Restoring restorative justice education: Gavrielides' #rjweek annual blog
Happy International Restorative Justice Week 2024! Warm congratulations to all the practitioners, researchers and campaigners who kept the restorative justice flame burning. Gratitude and respect to the harmed and harming parties for being brave to opt for restorative justice. Celebrated every third week of November, restorative justice week has now become a well-established international event that aims to celebrate restorative justice practitioners and volunteers especially those working in the community. It is also an opportunity to talk and learn about restorative justice, an ethos that was brought back in the 1970s.
I have been writing annual blogs for #rjweek since 2012! I have always be critical and honest with my views as I believe this is the best way to advance the restorative justice practice and knowledge. I have chosen for this year’s overarching theme to be restorative justice education.
Restoring Restorative Justice Education
Restorative justice has been practised internationally since the late 1970s often in the shadows of the law. In the UK, restorative justice is now embedded in legislation. However, the education of its practitioners has not caught up with the demands of practice. Currently, there is lack of a regulated qualification for practitioners that reflects the complexity and nature of restorative justice. It is up to the given criminal justice agency to decide whether a practitioner or an organisation is qualified to refer a case. This has created inconsistency in the quality of restorative justice.
This year, the RJ4All International Institute that I founded and direct agreed to bring to the fore the issue of restorative justice education to:
highlight immerging opportunities
discuss and help address persistent gaps in relation to teaching, training and learning.
As restorative justice is becoming more popular within formal and informal justice and educational systems, the demand for learning about its theory and practices has increased.
However, I remain concerned about the quality and standards of various training models and offers for restorative justice not just in the UK, but also worldwide.
My main concern stems from my belief that restorative justice is community born and thus has a community led nature that must be safeguarded especially when practised by criminal justice system agents. I have advocated for the need to align practice with local needs, and for a practice model that empowers communities to deliver restorative justice themselves. At the same time, I strongly believe that restorative justice practice should be delivered according to its underlying values and principles and within the standards that have been issued by international and independent bodies. I have also spoken openly about my fears of standardising practice that is controlled by powerful bodies. There is a growing need to provide a regulated qualification in restorative justice practice nationally and internationally.
Shifting our focus
I am calling all training and educational providers to rething their business focus. This should be less on promoting their model and more about driving best practice that trully supports the development of those who wish to implement restorative justice. In particular:
RJ4All wants to make sure that victims, offenders and their communities are served in the most safe and best way possible. We have evidence to believe that the lack of adequate qualification has led to bad practice especially when this involves complex cases.
Dating as back 2012, I wrote about my fears for The McDonaldisation of a community-born and community-led ethos. In my then #rjweek blog I wrote:
Restorative justice is not a product that can be mainstreamed and rolled out nationally. It exists in small neighborhoods, in homes, churches, schools, tents, humid mediation centres and, yes sometimes, in big fancy offices.
When restorative justice eductors bid for govenment or other contracts to "teach" restorative justice they must do so with responsibility and honesty. A 3 day training course does NOT make a restorative justice practitioner. In fact, my 10 years legal training to become a barrister makes me rather unconfortable recommending any case (youth or adult) for restorative justice when I lack the reassurance that the practitioner is a qualified one.
Actions not words
There is plenty of scientific data showing the positive results of restorative justice for both victims and recidivism. Just looking at the UK, currently, there are 87,726 people in prisons with a proven reoffending rate of 26.5%. We want to address this crisis by increasing awareness and confidence in restorative justice but not without reassurances for its proper qualification.
RJ4All has worked closely with the Ministry of Justice and MPs on the latest Victims Act to introduce restorative justice as a right for all victims. Our latest letter to the Ministry discusses the next steps for the revision of the Victims Code which we hope will introduce a "Statutory Right to Restorative Justice". This will mean that agencies will need to be properly educated in restorative justice.
Since our inception, we have produced over 40 CPD certified ecourses on restorative justice while we have supported the development of RJ4All Education, an independent educational arm within our institute. This year we are proud to introduce the first Level 5 regulated Diploma in Restorative Justice Practice constituting a significant strategic step in helping RJ4All to achieve our charitable mission. The key objective of the qualification is to enable learners to practise restorative justice either in the statutory criminal justice (police, prison, probation) and youth justice sectors (e.g. youth offending teams, local authorities, youth offending institutions), or the community and private sectors (e.g. mediation centres).
I believe it is about time that the restorative justice movement unites. To thie end, I set up the IFRJP, an ambitious RJ4All initiative that aims to connect and empower individuals and services delivering restorative justice globally. Operating within the “restorative justice for all” spirit of our international NGO, the Fellowship is a free global endeavour to map existing restorative justice practitioners globally and unite them.
Becomg a Fellow and join the family. This is not a register and there are no costs. No hidden agendas and no business ambitions.
Educational online and offline events
This year, #rjweek at RJ4All is packed with a series of free online and offline events aiming to raise awareness of restorative justice, educate and be reflective. My first webinar already took place as part of the “10 Years, 10 Lectures” series marking the tenth anniversary of Centro Studi sulla Giustizia Riparativa e la Mediazione at the University of Insubria. For all events visit https://rj4all.org/international-rj-week/
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