In July 2023, Dr Ian Marder was honoured to win the British Society of Criminology (BSC) Learning and Teaching Network’s inaugural award for Outstanding Contribution to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Criminology. Ian had been nominated for the award in recognition of his contribution to restorative justice pedagogy. You can find a blog written by Ian for the BSC with links to various resources on this topic here and see the award announcement here.
Also in July, Ian was invited to speak to RTÉ 2FM about the Engagement of Children in Criminal Activity Bill. He discussed the reasons why acts are criminalised and how the Bill fails to align with what we know from research about crime prevention and youth justice. You can listen back here.
In June, Ian spoke on two podcasts and delivered workshops at conferences in Dublin and Pamplona. The first podcast was Circles of Connection, a series on restorative practices in which Ian discussed restorative approaches to teaching and learning in higher education (listen here). The second was The Function Room – Chats About Maths with comedian Colm O’Regan (listen here), on which he discussed how numbers help us to understand levels and trends in crime, interpret crime reporting, and consider the merits of different responses to crime.
Ian was also involved in two connected workshops at the European Forum for Restorative Justice’s 12th International Seminar in Pamplona, Spain. Hosted by the Government of Navarra, the topic of the conference was restorative justice policy. He organised and chaired two workshops on the topic of developing national action plans for restorative justice. This was in collaboration with his colleague Dr. Threase Finnegan-Kessie from Maynooth University Department of Design Innovation.
Finally in June, Ian delivered a training session for victim support and criminal justice professionals on how restorative justice can be accessed and used to support victim recovery from crime in Ireland. The training was organised by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) as part of a European project on victims’ rights and supports, and Ian spoke alongside colleagues from the ICCL, Dublin City University and the University of Limerick.
