I am delighted to be here in Northumbria today. As you are aware, this Government sees the lay magistracy and our system of community justice as a cornerstone of our criminal justice system. With 96% of all criminal cases beginning and ending in the magistrates' courts, the contribution and the role of the magistrates in the Criminal Justice System is absolutely essential. The reform of the Criminal Justice System and the new Unified Criminal Court will not change that. In the proposed new agency, through the Courts Boards, the sphere of the influence of magistrates will be broadened substantially and they will have the opportunity to play a very important role in the administration of the Crown and the county courts, in addition to the magistrates' courts.
We rely on the efficiency, the skill, the understanding and the commitments of magistrates. For example, your continuing support for the Narrowing the Justice Gap initiative, and your performance here in Northumbria in helping us reach the Persistent Young Offender pledge, where I know you have done much, much better than the target, have been excellent, absolutely excellent. So I wanted just to start from the bottom of my heart for all you have done and the contribution you have made by thanking you.
I am also here today also to thank you for your support for the restorative justice trial taking place here in Northumbria, and to request your help to make that trial succeed. The Government has funded this restorative justice trial to provide us with the evidence we need on the impact of restorative justice on victim satisfaction and also on re-offending rates. In this trial, the restorative justice conference has to take place pre-sentence. So, when cases are sentenced 'then and there' they can't be included. I am here today to ask you specifically to defer sentences in suitable cases and then refer them to the Restorative Justice trial, so that conferences can take place pre-sentence.
Could I explain why I am making this request, and why I attach on behalf of the Government so much importance to it. The Government published, on Tuesday 22 July, its strategy for the future of restorative justice. We are very supportive of restorative justice. It's a radically different way of looking at crime, and one which we very much believe has very much to offer victims, offenders and wider society - not replacing traditional justice, but a part of the criminal justice system's response to crime and punishment.
Restorative Justice - bringing victims and offenders into contact - offers victims in particular, things which traditional justice can't:
A chance to speak directly to the offender, and tell them the real impact of their offending
A chance to receive an apology
The opportunity to get answers to questions - like 'why me - why did this happen to me?'
And the opportunity to get reparation from the offender - to themselves, or to the community if that is what they want.
Research evidence shows that over 75% of victims who choose to take part in restorative justice are glad to have done so; and the British Crime Survey revealed that nearly two thirds of victims would be interested in some kind of contact with or reparation from the offender. They, the victims, want the defendant to know what the impact has been with victim satisfaction rates for traditional criminal justice system, we have to recognise that restorative justice processes do offer real benefits that ordinary prosecution - on its own - can't.
And what of the impact on offenders? Larry Sherman on my left here today will explain in more detail the existing evidence which suggests that for some offenders, meeting the victim can be a turning point - an experience which puts them back on the straight and narrow. Restorative justice is a challenging experience for offenders - sometimes more challenging than they would wish and something more challenging than when they agreed to go through it. Confronted by their victim, they are no longer able to escape the reality of the impact of their actions on others, and are forced to take responsibility for what they have done, and to recognise sometimes for the first time the need to change.
Through involving the wider community, we also believe that restorative justice has a real part to play as part of our wider commitment to active citizenship and building public confidence in the criminal justice system.
So we think restorative justice has great potential. Our overall strategic aim, outlined in the Government's strategy document, is to maximise the use of restorative justice, we know it works, to reduce re-offending and to improve victim satisfaction.
The first part of our strategy outlines how we will do this by building restorative justice into the adult Criminal Justice System - on the basis of existing research evidence about how and where it works.
One of the ways we are doing this is through the new Criminal Justice Bill. As you know, the Bill brings in a new generic community sentence. It sets out that one of the things that sentencers may wish to include in a community sentence is an activity aimed at reparation. And it makes clear that this may include contact between the offender and a person or persons affected by the offence - in other words, restorative justice.
I would be interested to hear your thoughts about the type of cases for which you think this element of the Bill might be most appropriate. I would suggest that three key things need to be in place for this to be an appropriate element in the community sentence. First, there will need to a trained facilitator available (perhaps a probation officer, a police officer, or local community mediator). This should only be done with people who know what they are doing. Second, the offender would need to pass a risk assessment as to whether contact with the victim would be safe, particularly face to face contact - again victims have got to be able to feel comfortable when this is done. Third: is there a victim who has been personally harmed by the crime, who wants some kind of restorative contact with the offender. Restorative justice should always be about meeting victims' needs, however good it might be at reducing re-offending.
Another element of the Criminal Justice Bill is the power to defer sentencing for up to six months. This gives sentencers the power to defer sentence in order to take the offender's subsequent conduct into account in consideration on passing sentence. Progress against any promises given, any undertakings set, which might include reparation activities, can act as a mitigating factor in sentence. We make clear in the restorative justice strategy document that one thing a sentencer might wish to consider at the end of this period is an offender's participation in the restorative justice project - not just whether they have said sorry, but whether, through keeping their promises made as an outcome agreement with the victim, they have shown that they really are sorry, and have mended their ways.
The second part of our strategy involves generating more evidence for the longer term. We will base any future decisions about policy and legislation on what we know works - including any decisions about whether we should make more systematic use of restorative justice throughout the Criminal Justice System. This is where the Northumbria trial comes in, and hence my request to you to avoid “then and there” sentencing in cases suitable for referral to the restorative justice trial.
There is already some evidence from abroad, and from our youth justice system, that restorative justice can work very well. We need definitive evidence for England and Wales. We don't want to do more of it if it turns out not to work. That's why we funded these restorative justice trials, including the one in Northumbria run by the Justice Research Consortium and the Northumbria Police. It's a crucial trial, and I understand it is already showing very promising results, particularly in terms of victim satisfaction with the process - although we will have to wait for the complete results, including the reconviction data. Professor Sherman is going to tell us some more about this. The trial itself will run until the end of December this year - that's another five months.
But to give us results that we can rely on, the trial needs to deal with a large enough number of cases. At the current rate, there is a real danger that it might not process enough cases by the end of December. That would be a waste of all of the support and all of the effort that has gone into the project, and the hard work and resources that have gone into making it work already.
So we need to increase the referral rate to the project from Magistrates' Courts in Gateshead, Sunderland, Newcastle, South Tyneside and Houghton le Spring of the relevant cases - assaults, criminal damage, and other crimes against property with personal victims. This trial is looking at the effectiveness of restorative justice pre-sentence, post conviction.
Let me reassure you - because this trial is only looking at a small range of offences, the number of cases that are affected is simply too small to affect the calculations for meeting delay reduction targets.
Be prepared to delay sentence so that the RJSC can take place. Take into account when you then sentence. Don't necessarily accept from the defendant if you want to, that it might not be worth waiting to hear what the consequences of restoring the Criminal Justice System are. We need enough cases to do a proper evaluation. I wish you could have been with me all day at the Newcastle Crown Court where I met some trained facilitators from the Northumbria Police and 'Rob' who had been in a pub, where he had seen a brawl starting. He had intervened to try and stop the fighting becoming more serious. He had been punched on the face and knocked to the floor. He had then been kicked in the head and various other injuries. He, a victim, became involved in the trial. The person who assaulted him was convicted. Before sentence, after conviction, the court agreed that they should await the result of the Restorative Justice Conference. Rob went to the conference, met the person who had done it, asked the person (who was there with his parent), who was about 24, why did he have to go as far as knocking him to the floor and then kicking his head in - the person broke down . The defendant went to court and was sentenced to 3 months in prison, less than otherwise would have been, if the Conference hadn't gone as well. For Rob, the victim, it was a very satisfying debate because he knew the defendant realised the harm he had done. It is well worth pursuing this war of justice, it helps victims and although it is only anecdotal, Rob believes it will help the defendant go back onto the straight and narrow. It won't in every case, but this is one route we should be pursuing.
What we are interested in here is the long-term future of criminal justice policy - better justice for victims, and all of society, in the longer term - and you can help in achieving this, by referring more suitable cases to trial and deferring sentence accordingly, over the next five months. Of course you must make your own decisions on the basis of each individual fact of the case. And, it is not for anybody on this platform to interfere, but it is a very, very important trial that is going on in Northumbria.
So could I conclude, I would like to express my heart felt thanks to all of you here in Northumbria - in particular the many of you who have already successfully referred cases to the restorative justice trial; to Jeffrey Young for his support for the trial; and to Crispian Strachen and Northumbria Police, for all the work that they have done and the Justice Research Consortium in particular for running the trial.
Thank you very, very much indeed for listening.
I will hand over to Professor Larry Sherman to tell us something more about the international research evidence on restorative justice; and to give us an update on the Northumbrian pilot so far.