Restorative Justice

My turn to write an article for the DASLS Newsletter soon comes around and I am always on the lookout for some thought provoking mediation content to share with you.

 

Some years ago I attended a course on Restorative Justice based on the model being used in the USA and I could see the benefits, where victims of crime and/or their families requested it, of criminals having to meet and face their victims to atone for what they had done and for both parties to try and come to terms with what more often than not was a totally senseless act.

 

At the time I felt that we were many years behind the States, where even civil mediation was receiving little press coverage or time afforded to the education of its benefits within the English legal system.

 

It was with great interest then that I came across an article in Saturday’s edition of The Guardian about how mediation is being utilised within prisons and in one of our Devon Prisons no less.

 

Under the direction of Maria Arpa, one of the country’s leading Mediators, prisoners are being introduced to the benefits and skills of mediation and as a direct consequence are able to consider alternative ways of settling conflict in their confined surroundings without resorting to physical remedy.

 

Maria kindly agreed to discuss this further with me:

 

L             Maria, thank you for taking time out to talk with me for the purposes of putting together some further information on the work you do into our DASLS Newsletter.

Prior to introducing mediation skills in Prison environments, what other types of Mediation did you undertake?

 

M           I started out many years ago as a Voluntary Community Mediator in London, dealing with neighbour disputes in the main.   I have carried out over 1,000 community mediations which I refer to as being ‘at the coal face’ and since then I have worked in Civil, Family, Workplace and threat to life.

 

L             What inspired you to try and put together a process that could and would work within the confines of criminal law? 

 

M           That is an interesting topic.   Take two identical neighbourhood disputes but in different social environments:  the first on a typical middle class street where two neighbours get into some kind of dispute, each would likely go and see a lawyer and it would be dealt with as a civil case.  Compare the same neighbourhood dispute but within a social housing location for example where there is no legal aid for such assistance, then the whole dispute is more likely to become embroiled either verbally and/or physically, with other families becoming involved and the escalated matter often turns into a criminal one.   The same dispute, different routes.  There should be something in place for people with less access to professional services to reduce the physical, verbal and or violent methods of redress which necessitates police involvement.

 

L             Is the work that you do at Dartmoor Prison your first venture or have you already introduced mediation skills in other prisons?

 

M           I first trialled this as a pilot in Wandsworth in 2009, which involved prisoners from the main wing and vulnerable wings getting together, which prior to then was unheard of.  The 10 week scheme was a resounding success and resulted in over 50 applications being received to attend the course.  Word of mouth is always the best recommendation.  My work however requires funding and having successfully obtained the requisite funds I was introduced to a Chaplain from a G4S establishment who could readily see the benefits of the programme.   From there, as either Chaplains or Prison Governors moved to other Prisons, so did I.  In one of the prisons we trained up 12 prisoners in 2014 and I recently heard that 3 of them are still there as prisoner mediators and have been given an office dedicated to the mediation programme.   

 

L             Does this programme work better for some prisoners than others?

 

M           No, it reaches everyone.  There must however be the desire for change.  Each person is different, from the time they have already spent in prison, traumas, and histories to the types of crimes they have committed.   Interestingly those who have violent tendencies are the easiest to work with.  Their cards are on the table from the outset.  No hidden agendas.

 

L             So what next?

 

M           My current project over the next 2 – 3 years is to adapt the programme to change prisoners’ conversation overall.  I have put together a Dialogue Road Map to use as a method of communicating, talking about frustrations and violence in the hope that disputes in general are reduced down.  The first meeting is usually with an equal number of staff on first name terms and prisoners.  In this way we can humanise the situation, try to get rid of the ‘them and us’ culture and to embrace community spirit.   We aren’t educating people nearly enough in these skills. That said, I do visit a range of schools and communities but the overall message must be to prevent the escalation of a disagreement becoming a heated dispute.

 

With grateful thanks to Maria Arpa for her contribution.  For more information please visit:

https://www.centreforpeacefulsolutions.org/

Maria’s article in the Guardian can be found at: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/feb/10/can-prisoners-resolve-disputes-dartmoor-mediation

 

 

Liz Kendall

Vice Chair – Mediation Sub-Committee

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