Restorative Justice in Scotland: An Overview
| Author | Niall Kearney, Steve Kirkwood, Lucinda MacFarlane |
| Pages | 55-65 |
Restorative Justice in Scotland: an overview
55
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE IN
SCOTLAND:
AN OVERVIEW
Niall Kearney, Restorative Justice Development Officer/Mediation and
Reparation Service Team Leader, Sacro;
Steve Kirkwood, Research Officer, Sacro;
and Lucinda MacFarlane, Database and Information Officer, Sacro
Abstract
This article outlines the current provision of restorative justice processes in Scotland.
There is policy for restorative processes in the youth justice system, and services are
provided throughout Scotland. There is a high-level commitment by the Scottish
Executive to restorative justice processes in the adult criminal justice system; however
provision of these services is limited to the diversion from prosecution stage in 5 of the 32
Local Authority areas, and the pre-sentencing and post-sentencing stages on an ad hoc
basis. The amount of people who have engaged with restorative justice processes at the
diversion stage, and come to a satisfactory resolution, suggests that this is a viable option
for dealing with minor crime. Although small scale, the use of these processes at the pre-
sentencing and post-sentencing stages demonstrates their feasibility and shows that there
are benefits for those involved. We conclude that restorative justice processes address a
need on behalf of people harmed and people responsible for harm and they make an
important contribution to justice. We suggest that making restorative processes available
at the various stages of the criminal justice system is a feasible way in which the Scottish
Executive could meet its high-level commitment to restorative justice.
Introduction
International research has illustrated some of the benefits of restorative justice processes as
additions and / or alternatives to adversarial court and criminal justice systems. Scottish
Executive policy supports the use of such processes, and they are well established in the
youth system, however there is currently only limited provision of services for adults
responsible for committing crimes or people directly affected by adult crime in Scotland.
This article attempts to outline the provision of such services and the associated benefits.
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