Voluntary Organisations Part 2

Frank's memoirs

RJ continued

Before long we developed an arrangement that Margaret I would work together, each supporting the other alternately, and this worked well for the three years or so that we continued doing this work. Over that time we would run four or so conferences each year. 

Offences involved in the cases included dangerous driving causing death, theft as a servant, wilful damage, careless driving, and so on. Some conferences involved a lot of people and the organisation was very time-consuming. One that Margaret ran, with me and two other experienced facilitators helping, involved around 30 people. 

Most of these conferences produced good results; “good” in the sense that we produced an agreed recommendation that everyone considered fair, and in most cases the judges endorsed our decisions. Fortunately, in Taranaki we had judges who saw the positive side of RJ. 

When Heather resigned to take up another job, I was asked to act as co-ordinator for a few months while a new co-ordinator was recruited, and this I did, though not for long enough to get really skilled at it. 

But there were problems.  From our point of view, we did not get enough cases to keep our skills at the level we thought was needed and yet when we were given a case it took up so much time and effort we were extremely busy. This is a real dilemma. To reach and maintain the level of competence needed, the facilitators really need to be almost fulltime, and yet the advantage of having ordinary people doing this voluntarily are quite important to the process and principles of RJ as we understand it. 

Anyway, after three years we decided when had done our dash, and we pulled out of the RJ work, but we have watched our colleagues continue with great interest ever since. 

I am sure, and Margaret agrees with me, that Restorative Justice should be a much larger part of our court system. It is fairer to victims than the traditional court process, and it means in theory that the defendant has agreed to the punishment and is therefore more likely to complete the sentence (eg community work). Several of our conferences ended with the defendant and key victim in earnest, almost friendly, conversation over the routine cup of tea, which gave time for us to draw up the report and have it signed by everyone present. And judges have the opportunity to discuss the report at the sentencing time, which helps us the next time. 

We hope everyone gets more used to the idea, so that when people are involved in court proceedings they are more ready to be involved in the RJ part of the process.