THE Archbishop of Canterbury has praised a restorative-justice
project that has just had its government funding cut.
Archbishop Welby was speaking during a visit to HMP Brixton, in
south London, on Friday, to see the work of Prison Fellowship
volunteers, and the group's victim-awareness scheme Sycamore
Tree.
During the visit, several offenders told him that the course, in
which criminals meet their victims face to face to seek
reconciliation, has changed them. Sycamore Tree, launched in 1998,
now operates in 40 prisons, but the Ministry of Justice has just
announced that there are no plans to renew its three-year contract,
which ended in March.
Archbishop Welby said that governments of all hues "always have
to struggle with how they deal with the issues of prison. . . No
government has ever cracked it. . . They want lower reoffending
rates, they want to reduce pressure on budgets, and they want lots
of other things. I also have no doubt that the research currently
being conducted by the University of Cambridge will highlight
Sycamore Tree's extraordinarily effective outcomes in resolving
conflict, and bringing about restorative transformations and
reconciliation."
The Archbishop went on: "It is encouraging that, slowly, people
outside prison - and most of those involved in the prison service
know this very well - are beginning to see the mainstreaming of
restorative justice as a legitimate, effective, and cost-effective
means of rehabilitation. Change happens when we treat people as
people with whom we build relationships. Investing time, energy,
and resources in the individual offender can lead to the kinds of
transformation and reconciliation that other rehabilitation
programmes could never achieve."
The chairman of the fellowship's trustees, Howard Dodd, said:
"Our fundamental belief is that no one is beyond help - that
everyone can change, and everyone needs support to make that
change."
England and Wales imprison proportionately more of their
populations - about 147 people per 100,000 - than any other West
European nation.