Sergeant Ed Baker has been a "street cop" for more than 25 years and has been assaulted more times than he can remember.
"It’s the nature of the job ... you put yourself in difficult situations and sometimes it doesn’t come out in your favour."
At a checkpoint in North Dunedin in August last year, Sgt Baker chased a man who fled the scene. When he tried to apprehend the 32-year-old man he was assaulted.
The offender appeared in court for the attack.
The assault was not the worst in Sgt Baker’s career but it was the first time he accepted an invitation from restorative justice.
In April this year, he met his attacker at a conference with a Restorative Justice Otago facilitator at Anglican Family Care in Hanover St.
He accepted the invitation because he had dealt with the man in the past and knew the chances of his being jailed were high. He also wanted the man to learn the consequences of his actions.
"It may sound airy-fairy but I think the process is very good and it’s not an easy out because the offender has to front up and acknowledge what they did was wrong."
Sgt Baker said the conference was "valuable" because it gave him a better understanding of why the man attacked him.
Usually a police officer would only see the offender in court.
"The conference allowed me to sit down and have a conversation outside the criminal justice process."
At sentencing the man avoided a jail term.
Since the conference, the man had stopped Sgt Baker in the street to shake his hand.
The focus of police used to be "react to crime and lock people up" but was shifting towards crime prevention, resulting in more police officers using programmes such as restorative justice, Sgt Baker said.
Restorative Justice Otago co-ordinator Raewyn Macfie said the conferences were non-confrontational and in a safe environment.
The victim was "at the forefront" of the process.
"If we think there is any chance of the victim being re-victimised we wouldn’t do it," Mrs Macfie said.
The "non-judgemental" reports the facilitators wrote gave the judge a "true flavour" of the conversation between the victim and the offender.
The crimes discussed at the conference ranged from "low-level to serious".
In a conference, a "traumatised" victim met the offender who held a gun to their head during an aggravated burglary. Mrs Macfie hoped the meeting helped the victim deal with the trauma.
Victims of burglaries often benefited from conferences by realising the crime was random and was not personal.
Often the offender was not the "scary person" the victim had imagined, she said.
At a conference at a prison, a woman asked an offender what he would have done if she had walked in when he was burgling her house.
The man replied: "I would have run a mile".
"For her to see he would have been scared of her gave her the power back," Mrs Macfie said.
Before another conference a "traumatised" female student kept seeing in her head the mask-wearing man who looked in her window.
The visions disappeared after she met the offender in a prison conference.
"She was relieved and said ‘I’m not scared of you any more’. It was very much her taking the power back ... that’s what we are about," Mrs Macfie said.
Anglican Family Care’s Restorative Justice Otago had the Ministry of Justice contract to facilitate the conferences.
Most of the conferences are held at Anglican Family Care in Dunedin but facilitators travel to Balclutha and Central Otago.
Restorative justice had been in Dunedin for 15 years; Restorative Justice Otago gets about 650 referrals a year.
About 25% of the referrals result in a conference.
Ministry of Justice data revealed an offender in New Zealand who participated in a conference committed 26% fewer crimes.
"It reduces reoffending," Mrs Macfie said.
Restorative Justice Otago assistant co-ordinator Ron Ballantyne said often the conferences were "huge wake up calls" for offenders when they heard what victims had to say.
Mrs Macfie said victims of fraud whose trust had been betrayed often "really got into" the offender.
The students who had been burgled were often vocal at conferences, she said.
"They let the offender have it."
The restorative justice process
• A facilitator meets offender at court and talks to them about the process and considers if appropriate.
• Court sends victim details.
• Facilitators sends invitation to victim offering to meet them to discuss the conference process.
• If victim and offender accept invitation, they meet at a conference and the facilitator gives the judge a report on meeting to consider before sentencing.
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Comments
RJ is recommended, not ordered, by the Judge. It informs the pre sentence report. RJ is not compulsory for victims, who are, in fact, doing the offender a favour by attending.
According to this article, RJ is helping both the victim and the offender so they can get on with thier lives. Helping the victim and keeping somebody out of jail has got to be good.