Restorative Justice

Since June 2004 there have been 345 Restorative Justice Referrals which have dealt with numerous different types of incidents between students.  The question you might ask is “Is it working; Do the young people rate it?”  It would be too easy for me to simply say it’s all wonderful, effective and gets good results.  However, the only real way to ascertain the success or failure of the process is to ask them, which is what I did.  At the beginning of March 2007 I asked every student who had been a victim of an incident between September 2006 and February 2007and had taken part in a Restorative Meeting to complete a short questionnaire.  Below are the results;

90% said they felt they were able to get their side of the story across with 80% saying they thought they were listened to.

98% of meetings reached an agreement between parties with 94% saying the agreement had worked.

94% stated they were able to concentrate more in school after having the RJ meeting

92% stated they felt safer in school after having the RJ meeting

When asked “What do you think would have happened if you had not had an RJ meeting?” they said;

“It would have got worse”                   

“I would have been beaten up”          

“We would fight everyday”

“Someone would have got hurt”

“I would have got bullied”

“It would have carried on”

“I would have left the school”

The final question gave them an opportunity to say what they thought about Restorative Justice, they said

“The RJ meetings are a great help and can stop incidents running through the school

Things get better

It was a good method of sorting things out

It really did help and things have been much better

I think its great”

I think the results speak for themselves.  

PC Andy Jenrick,

Restorative Justice Coordinator