Science, art and alchemy: best practice in facilitating restorative justice

Abstract

This paper explores the role and process of facilitation in restorative justice (RJ). Drawing from a victim offender conferencing program used after serious crime in New South Wales Australia, 84 interviews with restorative facilitators were thematically analysed. The skills, techniques and strategies used to prepare, conduct and de-brief cases are considered including managing complex cases where participants present with intense anger and grief, poor insight into offending and cognitive and mental health issues. While good facilitation is in part the result of knowledge, training and experience, the art of great facilitation relates to the interplay of the facilitator’s inherent characteristics, capacities and world-views alongside this knowledge, skill and experience. While facilitating well is premised on an appreciation of the alchemy that exists within RJ, advanced facilitators use the alchemy to shape the process. Good practice is further enabled through workplace structures that support a team approach where there is open deliberation around needs, risk and harm. Because good facilitation is paramount to the best practice of RJ this paper has implications for current policy debates concerning RJ standards and the training and accreditation of RJ practitioners.

Keywords:

• Restorative justice
• victim-offender conferencing
• violent crime
• facilitation
• best practice

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Professor Janet Chan and Ms Jenny Bargen for their contributions to the design of the study and fieldwork and to Holly Blackmore for research assistance. Thanks also to Ms Jenny Bargen for comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Notes

1. Depending on the program variously called convenors, mediators, circle leaders or keepers of the circle.

2. Mediation and RJ should be seen as separate but related spheres of work: while there are many important differences, they are both forms of alternative dispute resolution and non-adversarial justice approaches and arguably, should be drawing more from each other’s evidence bases. A key difference between mediation and RJ is that in mediation the facts may still be in dispute whereas in restorative justice there is always an admission of harm (or guilt) before the meeting occurs. In RJ the focus is not on resolving the ‘dispute’ but addressing crime and developing a pathway forward. The distinction is particularly important in cases where significant harm has occurred as the behavior is not ‘conflict’ but legally defined crime.

3. VOC is only one part of the RJU’s work; the Unit offers a range of restorative interventions including exchanges of letters, family group conferences and victim offender mediation. These practices can also be used in combination with a VOC (during the lead up or de-briefing stage). The work of the RJU also encompasses managing one of the state’s victim’s register’s and mediating workplace conflict within Corrective Services NSW.

4. Nine out of ten interviews were conducted with staff employed in the RJU specifically in the role of facilitator (the tenth was a staff member employed as a Manager but who conducted a number of VOCs).

5. Of the 76 cases completed by the RJU between 1999–2013, 74 were the subject of this study. There were two cases where no consent was given for the research team to collect data. Both related to cases of historical child sexual abuse within a family.

6. There was one case where the original facilitator in a VOC was not contacted but the other member of the RJU staff sitting outside of the circle was interviewed instead.

7. A practical challenge of working in NSW is that the RJU must cover a vast geographical distance, offenders and victims may live in separate and rural and remote parts of the State.

8. Correctional officer/departmental slang for an offender who says the ‘right thing’ without being genuine- almost like pressing ‘go’ on a pre-recorded tape.