Dr. Ian Marder gives plenary presentation at European Forum for Restorative Justice symposium

Friday, June 14, 2019 - 10:15

On June 5th, Dr. Ian Marder was invited to participate in a plenary panel in Bilbao in the Basque Country. There, he spoke alongside Alberto Olalade and Nacho Martínez from the Basque Government’s restorative justice service, and Prof. Theo de Roose from Tilburg University.

The panel focused on the future applications of restorative justice in criminal justice. Dr. Marder’s talk explored the role which design thinking, the implementation sciences and other strategic approaches to change could play in supporting the development of restorative justice in Europe. He also spoke about an ongoing project – Restorative Justice: Strategies for Change – which seeks to use these bodies of knowledge to support policy and practice reform in Ireland and nine other countries. The symposium included further plenary sessions on the use of restorative justice in prisons, by probation services and with vulnerable groups, and a series of interactive sessions in which participants discussed practical questions around the use of restorative justice in different contexts.

The event was organised by the European Forum for Restorative Justice, in collaboration with the Ministry of Labour and Justice of the Basque Government and Deusto University. At Maynooth University’s Department of Law, Dr. Marder teaches restorative justice within both criminological and legal undergraduate courses. He is also writing a new master’s module in restorative justice, to be delivered as an elective within the MA in Comparative Criminology and Criminal Justice in the 2019/20 academic year.