Crime Prevention Unit

The Crime Prevention Unit of the Ministry of Justice has contracts with 20 community-based restorative justice providers. They are located in: Whangarei, Counties/Manukau, Waitakere, Gisborne, Taupo, Rotorua, Tauranga, New Plymouth, Hawke’s Bay, Wanganui, Levin, Wellington, Marlborough, Nelson, Christchurch, the West Coast, Ashburton, Waimakariri, Timaru, and Oamaru.

They offer community panel processes and/or victim-offender conferences in a wide range of cases. In the 2004/05 year these programmes received total funding of just under $1 million.

The Ministry contracts a further 12 restorative justice providers through our Courts Unit, under what was the court-referred restorative justice pilot. Funding for this programme last year amounted to just under $650,000.

We are looking at ways of bringing the two groups of restorative justice providers, and the way we fund them, closer together in the future.

Four people in my team have a role in restorative justice. While each has a specific focus, they work as a team, and between them will always try to meet your needs.

Alison Hill: Project Manager, Practice Development Project

alison.hill@justice.govt.nz 04 4949900

Julia Hennessy: Senior Policy Adviser, Restorative Justice

julia.hennessy@justice.govt.nz 04 4949895

Cassandra Anderson: Policy Adviser, Restorative Justice

cassandra.anderson@justice.govt.nz 04 4949738

Rebecca Dean: Policy Adviser

rebecca.dean@justice.govt.nz 04 4949959

We have contracted PACT Limited, Training Consultants to work with us to develop a comprehensive national training programme for facilitators of both restorative justice community panels and victim-offender conferences. We are also aiming to develop a nationally recognised qualification through this training.

The training programme will be completed around May 2006, for delivery in the second half of the year. We are looking at several options for training delivery.

We will consider requests for urgent facilitator training on a case-by-case basis.

We approached Restorative Justice Aotearoa who put forward members for an advisory group to provide input to the training development. We are also ensuring that PACT Limited meets with and observes practitioners from groups that represent the broad range of restorative justice provision.

In response to the training questionnaire you completed last year we have made governance training available, and representatives from around 8 groups have taken this up so far. This training is still available. The next course is in Auckland on 23^rd February. Please contact Rebecca if you are interested in this or other dates and locations.

We are still looking at options for media / communications training and training needs in relation to supervision of restorative justice practice.

The Crime Prevention Unit has also established a provider initiatives fund. This will be available for one-off initiatives that will improve your practice, in line with the Principles of Best Practice.

The fund has been established as part of the practice development project, and will be available for one-off grants within a limited time. It will be available for initiatives like improvements to financial systems, HR systems, necessary software and associated training and one-off training, evaluation or monitoring projects. It will not be able to be used for service provision, including staffing and running costs.

An application form will be sent to you by the end of February, and applications will be sought by the end of March 2006. Please take some time now to think about your provider group’s needs and to discuss them with your board and members.

Our long term goal is to develop a framework for funding restorative justice provision that recognises the activity of providers, encourages and supports best practice, and is clear and transparent. We are looking at options and there will be opportunities for you to have input.

The Ministry has no additional funding for restorative justice services. In the short term therefore, we are working towards making some minor adjustments within the available funding to reflect more closely the work you are doing. We will be talking with you about what this will mean.

There are a number of key questions for restorative justice provision in New Zealand. As a first step, we are trying to ensure that we have a clear picture of what is being done at the moment. We have been trying to visit all of you and that has helped us to understand how restorative justice is developing throughout the country.

Some of the questions that remain relate to the availability of restorative justice in particular regions, or for particular types of offences. There are also questions about the points in the criminal justice process at which restorative justice might best be used.

In relation to the use of restorative justice with domestic violence and other sensitive cases, such as sexual offences, the Principles of Best Practice provide a starting point, but we need to get a clearer picture of what is being done in New Zealand and the outcomes being achieved.

Our aim is to clarify what best practice in these cases would entail, ie, how processes might operate, and the skills and attributes needed by practitioners.

We expect to commission more research and to consult interest groups about the use of restorative justice in these cases, so that we have a firm foundation to develop our policy.

With the Principles of Best Practice as a guide, we are working towards ensuring that our contracts clearly specify best practice requirements.

We are developing a range of standards that will act as a guide on how you can ensure that you are organising and delivering your service according to best practice.

Many of you will already be meeting most of the principles, and will be able to use the standards as a benchmark. Others will need to develop new processes or policies over the next year, and we are interested in assisting you to do that.

We will present the standards shortly, and will also make them available on our website. We will provide you with links at that time.

We are looking at some options to streamline your reporting processes, including the possibility of a national database. We will keep you informed about any developments.

In the short term, we recognise that some of you find the reporting template (Schedule C) difficult to use. We are making a number of changes to the template to fix this and will be in touch again shortly about that.

Restorative Justice Aotearoa was formed in 2005, and its inaugural meeting was held at the Ministry’s national restorative justice workshop in June.

We have provided some funding to RJA to assist them to get established and to create an avenue for us to consult practitioners about some of our work. We are now discussing with RJA the basis of our future working relationship.

We are very keen to have open communication with you as our restorative justice work progresses and to hear your views.

We plan to maintain contact over the next few months via a newsletter. We are interested in your ideas about what the newsletter should be like and the kind of information it should contain. We would also like to know how you prefer to receive it: by email, by post, through the website? Please let us know what you think.