City-wide rollout for community justice panels

AN INNOVATIVE scheme that sees offenders coming face to face with their victims and together agreeing a punishment is set to be rolled out across a Yorkshire city.

Community Justice Panels have been trialled in the Broomhill and Ecclesfield areas of Sheffield and have been hailed as a success, with only one of the 22 offenders dealt with going on to commit another crime.

Sheffield is the first city in the UK to introduce the scheme, which has already proved successful in the rural community of Chard, Somerset.

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Leader of Sheffield Council, councillor Paul Scriven said: "The existing court system means that people don't have to face their victim. What we wanted to do was bring together three elements – the perpetrator, the victim and the community – so they can solve the issue and agree how the victim should be paid back."

Since the initiative was introduced in June last year 22 Community Justice Panels have been completed.

Of those, three were for theft, seven for criminal damage, four for assault, four for motorcycle nuisance, three were neighbour disputes and one was for "worrying livestock".

In 16 of the 22 cases the perpetrators were aged under 16 and, so far, only one has gone on to reoffend.

At the panel, the offender and the victim meet a trained

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volunteer and together the three agree a course of reparation.

A "Community Justice Agreement" is then signed by all parties. If the agreement is broken than the case will be passed onto the police and dealt with through the court system.

Coun Scriven added: "In one case there was a neighbour dispute where the perpetrator agreed to go back into their victim's house to help around the home.

"They have now cemented their relationship and have become friends. Without the Community Justice Panel the case would have gone to court and a much more confrontational approach would have been taken.

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"People think this is a soft option but it's not – it's a hard option. Perpetrators have to sit down, look in the face of their victims and see the heartache and anguish they have caused to another human being, who could be their mother, their grandmother, their brother or sister.

"They learn that what

they've caused is not just, say, criminal damage, but real emotional turmoil to another human being."

A report set to go before Sheffield Council's cabinet committee next Wednesday says that feedback from those involved in the Community Justice Panels is "extremely positive."

While victims value having the chance to demonstrate the harm the offender has done, it says, the perpetrators value the chance to repair the damage caused.

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The report adds that, as the panels are rolled out across Sheffield they could become a "more effective way of preventing neighbourhood disputes and low-level offending from escalating into more serious and persistent criminal activity".

Extending the project throughout Sheffield is set to cost 150,000 in the next financial year.

Coun Scriven said: "It's a win-win situation. It doesn't cost as much as the court system but seems to be more effective."