Legal Opinion: The justice strategy that introduces offenders to their victims
Meet-the-criminal programmes have won enormous support. So, asks Robert Verkaik, Law Editor, why isn't restorative justice being put to greater use?
"When first mooted 10 years ago, it was an idea that broke with the conventional thinking on how to tackle crime. Under the restorative-justice scheme, victims of crime would be given the chance to meet the offender so both could benefit from the experience. The victim would use the meeting to help get over the trauma, while the offender would use it as opportunity to break the cycle of offending".
A mixture of law, politics, autobiography and humour. Once described as "The Devilish Advocate" (Guardian), I do have the ability to provoke a response. Sometimes it comes from someone who uses a thought process, and sometimes from jerks usually associated with the knee.
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But what of the offender? Can these meetings really put a hardened criminal on the straight and narrow? The Government has spent millions of pounds researching the answer to this question but concrete findings remain elusive.
Mostly, haystacks consist of hay and not needles.
"Elusive" means "so far we haven't even found even the tiniest glimmers of hope we could spin into something we could pretend was success".
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