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Restorative Justice Works : transcript of video

Nandor Tanczos MP

02 Jul 2004
Subject: Justice

Spokesperson: 
Green Party Spokesperson on Justice
GF CID: 
7635

Interview of Rosalie Steward, Coordinator of the Restorative Justice Services in Hauraki.

Kia ora, my name is Nandor Tanczos, I'm the Green Party Spokesperson on Justice and with me today is Rosalie Steward who is the Coordinator and a facilitator at the Restorative Justice Services in Hauraki.

NANDOR
My first question for you is, what actually is restorative justice?

ROSALIE
Restorative Justice is a different approach to crime and offending. It brings the victim of offending right into the central position of both how they've been hurt and what they would like to happen, and the whole idea is that it is actually about restoring all parties who have been involved in a crime or an offence of some sort, back into their community ideally. So, that is both the victim and the offender, to restore the relationship between the parties if possible; to restore their relationship with their communities and their families.

NANDOR
And how does that differ from how the way the conventional system works?

ROSALIE
Well at the moment, when an offence occurs, it is the task of the Police to identify what has happened, what crime has been committed, who's done it, and then what sentence — which is generally a punishment - should be issued. That tends to cut out a lot of the background information about why offending happens, and also how people have really been affected. So how it is different is that it gives all the parties to the offence the opportunity in an informal setting to talk about what happened. It also gives the victim a chance to say what they think should happen as a consequence of the offending. So at the moment, the current system wants to know how victims have been affected, but they don't ask the question — 'and what do you think should happen from here?' and so that's a big shift as far as the victims of crime are concerned.

NANDOR
Well, you've talked about what victims want — and some victims want punishment. Does restorative justice allow for punishment or is that outside of the philosophy?

ROSALIE
It doesn't approach offending from a 'punishment will deter the person' point of view. It approaches offending from - harm has been caused, how can the person take responsibility for what they've done, and seek to repair the harm as much as possible. So, in fact, it seems a more logical response because at the moment when somebody commits an offence, they've caused harm to a number of people, and if we imprison them they are actually costing the community more to keep them off the streets, as well as not actually holding them to account for their conduct. And so, restorative conferencing brings that back to a very personal level and we see really good results that come out from both the victims and the offenders being able to speak about what happened with each other.

NANDOR
So, what you're saying is really a direct relationship between the victim and the offender rather than being mediated through the state and made into an abstract thing.

ROSALIE
That's exactly right and where it's helpful for the victim is … let us say they've been the victim of a burglary. Now they don't get to ever see who that person is unless they appear at the court hearing. And so they may have all kinds of ideas as to why their house was picked on, who the offender might be, whether that person will come back again, who else is out there. So, it's very much a scary unknown thing when someone's a victim of a crime like a burglary. So now when they get to actually see the person, it's no longer a big scary thing out there, it's a "oh, so you'd had a bit much to drink that night, oh". So, you hear all the other reasons, you actually get to test whether that person is scary or not and nine times out of ten they're not. A silly kid who got urged on by their mates or someone who wasn't a kid but had too much to drink or fallen off a recovery programme of some sort and that really helps the victim to actually get a grip of facts of what happened rather than what they fear might have happened.

NANDOR
The Minister of Justice has said that Restorative Justice is only really valuable for minor offences. Do you think there's a level beyond which restorative Justice can't go? Is there anything that it can't do or is it an open book?

ROSALIE
The Ministry I understand is saying a number of different things. One of them is that, if the offending is really minor, that it's not necessarily worthwhile carrying out a Restorative Conference, and the other is that when there are offences related to domestic or sexual offending that they actually require far more support work to address. So at the moment that's not being taken on, so domestic and sexual offending has been cut out of the official Justice pilot. And the really small petty theft things don't always get referred. Whether or not they do depends upon what kind of relationship existed between the parties beforehand. So for instance, let's say we've got an offence where it is theft as a servant. There's been an existing relationship between the parties and often the betrayal of trust and the beliefs around commitment and loyalty will be shattered. And so a judge will observe that and go "well let's see if the parties want to talk that through". And those are really valuable.

And then it can go right to the serious end where there's been loss of life and of course no one ever speaks of how you can restore a loss of life because we all know that you can't. But when there has been a loss of life, often in injuries, car vehicles, that sort of thing, the family members of all the parties involved, the person who's been charged with careless driving shall we say and the families of whoever's lost their life, they have questions. You know, they want to know why did this happen? What happened after that? What lead up to it? And it's these sort of deep, "oh, if only we knew, how can we find out?" questions that can gnaw away at people for a long time and so a restorative conference gives them the opportunity to actually ask those questions straight away. And even though losing a loved one is a painful thing, to have those things answered and also to be able to see the genuine feelings of the other party can go a long way towards easing the pain of a loss of life in vehicle crashes and things like that.

And the other thing as far as the person who has committed the offence is concerned, Restorative Conferences actually seem to have a far more powerful effect upon them than being processed just through the justice system. As an example, if someone's not really taking seriously their disrespect of other people, they don't respect their property or they commit assault or things like that, they get apprehended by the Police and then it's all taken away into the Police station and so often the person who's committed that offence, they get arguing with the Police that it was the police that were unfair or their lawyer didn't do the job properly, or the judge had a bad day, and it's much easier for them to make excuses for their behaviour, and to deny to themselves the consequences of their behaviour.

So, we actually really acknowledge offenders who are courageous enough to face up to their victims cause it takes a big effort to be willing to witness the pain, to hear the anger, to see the anguish of the person who is actually the direct victim of someone's behaviour. An offender never sees that if they're simply processed by the Police, lawyers, at the courts and sometimes prison. So, it's a big courageous act on both the offender and the victims' part. And for the victim, it's also an act of generosity. They are giving the offender the chance to account for themselves. And offenders really appreciate that; they want to be able to address it. They want to be able to see the person walking down the street next week or next year and not go "oh no, I better cross over" or "oh no, I hate to see that person". A Restorative Conference actually means they talk through the details, they've looked each other in the eye. They reached an agreement about what harm was caused and what steps should be taken to fix it up and they can go, good, it's not the best thing that has happened but we've dealt with it and it feels better and we can say hello and not have to cross the street. So that's part of that restore to the community benefit that this conferencing can bring.

NANDOR
We're still waiting for the full evaluations of restorative justice, we've had some interim evaluations, they are looking very positive. How do you tell when restorative justice is working properly? What is good restorative justice?

ROSALIE
Okay, well, for a start, you've got victims who are more satisfied that they have been heard, that they have had questions answered, and that if it's at all possible they've had a restorative thing happen for them. We are looking at offenders reducing their offending behaviour. I don't think anybody in the field thinks there is going be a 100% success, that if an offender has gone to a restorative conference then that's it, they will never commit an offence again. No one thinks that, but it is recognised that it has far more of an influence and so ... reduced offending, greater victim satisfaction and more balancing in the community, I think those are seen as successes.

NANDOR
Well thanks for coming Rosalie; thanks for your time. It's been an extremely interesting and informative conversation and hopefully that gives you some idea of how restorative justice can be a powerful way of changing behaviour.