What’s Happening?
2009
The daily diet of crime and punishment, guilty and not guilty, continued to take up the majority of Helen and Jim’s time this year, even as they also continued as volunteer restorative justice conference facilitators for their local restorative justice group, the 14th year they have done so.
In April, Helen was invited to the Isle of Man to be a keynote speaker on the subject of Restorative Justice at the International Criminal Justice Conference organized by the local Probation Service. She and Jim renewed their friendship with Dr. Mario Paparozzi, former Chair of the New Jersey Parole Board, now a professor at the University of North Carolina. Helen met Mario in 2004 when both were judges at the U.K. Probation Service’s “International Probation Awards” given out by Princess Ann at a gala London dinner. Mario regaled the conference with humorous tales and recounted poignant experiences as a Parole Board member, offering his take on the value of restorative justice.
The Isle of Man has a population of 80,000 and a forward-seeing government which has identified the clear potential use for restorative processes in their courts for the benefit of their closely-knit community. The trust wishes them well.
Because Helen and Jim had traveled so far, it was arranged by Farida Anderson, CEO of Partners of Prisoners, Manchester, that they conduct a Restorative Justice Awareness Day in the Humberside for key staff in 12 prisons. The day-long seminar took place at HMPS Askham Grange, a minimum security, open prison for women in a Manor House just outside York. The prisoners provided catering and administration for the day. With Farida as MC, Helen and Jim spoke to prison governors, unit managers, psychologists, chaplains and probation officers working in the region. Governors from prisons in Northern Ireland and the south of Scotland shared their positive experience of restorative processes in their establishments. Initial skepticism in the morning from this group of more than 40 abated as the day wore on as probing questions were answered. A role play at the end of the day untaken by 6 participants was a moving example of what happens in a RJ conference. A steering group was formed to take forward the new potential for RJ in the Humberside prisons.
The trust expresses its gratitude to Jackie Katounas, the local RJ co-ordinator for Prison Fellowship International, for sharing with us her enthusiasm and insight into prison conferencing. Jackie still uses our NZRJ Manual to train her facilitators, and we have agreed with Jackie to pool our experience with hers to produce training tailored-made for prisons which wish to introduce RJ processes into their culture.
In November of this year Helen has been invited to present a workshop on Restorative Justice Training at the First World Congress on Restorative Juvenile Justice to be held in Lima, Peru between 4-7 November. (www.congresomundialjjrperu2009.org)