Reflections on Restorative Justice Week
This is a blog by our Communications and Campaigns Manager, Keeva Baxter.
We hope that everyone enjoyed Restorative Justice Week 2024 – it was a week full of passion, shared messaging, celebration and encouragement across the world. We were delighted to see a buzz around Restorative Justice throughout the week, with conversations and events spreading far and wide. It is the perfect time for people to come together to celebrate the achievements of the sector, whilst simultaneously urging action from policy makers and increased awareness about the life-changing process
Spreading the word through film
At the beginning of the week, we released our new 4-minute film and were overwhelmed by the support shown by the restorative community and beyond. We have over 5,000 views across our platforms and have received lots of positive feedback about how powerful the film is. We spent the week sharing it far and wide but please continue to share it amongst your networks.
On Monday, 18th of November, the Why me? team attended a film screening at Warner Brothers, where our short film was shown on a big screen alongside 9 films created by other criminal justice charities. Why me? Ambassador Will, who was a consultant for the film and also made an appearance on screen as an extra, joined us for the celebration. We were also joined by some of the incredible film crew and actors who brought our vision to life.
The event, hosted by the Media Trust and the Criminal Justice Alliance, was an incredible opportunity to network with other charities, meet the creatives behind the films and celebrate our achievements. It was an honour to appear alongside others campaigning for change throughout the justice system.
The Why me? team and our fantastic film crew
Communicating Restorative Justice Effectively
On the 21st of November, the Thursday of Restorative Justice Week, we hosted a two-hour workshop exploring the most effective way to communicate about Restorative Justice.
We started by explaining why this is such an important topic, sharing the 2019/2020 Crime Survey of England and Wales finding that less than 6% of victims of crime recalled being told about Restorative Justice. With this enormous lack of awareness, as well as the punitive rhetoric in the media, there is a long way to go before people have an accurate understanding of what Restorative Justice is.
We were joined by an expert panel – Penelope Gibbs, Pete Wallis and Liz Kearsley – who shared their expertise on communicating about restorative and criminal justice.
Penelope highlighted how most people have preconceived ideas about justice, and therefore we need to be conscious to avoid triggering unhelpful beliefs, for example that everyone who commits crime has made a rational, considered decision to do so. Instead, she advocated for explaining the sociological factors that contribute to crime, such as poverty, mental health, trauma and addiction.
Pete addressed some of the challenges and techniques when communicating Restorative Justice to children and young people. For example, he highlighted how approaches must vary in line with the child’s age, level of emotional intelligence, speech and language needs and adverse childhood experiences. He advocated for the use of creativity when explaining Restorative Justice to children, for example through artwork or comic strips etc.
Liz shared top tips for small organisations to maximise the impact of their communications. She focused on things that resource-limited organisations can easily cut out, such as mythbusting, overcomplicating your message and creating content for platforms you don’t need.
The event allowed us to share the key challenges we face when explaining Restorative Justice to potential participants, criminal justice professionals and the general public. We then highlighted some simple techniques to implement in order to ensure you get the most from limited communications resources.
Find out more about communicating Restorative Justice effectively
If you are interested in watching the recording for this event, get in touch with us via info@why-me.org.
“Thank you for the webinar on such an important topic – let’s hope that it contributes to our seeing many more victims of crime than the 5% in the 2020 crime survey’s being offered the opportunity to communicate with those who committed the crime.” – Event attendee
Thank you to everyone who attended our workshop – we were excited to see guests from Canada, Denmark, and beyond – and thank you to everyone who shared our film, created a social media post, or started a conversation about Restorative Justice during #RJWeek2024!
