve it. An Ohio programme called Resolution trains prisoners to serve as mediators. These prisoner-mediators help prisoners in conflict find their own solutions.
c. A third category of programme addresses workplace conflict between prison staff members, including senior management. Programmes like this have been used in Philadelphia City Prisons and the state of Ohio. The programme has not only helped staff address their own conflicts, it has also improved their ability to deal with conflict with prisoners.
d. A fourth category of programme deals with prisoner discipline and grievance processes. This is a sensitive area, because it addresses the issue of power in prisons. The staff and management of the prison have power, and prisoners have far less. An attempt to introduce conflict resolution to deal with prisoner complaints against staff members, or disciplinary proceedings initiated by staff against prisoners, must tackle this directly.
6. The sixth objective, and by far the most ambitious, is to create an environment in which the prisoner’s entire self may be transformed. Cullen and others have called this a Virtuous Prison, one in which restorative justice and rehabilitation would be combined in an effort, they write, “to foster ‘virtue’ in inmates, which is usually defined as ‘moral goodness’ or ‘moral excellence….’ Prisons should be considered moral institutions and corrections a moral enterprise. Inmates should be seen as having the obligation to become virtuous people and to manifest moral goodness. This statement announces that there are standards of right and wrong and that offenders must conform to them inside and outside of prisons.
(From an article by Daniel W van Ness – PFI Centre for Justice & Reconciliation)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++