Victims of Crime to have Justice

Sheffield City Council is going to become one of the first local authorities in the country to trial new panels to allow people to have a greater influence over how low-level criminal activity and antisocial behaviour is punished.

 

Adult and young offenders wanting to avoid a criminal record will have to explain their actions to their victims in front of community volunteers.

 

The offenders must admit their guilt, apologise and sign a community justice agreement.

The victim and offender will agree a course of reparation, for example removing graffiti or making repairs to communal structures. If this is successfully completed, the case is closed. If not the case goes to court in the normal way and if the offender does not consent to the programme of reparation, the case would also go back to court.

 

The Community Justice Panels have already been successfully used in Somerset since 2005.

A delegation of Sheffield Councillors and officers travelled to Somerset last August (2008) to see the panels in action.

 

Now Cabinet members, at their meeting on Wednesday, January 14, are expected to agree to two pilot panels being set up in the Ecclesfield and Broomhill Safer Neighbourhood Areas, which include areas like Parson Cross and Broomhall, where perceived levels of crime and anti-social behaviour are high.

 

And if the panels prove successful, following a trial period, it is expected that they will be rolled out across all areas of the city next year (2010), when they will be accountable to the new Community Assemblies, being launched later this year.

 

Councillor Bob McCann, Sheffield City Council’s Cabinet Member for Housing and Sustainable, Safer Communities, said the panels will support the present justice system but at a more local and personal level: “Anti social behaviour and crime are top concerns for local people.

“Now this is a real chance for victims of crime to have their say and for restorative justice to be seen to be done. It will make victims and communities central to the justice process and go a long way to making offending less likely to happen again.”

 

In February 2005 Community Justice Panels were set up in Chard and Ilminster in Somerset after residents became frustrated that they could not see justice being done after court hearings were moved further away. And since the panels were launched, only three per cent of offenders who took part have reoffended.

 

Cases have included an ex-police officer who became abusive after he was caught speeding, a woman who was involved in a drunken brawl inside a pub and another resident who used the panel after she was racially abused at work. And the Somerset scheme has proved so successful that the Government’s chief legal advisor, the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, has called for more panels to be rolled out across the country.

 

If the Sheffield scheme is approved, the Council will work with partner organisations including South Yorkshire Police and the Local Criminal Justice Board.

Individual agencies will be able to refer appropriate cases to the panels once they are established, with initial referrals from South Yorkshire Police for offences of criminal damage and minor assaults as well as anti-social behaviour. Registered Social Landlords and Housing Associations will also be able to refer cases.

 

All panel facilitators will be trained in the practice of restorative justice and will ensure that reparation activity is proportionate to the offence.

 

January 2009