Restorative Justice policy in England and Wales: Reflections on the All Party Parliamentary Group for Restorative Justice

Despite there being little in the way of new policy on restorative justice in England and Wales in the last decade, there is a well-established and growing restorative sector with a strong presence in policing and the criminal justice system, education, health, and social care amongst other sectors. It is within this setting that the Restorative Justice All-Party Parliamentary Group was formed in April 2021 with the intention to drive forward cross-party conversations on restorative justice, raise awareness about its principles, and provide information for policy makers. This presentation reflects on the work of the APPG, which has now completed two rounds of investigation. The first focused on establishing the breadth and depth of restorative justice and practice across England and Wales. It focused on issues of ‘access’, ‘awareness’, and ‘capacity, and a series of nine policy recommendations: 1. That commissioned services should be registered as providers. 2. That there should be standardisation in the sharing of information. 3. That effective monitoring and evaluation would improve service quality. 4. That the UK government should publish a new Action Plan for restorative justice. 5. That there should be a review of ring-fenced funding for restorative justice services. 6. That there should be an exploration of automatic rights for victims through the Victim’s Law. 7. That blanket bans for RJ in certain types of cases (particularly DV/SV and hate crime) should end. 8. That there should be more and better communication around RJ and RP. 9. That a Government minister should have specific responsibility for restorative justice. The second phase of the APPG’s work, reporting in early 2023, focused on 4 key themes to have emerged from the initial report: 1. Raising practitioner standards within the criminal justice sector 2. Opening up universal access to restorative justice in the criminal justice sector 3. Implementing restorative practices in education, health and social care 4. The commissioning, collection, and dissemination of evidence-based research & the benefits of a national reporting framework Across these issues, key findings included the need for policy to be underpinned by effective, consistent reporting of cases and outcomes and a discussion on what should be considered as a ‘successful’ restorative intervention. In this presentation we will consider the impact of the APPG and what their findings mean for the future of Restorative Justice policy in England and Wales.