In November, Dr. Ian Marder (Assistant Professor in Criminology, School of Law and Criminology) and Katharina Kurz (Research Assistant in Restorative Practices, School of Law and Criminology and PhD student, Department of Anthropology) published an article in the journal Policing and Society. Entitled ‘Can dialogue help police officers and young Black adults understand each other? Key findings from a restorative process’, their article outlines the rationale, process and findings from the first study to use restorative practices to facilitate dialogue between police officers and young Black adults in Europe. The project was funded by the Irish Research Council’s New Foundations scheme.
Ian also recently presented at three conferences in France and Ireland. On 14 November, Ian delivered a plenary presentation and a parallel workshop at a one-day national conference on restorative justice, hosted by the French Ministry of Justice: Justice Restaurative: Approches Européennes et Perspectives Innovantes. His plenary presentation was entitled ‘What is the future of restorative justice in Europe?’ and discussed the accessibility of restorative justice services and the relationship between restorative practices and cultural change in criminal justice. The workshop focused on the use of restorative justice outside of the criminal procedure, specifically in response to complaints against the police.
That conference was preceded by the European Restorative Justice Policy Network’s annual meeting a day earlier. There, Ian presented to justice ministry officials from across Europe on the developments needed in the European Union’s Victims’ Rights Directive to support restorative justice accessibility.
On 17 November, Ian was invited to present at a conference in Trinity College Dublin. Organised by the Irish Universities Association and the Health Research Board and entitled Building Bridges for Evidence Informed Public Policy: Young People and Substance Use, the event aimed to bring together researchers and policymakers.
In a parallel session on the theme ‘An engaged research approach to inform youth-led drug-related policy’, Ian presented with Dr. Jo-Hannah Ivers (Trinity College Dublin), Gurchand Singh (Department of Justice) and Jim Walsh (Department of Health). He explored how to apply evidence from longitudinal research and systematic reviews to policy, practical approaches to involving young people in engaged research, and stakeholder involvement at the agenda-setting stage of policy and research processes.