The Empathy Instinct by Peter Bazalgette

Author:Peter Bazalgette [Peter Bazalgette]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton
Published: 2016-10-05T16:00:00+00:00

Scaling Up Restorative Justice

Most attempts to try out restorative justice in Britain have been small scale. But in Surrey, since 2011, they’ve had a county-wide scheme dealing with young offenders.

Instead of going to court, the majority of youth crimes are referred to a panel of police and youth workers. They decide whether the appropriate response is a caution, referral to the courts or Youth Restorative Intervention (YRI). Such an intervention would typically be some form of community service, in addition to meeting the victim. Only a few, more serious crimes go through to a criminal court. The panel can take the offender’s background into account in terms of previous convictions, whether in care and so on.

Victims are always consulted to check they’re happy with the proposed approach. Critically, this will happen within three days, compared to the average of eight months waiting for a court case. When victims meet offenders, the latter get the chance to make amends in person. But if victims prefer not to come face to face with them, the system still works well because they are involved and consulted.

In its first three years YRI dealt with 3,000 cases, comprising more than 70 per cent of youth crimes in Surrey. Youth crime itself fell by 18 per cent and 1,160 fewer young people had criminal records. In this case it was also cheaper, saving the local criminal justice system several million pounds. But, perhaps most important of all, it had an extremely high satisfaction rate among victims.53

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