ACE article Restorative Justice in Schools

There has been a fair amount of media coverage in the last few months about Restorative Justice and its applications in the criminal justice system, especially by many Youth Offending Teams around England and Wales. It is seen as a positive and effective response to tackling not only crime, but also the needs of victims of crime and the community in which both offenders and victims live. This year the Youth Justice Board is funding several Youth Offending Teams to develop Restorative Justice projects in schools. In addition the Board, together with the DfES, the Home Office, and ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers), has begun an initiative placing police officers trained in restorative skills into some schools, working alongside educational partners. The initiative is called the Safer School Partnership (S.S.P)

This article explains what is special about Restorative Justice, and what it has to offer in the school context.

The word ‘restorative’ has been used to differentiate this form of justice from a more traditional approach that involves retribution. A restorative approach to crime, wrongdoing or conflict consists in asking four key questions:

• What’s happened?
• Who has been affected?
• How can we involve everyone who has been affected in finding a way forward?
• How can everyone do things differently in the future?

Contrast this with a more traditional, retributive, approach, especially where young people are involved, which consists in asking:

• What happened?
• Who is to blame?
• What is the appropriate response to deter, and possibly punish, those at fault,so they will not do the same thing again?

Some years ago advocates of a restorative approach also used the term, ‘relational justice’ and this is a useful term to help emphasise the importance of relationship repair and relationship building implicit in the many restorative approaches available to members of the school community.

Recent research in this country, and in the US, has re-affirmed what many people know from experience –namely that most of us need to feel a sense of belonging and connectedness with others in our community. Without this sense of connectedness young people are more likely to engage in anti-social behaviour in the first place, and are less amenable to attempts to re-integrate them. We also know that punishment tends to make people resentful rather than reflective. Nevertheless many schools respond to breaches of school rules and to anti-social behaviour using some kind of punitive sanction, whether it be a harsh word, exclusion from a lesson, missing a break, a detention or some kind or an extra duty around the school. At worst the ultimate disconnecting sanction is used – fixed or permanent exclusion. Of course there are ways of applying all of these, but rarely are the needs of all involved addressed, and rarely are the relationships between those involved, (often damaged by both the behaviour and the response) actively worked on and repaired afterwards.

A restorative approach does not shy away from one of the purposes of punitive sanctions, which is to teach a young person the consequences of their actions. However, the inevitable consequences of an action are not what happens to the wrongdoer – for indeed often people get away with their wrongdoing – but what happens to those affected. By encouraging young people to think only of the consequences to themselves, we inadvertently teach them to try and escape detection. Hence, we actively encourage dishonesty and selfishness. (How many adults learn where speed cameras are placed on their route home, and reduce their speed only in these areas?)

We therefore need communities (schools, organisations, families etc) in which people who live or work together consider the consequences of their behaviour on each other and take proactive responsibility for this behaviour. This is very different from being held responsible by others after something has gone wrong. We also need the time and the opportunity to explain how we feel and what we need if, and when, another person’s behaviour has impacted badly on us. Indeed it would appear that the wrongdoers themselves value this opportunity too. All sides need someone to listen without pre-judging; time to reflect and make sense of what has happened; a chance to put things right; to hear or express an apology; reassurance that the situation will not occur again and a sense of closure.

How often, in a busy school day, is there time to consider everyone’s needs? How often do these needs go unmet? How often do we hear young people and adults alike complain, in playgrounds, classrooms , staff rooms, offices and canteens, that they do not feel listened to, nor respected, nor valued, nor appreciated, nor treated fairly ?

Restorative processes and skills provide a way of meeting the needs of everyone in a school community to develop a sense of belonging. They also encourage a sense of concern for each other and an opportunity to heal the damage that has happened to relationships when challenging situations have occurred. Restorative Conferencing is the most well known of these processes.

The purpose of the conference is to establish what harm was caused, what was the wider emotional context and impact, why the harm was done, what is needed to put things right and how the situation can be avoided in the future.

It seeks to repair the harm done to relationships within a community by an incident involving anti-social behaviour. It allows everyone involved to meet, and to gain a better understanding from each other of the impact of the incident, the reasons for it and the preferred outcomes. The process usually involves the person or people who have been adversely affected, their parents/supporters, the person or people responsible for causing the harm and their supporters. Key school personnel and behaviour support staff may also be invited to attend and indeed may also have been personally affected.

The conference takes place in a room where everyone can sit in a circle. Ideally the facilitator will have communicated personally with everyone involved prior to the conference to prepare them for the process and to answer any queries and concerns. It is important that everyone present has volunteered to be there and that everyone feels safe. The conference is intended to be an ultimately positive experience from which people can walk away better able to move on and put the incident behind them.

A restorative facilitator remains neutral and impartial, does not pass judgement, does not offer solutions and does not decide which of the options explored is the best. Instead a facilitator allows the group to take ownership of the process and the solutions, balancing power so that everyone gets a chance to have their say and be heard.