Working with Victims
Restorative Justice in schools
Background
Restorative justice can be defined by its fundamental principle, namely that when one person has harmed another, the most useful response is to try to repair the harm done. The restorative justice approach redefines crime primarily as harm or injury rather than law-breaking.
Restorative justice in schools aims to reduce bullying and victimisation, manage conflict and improve attendance in schools; research evidence supports restorative justice in schools as a particularly promising approach to improving behaviour and attendance.
Restorative justice enables school students affected by bullying, or other serious behavioural incidents, to communicate and agree on how the harm caused by their actions or done to them is to be repaired. When well-implemented, perpetrators learn to understand the consequences of their behaviour and take responsibility for repairing the harm. When this happens victims usually experience the perpetrator’s commitment to reparation which means their fear of revictimisation is reduced and they are more readily able to put the incident behind them.
What is involved
Restorative justice in schools can involve holding conferences between the perpetrator and the victim with a mediator, peer mediation by trained school students and informal restorative approaches by staff. Conferences can be used for the most serious incidents of bullying or victimisation to reduce the use of exclusions or, when exclusions cannot be avoided, to support the successful reintegration of the excluded student. Peer mediation involves trained school students assisting in resolving less serious incidents of conflict among students. School staff can also use restorative approaches more informally in dealing with behaviour problems.
Research
In March 2005 the national evaluation of the restorative justice in schools programme was published. The evaluation consisted of nine local YOTs working across 26 schools (20 secondary and six primary). The report levels of the problems schools were having and explored the short and long-term effects of the programme and whether restorative justice conferences are a useful tool in reducing school exclusions. The findings of the YJB restorative justice in schools evaluation were very positive. In pilot projects, over 90% conferences reached satisfactory, lasting agreements, which students felt were fair and which dealt with the behaviour causing victimisation. 89% of the students were satisfied with the outcome and the staff reported improvements in student behaviour.
Working with our partners
The YJB seeks to work with Department of Children, Schools and Families (DCSF)to promote the further development and evaluation of restorative justice in schools as a potential element of its youth crime prevention strategy and is currently funding restorative justice in Schools projects in five youth offending team areas through the YJB Prevention budget.