Why Restorative Justice? - Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

THE COMMUNITY
The use of mediation
Community participation in restorative justice is one of its cornerstones.
It is fairly easy to imagine this working well in its original
tribal settings, or its equivalent in isolated reservations. It is more
of a challenge to integrate those principles into the diverse communities
of inner cities in the UK. Tony Marshall, one of the
long-term champions of mediation in the Home Office, set out the
following restorative justice principles to achieve this:
1. Crime prevention depends on communities taking some
responsibility for remedying the conditions that cause crime,
not just leaving it to police.
2. The aftermath of crime cannot be fully resolved for the parties
themselves without their personal involvement, be they
victims, offenders, their families, or neighbours.
3. Justice measures must be flexible to respond to particular local
exigencies, personal needs and potential for action. 30
On the Meadowell estate in North Shields, alienated youth used to steal
cars and joyride in races against the police. When one police chase went
wrong, it led to the deaths of two popular local youths in a stolen car.
Anti-police riots led to the burning of many shops and houses on the estate,
including the recently built community centre, designed to provide activities
for local youth but shut for three years because of local authority cuts.
After the riots of 1991, a new police strategy put local officers on
the ground to listen closely to the needs and feelings of residents, and to
respond by solving their problems. Their feelings were typical of many
living in such situations: frustration at their powerlessness. This often
expressed itself in fierce local disputes. Police were the enemy, so anyone
who co-operated with them was labelled a ‘grass’, and their life made
unbearable.
By listening and attempting to work through local issues, the local
police officers provided an informal version of community and neighbourhood
mediation, offering a way to restore power to such situations. Such
work takes skilled and patient mediators, able to handle a diversity of
temperaments and views. Often, in disputes over noise, vandalism, rowdy
30 Tony Marshall, Restorative Justice: An overview (London, Home Office, 1999), p. 6.
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