The Oireachtas Committee on Justice has performed a valuable service in advancing the rationale for the introduction of legislation to provide for a nationwide programme of restorative justice as an alternative to sending some offenders to jail. Even more importantly, the group has urged the Department of Justice to reassess how it uses its resources in the criminal justice area.
In doing so, it cites two significant failings of the current prison-centric system: the high degree of recidivism (50 per cent of inmates will reoffend within four years) and the high rate of people imprisoned for non-payment of fines. Potential responses, it says, include legislation allowing for alternatives to enforce the payment of fines; new steps to reintegrate offenders such as the Linkage Programme which has placed 2,000 ex-offenders in employment over the last six years; and the redeployment of prison staff, who will be free for other duties after the move from Mountjoy to the more efficient Thornton Hall, into restorative justice projects, particularly in the Probation and Welfare Service.
Our criminal justice system is overly reliant on custodial remedies, with the emphasis on penalising offenders by depriving them of their liberty rather than providing rehabilitation. This is short-sighted and counter-productive. That being said, restorative justice is no panacea. Prisons will always be necessary for those convicted of serious offences. But the restorative approach, where offenders are offered a programme of reparation and mediation towards victims in which they must face the consequences of their behaviour, provides a real alternative to jail for those who have been convicted of lesser offences or for first-time offenders where the consequences of a criminal record can be disproportionate to the offence. It has the potential too to redress the harm caused to victims who can feel "sidelined" in the current system. The concept has been proven internationally but has been confined here to juveniles for whom it has been in operation for decades. Successful pilot projects involving adult offenders have been tested recently in Nenagh and Tallaght.
The reality, however, is that community-based options are the Cinderella of the criminal justice system. And although restorative justice is publicly supported by the most senior officials in the Department of Justice, experience would suggest that their political masters at Cabinet level will lack the vision to advance an initiative which is long term in nature and cannot deliver positive headlines within the timeframe of a single term in government. If that is the case, a real opportunity will be missed.