Nathan Monk

Violent crimes committed by children and adolescents shatter society’s warm images of youth and innocence, and frequently result in public outcry. Who are these young people, why do they do it, and how can criminal justice play an effective part in the spheres of treatment and prevention? This paper, which provides an overview of this topic, constituted Gwyneth Boswell’s Inaugural Professorial Lecture, given at De Montfort University on 27th March 2003.

The adequacy of generic social work values as a framework for probation practice has been a contested area over the years and recent changes in the structure of probation practice have added a particular focus to the debate. The purpose of this paper is to summarise the recent history of the debate and to reflect on the current position for practitioners. This is done by examining three pieces of guidance given to probation officers about what values should inform their day-to-day practice: the Regulatory Framework for the Diploma in Probation Studies (1998), the Practice Guide published by NAPO (2000) and A New Choreography published by the National Probation Service (2001).

This article aims to do two things. First, to identify which elements of the Criminal Justice Bill (2002) seem likely significantly to affect the role and workload of the National Probation Service (NPS) in the short to medium term. Secondly, to identify what other policy initiatives might also exert an influence, and to what extent. The exercise will necessarily involve a good deal of speculation: predicting the future is partly a matter of modelling and projection, but mostly a question of political choice. We will indicate the options we think should ideally be chosen.

Traditionally the probation service’s main function has been the rehabilitation and resettlement of offenders. It is only in recent times that the organisation has been required to work with victims of crime, a group that has traditionally been marginalised within the criminal justice system. With the introduction of the Victim’s Charter (Home Office, 1990) this requirement was to contact the victims, or the families of victims, of life sentence prisoners to give them information about the offender’s sentence, find out if they have any anxieties about the offender’s release, and to ask if they would like to request that certain conditions be placed on the offender’s licence. The requirement was extended in 1995 to include victims of serious violent or sexual offences where the offender is serving four years or more in prison, and again in April 2001 by Probation Circular 62/2001 to include ‘all victims of sexual and violent offenders sentenced to a custodial sentence of 12 months or more’ (National Probation Directorate, 2001).
This article appraises the extent to which the policies and procedures implemented with respect to victims (in two probation areas) help to decrease their marginalisation. It is suggested that this is dependant upon whether or not their needs are being met by the probation service, which in turn may be related to how well the different probation areas cope with the complex issues involved.

The Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (NIACRO) is a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) that has developed a range of responses to address crime and its impact on individuals and communities such as crime prevention initiatives, work with offenders and their families and the reintegration of offenders back into the community. During the last five years the association has supported the development of Community Restorative Justice (CRJ) approaches with local community groups as a core strategy.

This article will attempt to describe NIACRO’s work on restorative justice as an activity within the context of a transitional political situation moving towards a post conflict society. The paper discusses:

• the historical background of restorative justice in the political and economic context of Northern Ireland;
• programme evolution and the development of local systems and structures;
• the role of training, community capacity building and community empowerment;
• the range of responses adopted and their impact to date;
• the contribution the programme has made to peace building in a community coming out of a long period of conflict;
• perspectives on the issues raised by attempting to adopt a non-violent approach to anti-social behaviour in a society moving towards a post conflict situation;
• commentary on the working models identified by the agency;
• the promotion of good practice;
• the experience of dissemination of practice;
• links to human rights organisations.

Martin Narey, recently appointed Commissioner for Correctional Services at the Home
Office, gave the following lecture at the Community Justice Portal’s Inaugural Public
Lecture at Sheffield Hallam University in April 2003. Focusing on the challenges facing
the correctional services, this is the first in a series of annual public lectures on issues of
interest across the community and criminal justice sectors. The lecture series forms part of
the networking and knowledge exchange features of the Community Justice Portal which
can be accessed at www.cjp.org.uk