In July 2021, Dr. Ian Marder joined academic colleagues from England and Northern Ireland in giving oral evidence to a UK parliamentary inquiry on restorative justice, organised by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Restorative Justice. The goals of the APPG on Restorative Justice are threefold: to examine the use of restorative justice principles within the UK justice system and beyond; to raise the profile of restorative justice principles within Parliament; and to provide opportunities for policy discussion and consultation. Dr. Jon Hobson (University of Gloucestershire), Dr. Rebecca Banwell-Moore (University of Nottingham) and Dr. Brian Payne (Ulster University) and Ian presented to the group on the importance of research in restorative justice, and the research on the development and implementation of services internationally, the impact of restorative justice on victims and offender, and its role in post-conflict Northern Ireland.
You can follow the APPG at @RJAPPG.
Also in July, Ian and his colleagues in the Restorative Justice: Strategies for Change Irish group (Ursula Fernée, Dr. Kieran O’Dwyer and Tim Chapman) collaborated with the Department of Justice’s Criminal Justice Policy group to design and deliver a series of consultations on the development of restorative justice services in Ireland. After working with the Department to draft and present a briefing on the options for service development to the Criminal Justice Strategic Committee in June, they organised two, two-hour stakeholder consultations in early July which sought stakeholders’ perspectives on these options. In total, around 200 persons from across and beyond the criminal justice sector attended the two consultation sessions on July 1st and 7th, at which they considered the attributes of a successful restorative justice service and a range of options for its development in Ireland, both within agencies, and in relation to new national structures. The Department has committed to using this information to inform a forthcoming policy proposal on restorative justice, which it aims to publish in Q4 of 2021.
If you are interested in the development of restorative justice in Ireland, you can find more about the work of the Restorative Justice: Strategies for Change Irish group at www.restorativejustice.ie, or email ian.marder@mu.ie to join the mailing list for the project.
In July, Ian also gave a guest lecture on restorative policing on the International Institute for Restorative Practices’ MSc in Restorative Practices.
At Maynooth University, Ian teaches LW687 Restorative Justice, available to students on the MA in Comparative Criminology and Criminal Justice. He also incorporates restorative justice into his undergraduate teaching on LW269 Policing, LW380 Victimology and LW454 Introduction to Criminology.
You can follow Ian’s work at @iancriminology.