asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether restorative justice sessions will be offered within the new victim care units. [HL968]
Victim Support “+” (formerly called victim care units) aims to provide faster, more tailored support for victims of crime, based on a standard needs assessment within two days of referral from the police. At present, restorative justice is not one of the services being offered to victims, however the model is currently in its early stages of rollout. There might be scope for inclusion in the future as a commissioned service, depending on the availability of resources.
asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether restorative justice will be built into the new code for conditional cautioning. [HL969]
The existing Code of Practice for Conditional Cautioning provides that restorative justice (RJ) processes may be used to help determine the conditions to be attached to a conditional caution. It also provides that participation in an RJ process may be a condition of the caution itself; where the requirement is positive participation in the process, any actions arising out of the RJ process will form a voluntary agreement between the offender and the victim or victims.
Earlier this year we consulted on a revised draft Code of Practice for Conditional Cautions. That draft made the same provisions in respect of RJ. We have not yet sought parliamentary approval for the implementation of the revised code of practice, but there are no plans to change the RJ provisions in the code before we do.
Areas are encouraged to use RJ processes where appropriate. Seminars on RJ processes at a recent series of conditional cautioning practitioner events were aimed at raising its profile and increasing uptake.
asked Her Majesty's Government:
How local criminal justice boards will measure their success in providing restorative justice. [HL970]
All local criminal justice boards have key targets to meet as agreed by the National Criminal Justice Board, which include bringing more offences to justice, improving enforcement and increasing public confidence. But the use of restorative justice, which is largely delivered as part of a caution or a sentence, is not measured discretely within these targets.
There is no requirement on local criminal justice boards to deliver adult restorative justice but where boards have set up local schemes they should be subject to local success measures.
asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will change the system so that a restorative justice outcome will count as a sanctioned detection. [HL971]
We have no current plans to change the sanction detection system in order to count restorative justice outcomes. The majority of restorative justice interventions are delivered as part of, or in addition to, a caution or a sentence, which already count as sanction detections.