Meeting of the Parliament 22 May 2018
I thank Liam Kerr for bringing this important subject to the chamber. I have two declarations to make: I am the Parliamentary liaison officer for the justice portfolio; and I am a registered social worker with the Scottish Social Services Council and was a worker in the justice system in the last four years of my practice before becoming an MSP.
I will start by picking up on some of the points that Liam Kerr made. While I was working in the justice system, I was able to see the value of restorative justice. I would say that it worked very well, particularly with young people, on whom there was a particular focus. I witnessed at first hand young people having a change in attitude to their offending and to the restorative justice process, even though they might have been a bit sceptical initially. I know that this is not the usual outcome, but there was even one occasion on which I witnessed two young people becoming fast friends through the process.
We know that restorative justice works and that it can be effective. I agree with the points that Liam Kerr made in that regard, but I would like to pick up on his view that there is no awareness of it. When I worked as a social worker, I was extremely aware of it, as were all my colleagues and, I imagine, everyone who worked in the justice system. There is a wee bit of flexibility in the community payback order to do some work in relation to restorative justice, but an assessment has to be made of whether it is appropriate, because that is not always the case—it certainly would not be appropriate always to have victims in community payback order meetings.
However, I accept the general point that there is perhaps more that could be done at an earlier stage. When I was doing criminal justice social work reports, my colleagues and I would take into account aspects of the attitude towards the offence and perhaps also the victim’s view. More could perhaps be done along those lines, although there is a degree of flexibility.
I will talk a wee bit about local good practice. In 2013, North Lanarkshire Council’s restorative justice team, with funding from Airdrie and Coatbridge round table, facilitated the renovation of a school that had been vandalised. That work was done with offenders who had been through the community justice system, so it was a really good example. Maureen Hughes, the restorative justice service manager at the time, said that
“three out of five people on schemes like these don’t reoffend”.
That is a pretty powerful quote, and it made for quite a lot of good local news.
I do not think that the point about the value of restorative justice is lost on the Scottish Government. The minister will speak later about the publication, in October last year, of “Guidance for the Delivery of Restorative Justice in Scotland”, which outlined the key principles of restorative justice and guidelines for utilising it. I am pleased that there is a clear commitment to supporting its delivery.
I accept that only a small number of local authorities are using restorative justice, having identified it as such. However, I would say that most local authorities are doing it. The local authority that I worked for probably features among the statistics that have been mentioned, yet we were clearly doing restorative justice. There is perhaps a wee bit of work to be done to tighten up the statistics and so on.
I am running out of time. This is an area in which I have a lot of interest. I will keep a close eye on how things are going, and I am pleased with the steps that have been taken on the matter nationally.
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