Monday 21 February 2011

So how do you know that an offender means it when they say sorry?

This is a question I have been asked quite a bit when I tell people about the final session of the Sycamore Tree programme. It is not an easy question to answer when you are talking to someone who has never visited a prison and has grown up with a media-fed, cynical and unqualified view of prison life. I will attempt to answer it for you here and I’m sure you will tell me if I have made a hash of it.

The final session is where we see the first application of the principles of Restorative Justice from the offenders taking the programme. We have spent five previous sessions teaching them what Restorative Justice is, how to accept responsibility for what they have done, what it feels like to be a victim, how to take the first steps towards reconciliation and getting them to talk about what they can do to change.

Now they have to demonstrate what they have learnt by performing what we call a ‘Symbolic Act of Restitution.’ Essentially they are encouraged to stand in front of a room full of people, mostly total strangers, and read a letter or a poem or present an artwork or whatever they have prepared. The room full of strangers will include a selection of community witnesses, the victims who attended earlier in the course to share their story, often a Governor or other senior staff member and, of course, the other learners.

If you are an unqualified, media-fed cynic as I once was, you won’t be impressed yet. So please listen whilst I tell you one of my experiences at a final session.

I attended a session in a well known, inner city prison full of local, inner city, young men with all the airs and graces of inner city life, drugs, violence and gang culture. These things don’t cease upon sentencing – if anything they can sometimes be more intense on a prison wing than on the street. Status can be everything on the wing and a new pair of trainers will do wonders for you on the respect scale.

To see a young man in an environment like this full of masculine front stand up to read a letter he has written to the parents of another young man he had beaten up in a gang related incident. To see this man physically shaking and weeping in front of the room I have described. To see some of the other men welling up at what they are hearing. To hear the regret that the realisation of their actions has induced: a realisation not at all prompted by the court process. To witness all this is the only way to have that big question answered. This is what I witnessed and I have absolutely no doubt as to their sincerity.

Last week we saw 9 Sycamore Tree courses come to a close. Nearly 200 men will have demonstrated their desire to change in this way. Such was the sincerity demonstrated in one prison that a woman who has suffered the murder of a loved one and had attended the course to share her story, stood up in front of the same total strangers and expressed her desire to forgive the murderers!

Say what you like, this is real and it’s happening all around the country.

The best way to reduce the ridiculous reoffending rates we have in this country is to never release anyone, ever, for any reason.

The only way I know in reality is to put a victim in front of an offender to explain to them what they are actually doing. Ask a drug dealer if he has victims and see what he says. Put him in a room with the parents of a young man murdered for no reason by strangers who were off their faces on the same drugs that your man is dealing. Now see what he says. The court process will tell him that he has done wrong but won’t teach him what those affected by his actions are going through. Only when this happens will you see real change. He knew dealing drugs was against the law before he did it so what is the point of merely telling him what he already knows and clearly isn’t bothered by?

RJ is the only way! (this would be a good song to the tune of Go West by the Petshop Boys).

So far I have taken you on a three week journey through my life at Prison Fellowship and also of my mind, and I haven’t even mentioned my love of carp angling….

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