A LIBERAL DEMOCRAT MP who survived a “murderous” attack at home moved amendments to the Victims and Courts Bill on Monday to present victims of crime the correct of referral to restorative-justice services.
“Increasingly, once we discuss justice for victims, the controversy collapses into retributive justice, as if all victims want is to lock the door and throw away the important thing,” Paul Kohler, the member for Wimbledon, told the House of Commons.
“Victims of crime don’t want retribution but closure, and giving them the chance to enter right into a process that enables them to share their feelings regarding the crime with others, often culminating in a gathering with the perpetrator, has repeatedly been shown to attain just that.”
In 2014, while working as a university law lecturer, Mr Kohler was severely injured by 4 burglars in his home. Meeting one in every of his attackers in prison, in an encounter organised by the restorative-justice charity Why Me?, had “transformed” his family, he said. It had allowed his daughter to “demythologise the perpetrator: now not a monster, but a deeply flawed human being who she could look straight in the attention and forged from her nightmares”.
Only one in 20 adult victims with a known offender was routinely told about restorative justice, he said. His amendments would establish a right of referral and likewise commit the Government to undertaking an assessment of using restorative-justice services by victims. “Let us not forget that while restorative justice is all about putting the victims at the center of the criminal justice process, it also has the proven added advantage of cutting rates of recidivism.”
The Prison Service is holding a consultation, as a consequence of conclude next month, on its Restorative Practice Hub (re:hub), established in 2019 to support and coordinate restorative justice across the agency. In August, Why Me? wrote to the prisons minister, Lord Timpson, warning that re:hub had “turn into a blockage within the system, stopping many cases from going ahead, failing to maintain up with the caseload and resulting in enormous delays and further harm to participants who’re left without answers”. The hub was “excessively risk averse”, the charity said.
In July, Inside Time, the national newspaper for prisoners, reported that the Sycamore Tree programme, run by the Prison Fellowship, was now not being delivered in prisons, after it failed to fulfill the Prison Service’s current criteria for endorsement. Run for 25 years, the programme had greater than 40,000 prisoner participants, who were encouraged to just accept personal responsibility and to make a symbolic act of restitution.
“Time and again, the programme has brought grace, insight and hope into places often marked by revenge and despair,” an announcement from the Fellowship said. It was “actively engaged in constructive conversations” with the Prison Service “about how the core principles and life-changing content of Sycamore Tree might proceed to have an effect in recent and meaningful ways inside our prisons”.
This week, the Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Revd Rachel Treweek, the Church of England’s lead bishop for prisons, described the Prison Service’s decision as “disheartening and almost incredible”, referring to “the qualitative evidence that it has been transformational for people of all faiths and no faith.
“I must be clear that I never condone criminal behaviour and we must always never turn a blind eye to wrongdoing,” she said. “All our selections have consequences. But I do want us to be way more courageous and have interaction boldly with questions on what’s going to actually be life-changing not just for offenders, but additionally for victims of crime — recognising that many offenders are also victims — families and whole communities. Simply locking increasingly people up and for longer shouldn’t be transformation, and our high rates of reoffending are evidence of that. This is where restorative justice is available in. . .
“The rhetoric of being tough on crime doesn’t reflect our current policy. We are being soft on crime and choosing a lazy option, which is solely about locking people up. Restorative justice is one aspect of what it might be wish to be truly tough on crime, as we’d then be specializing in a commitment to transformation for people, families, and whole communities.”
Raising the difficulty of restorative justice within the House of Commons in April, on the day after the death of Pope Francis, Mr Kohler observed that the Pope had been “a passionate advocate for a justice system that put reconciliation at its heart” throughout his life. The MP urged the Government to “move our justice system towards one which comprises, within the words of Pope Francis, a ‘horizon of hope’ and reintegration”.
Last week, Mr Kohler told the Church Times: “Restorative Justice is probably the most powerful tools we now have, not only to scale back reoffending, but to place victims at the center of the criminal justice system and provides them an actual sense of closure.
“But I’m deeply concerned that, as a substitute of expanding access, the present system, particularly the role played by re:hub, appears to be adding unnecessary bureaucracy and blocking progress. Experts on the bottom, who’ve delivered these services successfully for years, are being sidelined, and victims are being left waiting or walking away entirely. That’s not ok.
“I welcome the present review and hope these problems with central control will be addressed, so reHub can facilitate, not stifle, this vital work.”
