Private homes shun restorative justice
Neil Puffett
Monday, February 21, 2011
Vulnerable children are being unnecessarily criminalised because of a reluctance to deploy restorative justice techniques in private children's homes, a report has warned.
Government statistics show that between 40 and 49 per cent of children entering custody have been in care at some point despite the fact they make up just 0.5 per cent of the total population of children.
Research conducted by the Prison Reform Trust has revealed that the cost of training staff in restorative techniques has led to private children's homes in particular choosing not to invest in the approach.
In the last decade the number of private children's homes has increased rapidly from around 250 in 2000 (18 per cent of the total number) to around 1,900 in 2010 (75 per cent of the total).
"The most important factor (in adopting restorative justice) is the cost of training and that it is a real investment in staff," said Rebecca Nadin, campaigns officer at the trust. "If you are a private home and not being measured against certain outcomes like the number of children in your care who end up in the criminal justice system or the number of times police are called out, there is no incentive to invest in restorative approaches or how you manage children in a difficult environment."
Through in-depth interviews with professionals from different regions across England including youth court magistrates, youth offending teams, and a local authority residential unit manager, Nadin found that restorative justice can reduce the number of looked-after children becoming criminalised by dealing with incidents internally rather than through police and the courts.
Jonathan Stanley, former principal officer of residential childcare at the National Children's Bureau, said restorative justice must be viewed as an essential part of residential childcare. "A restorative way of working should be part of the ethos of any residential setting because the very nature of residential work is about recovery - recovery from harm to the individual and from an individual," he said.
"Restorative practices are now supported by Association of Chief Police Officers, they are seen as positive by youth offending teams and, more importantly, a restorative or reparative ethos is one of the underpinnings of the forthcoming national minimum standards."
