Restorative Justice

This is powerful:

A good example (of Restorative Justice) is the work that one London borough (Enfield) is doing with young people who are getting into trouble and are on the periphery of the gang culture. Sessions are held by the community (ex-gang members, parents or friends of people who’ve lost their lives, and older people living on estates). These sessions are held in the austere surrounding of a Crown Court, out of hours, where the community members talks about the impact that gangs have had on their lives. 

These tough youngsters are asked to explain why they behave like they do; you can hear a pin drop. Most of these young people are not bad or evil; they’ve walked down the wrong path, made poor choices, and are quietly grateful for being given a helping hand to recover their lives. And believe me when I say that there is nothing more impactive than a Grandmother explaining the horror of losing her grandson to a knife, and the daily pain she is living through, and then opening the door of her house to these kids and committing to be there for them, no matter what the time of day or night. These are the quiet leaders in our communities.

from an interview between Matt Bird of the Cinnamon Network, and Commander Tony Eastaugh of the Met.

I Was Out of Prison, and You Visited Me

In this Prisons Week, The government is about to announce plans for a mentoring scheme for those recently released from prison, to help them get their lives back on track and reduce reoffending rates.

In his speech (Chris Grayling) is expected to say that when an offender leaves jail they should be met by a mentor who would help them find a place to live and arrange training or rehabilitation from drug or alcohol issues.

Continue reading the main story

Only those who are jailed for more than a year are currently given rehabilitation, but the prime minister wants all but a small number of high-risk prisoners to be supported by the end of 2015.

Mr Grayling will say everyone has a vested interest in "an enlightened approach to reducing reoffending" as "we can't just keep recycling people round and round the system".

He will say: "I want [released prisoners] to be met at the prison gate, to have a place to live sorted out, to have rehab or training lined up, and above all someone who knows where they are, what they are doing, and can be a wise friend to prevent them from reoffending.

And who will do this? 'Private and voluntary sector groups', according to the report. This seems to be a repeat of the approach to 'problem families' - the government has announced a headline figure, released a certain amount of funding, but has left it up to local authorities to identify who can make most progress on the issue in their area. Interestingly, our local 'provider' for supporting troubled families is a mentoring scheme, Yeovil4Family, based at a local church. There is some wisdom to this approach: a voluntary sector group doesn't represent 'the authorities' in the same way, and can be on the side of the client, rather than being seen as a big stick or Big Brother.

But released prisoners need more than just job training. Work is the solution to some things, but not all: a mentor programme needs to go further than that, and help people to change behaviour, to work through damaged relationships etc. Private training agencies which might be drawn to the rehab scheme will have part of the picture, but being a 'wise friend' is going to involve a lot more than lining up an apprenticeship or a work placement.

The deadline of 2015 is a worry - yes, the sooner ex-offenders can be supported well the better, but it will take time to get 'results', and this sounds more like a deadline set to coincide with an election than anything else. There will also be a lot of volunteers needed: locally the church has been a dependable pool of volunteers for all sorts of things, most recently family mentoring, debt counselling, a food bank, alongside a whole stack of groups for parents, preschoolers, youth groups, lunch clubs etc. But how much water is left in the pool? Is the government getting carried away by the level of volunteering for the Olympics, and assuming that time and dedication is available 24/7/365, rather than just once in a lifetime?

Jesus would want us to be the first in line to work with those released from prison, and I hope this scheme might be the trigger for some creative, imaginative and significant work. It might even be a natural cousin to the family support work that's just starting. But I worry that it's too fast, too quickly. What happens after 2015? It takes a long time and a lot of dedication to change a life.

update (11.15) the proposals are currently being discussed on 5 live, it sounds like the Grayling plan is to involve as many ex-offenders in mentoring as possible. 

PCC Elections

No, not that sort of PCC, though there are probably more people who vote in annual elections for C o fE Parochial Church Councils than are forecast to vote tomorrow.

Here are the candidates for Avon and Somerset, for the post of Police and Crime Commissioner. Here's the official national website, and the local bit for our area. Sorry about that, but I've now taken away any case you had about not being sufficiently informed.

This may be the most bodged election since the Libdems AV campaign - date, publicity, concept etc. But it's still an election, and it will have an effect on policing. The more we engage with the process, the more we'll get the kind of policing response we want. I'm planning to vote, and will be voting Independent. It's a nonsense otherwise: this is an attempt to put policing more into the hands of local communities, and I don't see how that can be done if the PCCs are there to represent a political party. It immediately gives them someone else to answer to - they are only candidates in the first place because of party approval.

There were lots of complaints on the radio today about lack of information, from people who, with a bit of effort and poking around on the web could have found out all they needed to know. Whose responsibility is it, the states to inform us, or us as electors to become informed? It's a very odd and depressing form of dependency.

Or maybe we are getting tired/bored with democracy. I guess we've had it too long and it's far more exciting to vote for some leggy blonde on X Factor whose name we won't even remember in 3 months time, just to see Louis Walsh get all wound up again. But we can't admit to being tired or bored, so we'll blame the state for making it hard for us. Or we dress up being too apathetic to vote as a 'protest vote'

If you want somewhere where the state makes it hard for people to vote, try North Korea, Iran, or most of the former Soviet states.

Here's the polling stations in South Somerset for tomorrow. See you there?

Street Pastors, Crime and Community

We hosted a Street Pastors commissioning at the weekend, 6 new SP's for Yeovil, and more prayer pastors too. We had reps from the local police and council there, reinforcing the partnership model that Street Pastors works with. There's now over 300 Street Pastor projects around the country, with over 9000 volunteers in action.

A couple of things struck me on the night:

1. A local police inspector told us that crime in the town centre had fallen 27% since the Street Pastors had started work. That's brilliant. It's partly through the Street Pastors heading off incidents (picking up glass which could be used as weapons, keeping lairy gangs away from each other), and partly through SP's dealing with low-level stuff, thus freeing up the police to do their job more effectively.

2. The deputy mayor gave the main address, which included this conclusion:
For the New Pastors…
The role is not about preaching heaven and hell, but one of listening - caring and helping - working in an unconditional and practical way, engaging with all people no matter Who or What they are.

For the Church…
God is challenging the Church to be a powerful catalyst for social action and Street Pastors are helping the Church to do just that. It is a must for church leaders and believers to reach their communities with a message of love and hope.

I'm mulling on that last bit, how to mobilise the whole church to be agents of change and hope in our communities. We had a few examples of that to show to our 2 local bishops, who visited last week, but there's still a sense that we're just scratching the surface.

Coldplay 'Charlie Brown' Video: Is Petty Crime Peanuts?

Stole a key
Took a car downtown where the lost boys meet
Took a car downtown and took what they offered me
To set me free



It's a bit odd that, not so long after the riots, the most succesful rock group in the UK can pen a tribute to petty criminals, and then celebrate it in video. Not so long ago Coldplay were the best thing this side of OK Go when it came to creative videos for their singles, and there's probably a whole lot worse in a lot of other songs. But the story here is: hoodie gets up, does some parkour, smashes window, steals car, gets girlfriend, goes to rave, vandalises car with spraypaint, snogs girlfriend, watches sunrise. So romantic, unless you happen to be the car owner.

Is this a celebration of petty crime, or just 'art'? And are we really convinced that 'Charlie Brown' is a reference to a Peanuts character, and not to drugs?

I don't really want to have a go at Coldplay, they're a household favourite, they write great songs, and some of their stuff has got a real spiritual edge. But I really don't like this.

Government Strategy for Problem Families: Passing the Buck to Local Councils?

A couple of days ago Eric Pickles spoke on the 120,000 'troubled' families identified by David Cameron in the wake of the riots. He announced that he'd been put in charge of 'turning their lives around' by the end of the parliament - quite a big ask! It's significant that it's the minister for Local Government that's been put in charge of this. Why? read on...

Here's some of his speech to a Local Government Conference

The whole country got a sudden, unwelcome insight into our problem families. The ones that make misery in their communities and cause misery to themselves.

Any local politician worth his salt will already know the family members by name - along with the police, the social workers, the courts, the schools, the A&E. And they will be known and avoided in their local neighbourhoods.

There are 120,000 plus of these problem families.

And there hasn't been a lack of interventions. A lack of money spent. Less than one per cent of the population, they cost the economy over eight billion pounds a year.

It's a story of futility and waste. Waste of money. Waste of people.

And it has simply got to stop. We are going to stop it.

We can no longer afford the luxury of fruitless, uncoordinated investment. The damaged lives and communities.

The Prime Minister has set out an ambition of turning the lives of these families around by the end of Parliament.

I'm in charge of delivering this across Whitehall.

And someone's got to show local leadership to deliver this on the ground. And that should be you in local government.

So don't dither or fret. Um and ah. Don't pass the buck. This is it.

Last week the Prime Minister announced a Troubled Families Unit in my Department led by Louise Casey.

She will be working on an action plan for what needs to be done nationally and locally to deliver this ambition. That will include cutting the bureaucracy that gets in your way.

And she'll be supporting and talking to you. To ensure that all across the country, councils and their partners are prioritising the activities and interventions which work.

If you're wondering is this a threat to your independence - the answer is yes, it is a threat. It is a threat if you don't get on with things.

Think of this as a race to deliver by 2015. If you motor along then we'll play catch up. But if we get there first - you'll find yourselves behind the agenda.


Several features of this jump out:
1. Is Pickles simply passing the buck to local councils and agencies? The government has a vision (or at least a soundbite) of dealing with the most dysfunctional and socially costly families (misnomer: some of them are individuals rather than families). But it doesn't look like it'll be the government putting it into action. The onus here seems to be on local authorities. OK, the context may explain that, but there's more said about what local government can do than about national government.

2. Cameron has set himself a goal, but it doesn't look like he's that sure how to hit it. If he did, they wouldn't need a unit to work out an action plan.

3. There is general government mood music to set national goals, but devolve responsibility for meeting them to other people. The recent, and laughable, obesity report from the department of health encouraged people to eat less and exercise more (must have had the best minds in the country working on that one) but refused to put a single piece of legistlation in place. There is a bizarre duality to this government, in certain areas they are hyperactive (e.g. pension reform - but fair enough, after 13 years of Labour inaction on a looming social and economic timebomb, there was some catching up to do) whilst in other areas it is all about saying lots and doing little.

David Camerons conference speech emphasised 'leadership' from business, social enterprises, communities, and the role of government of setting free and enabling this local leadership. Fair enough, but at the moment the government seems to have a better idea of the problems than it does of the solutions. Maybe it's a cultural issue: perhaps Brits are better at waiting for someone to tell us what to do, and rather than simply getting on and doing it. But as with the 'problem families' - if that doing isn't strategic, well informed, co-ordinated, and sustained, it doesn't actually work.

What does work? There's quite a bit of material on Christian discipleship doing the rounds at the moment, which addresses the same core issue: how do you help people to change? I'll probably blog more on this another time, but some of the constant factors seem to be
 - a mentor, sponsor or soul friend, who holds you to the goal of personal change
 - accountability to a small group on the same journey as you
 - an interactive learning process, based in real life rather than in the classroom
 - learning a new set of values and priorities in life
 - learning experiences
 - a goal and vision of life that goes beyond ourselves (in the case of Christian discipleship, this is the mission of Jesus).

Members of Alcoholics Anonymous will recognise most of this. It's an approach that doesn't have to be confined to Christian formation. Should Eric Pickles be looking at those organisations which have specialised in life change, repentance and redemption? Is this something governments can deliver, or merely enable?

Drop the Gun

great track for an important cause.



by the superb West End Gospel Choir, a group of West End actors who get together to sing gospel. One of the founders is a Yeovil girl. It's part of Intermission, a fresh expression of church for folk in London theatreland, arts and media.

There's Probably No Street Pastors, Now Stop Vomiting and Get Home by Yourself

Hands up who thinks this is a 'success':

I thought I would provide a small success story Westminster Unison had regarding Street Pastors, which were nearly introduced at Westminster City Council. Following a complaint made by myself, and a letter to Newsline, outlining the reasons why a local authority should not pay for the Ascension Trust, an evangelical Christian group, to patrol the streets, I was informed this week that Westminster has now withdrawn the proposal.

or this a 'victory'

After some persistence on my part, however, the Council undertook something called an Equalities Impact Assessment, which had to acknowledge the fact that, under the aims of the scheme Street Pastors could only be recruited from "individuals with a Christian Faith" and was also only open to those "whose relationship lifestyle is in keeping with mainstream Christian teaching" – i.e. no gays or lesbians, thank you.

I have just received confirmation from a slightly embarrassed Council official that the scheme will receive no further public funding, and wanted to share with your readership a small, but satisfying, victory against the encroachment of religion into public life. I would even go out on Friday night to celebrate, but the Street Pastors are still out there after my soul.

I'm caught between bewilderment and boiling blood at the sheer short-sightedness of this 'secularism at any cost' approach. The real losers will be the clubbers, who SP's are there to look out for, help where needed, and be a listening ear for. The police and emergency services jobs will get a little bit harder too. In both cases there'll probably be enough financial support from the churches to make up the difference, but there are obviously some very odd ideas out there of what the Pastors do.

In the last few months I've heard of young children found sleeping rough by SP's on a Saturday night who were got back home, someone else who was about to commit suicide who talked it through with some Street Pastors and changed their mind, fights avoided, vulnerable women protected from people trying to bundle them into cars, you name it. These are the people Street Pastors help.

At the same time if someone asks why we're doing it, they'll get an honest answer. That gives all sorts of opportunities for people to sound off about God, get into deep theological argument, or walk away - and that's completely up to them. At no point is there any attempt to evangelise or exploit people who are slightly worse for wear. If there was, the police would quite rightly tell us to go back home. As it is, police in several areas are actively inviting the local churches to set up Street Pastor initiatives, as it's recognised that they do some good.

So what's the problem? That if a group is motivated by their faith to do something of public benefit, then it shouldn't get any funding. You can be motivated by anything else, and we won't complain, but we can't have Christians doing good, because, well, they're Christians. And? We have a night shelter for the homeless in Yeovil, originally set up by Christians, now passed on to other leadership. And the Lords Larder, which gives out hundreds of food parcels in partnership with Social Services - the clue is in the name. Both work in partnership with secular agencies, and have received support from non-church sources. Does the council have to wait for agnostic charities to set up before it's allowed to fund them, or can it support positive action no matter who does it, or whether or not they are motivated by some kind of faith?

Perhaps the problem is the conviction that there must be an ulterior motive. That wouldn't be unreasonable - every other stranger who acts friendly is usually a salesman or a Scientologist. The church itself sometimes gets in a muddle over 'friendship evangelism' - friends are not friends if they're just people you are getting to know so you can invite them to church. So that suspicion is understandable. And of course if clubbers show some interest in the Christian faith, they'll be encouraged in that. A comparison: our local MP and councillors all represent political parties. They'll work on behalf of constituents of any political conviction, but if those constituents show signs of supporting the LibDems, or whoever, then that will be encouraged, but the help isn't made conditional on people's political viewpoints. Same with Street Pastors - the help isn't conditional, but enquiries are welcomed.

There are clearly a lot of myths about Street Pastors doing the rounds, so lets nail a few:
- SP's main aim is to be a pastoral presence on the streets, to look out for and help the vulnerable where appropriate. They are not 'after your soul'.

- We work in partnership with the police and council, and involve the police in the (quite intensive) training, which all SP's must complete. That includes drug awareness, conflict management, alcohol awareness, youth culture, probation, child protection etc.

- There is no attempt to 'get people when they're vulnerable'. If folk want to talk about God, the SP's are happy to listen. But there's no preaching. The proof of this is simply to see what happens where SP's are in operation - if they were going round Bible bashing people, most clubbers would either run a mile or beat them up. As well as being extremely bad practice, it would be self-defeating. We'd also not have any Street Pastors, as nobody would sign up to that sort of job description.

- People know what we stand for, it's no secret that these are people from the churches, so there's nothing covert or underhand going on.

- The point of the uniforms is so that SP's are recognisable, that there's some 'brand recognition' that these are safe people who'll look after you and make sure you're ok. There's some suggestion that SP's make too much of what they do, and that proper Christians would do it in secret. Fair point, but the uniforms are very helpful - ask anyone else who wears one as part of their work. A complete stranger with no identification turning up to 'help' a group of clubbers would be pretty suspicious.

- Each SP commits to raising the money (around £300 for training, uniforms, etc.) themselves, many are supported by churches, but we find that the local community/agencies want to support the initiative as well. We had one grant in Yeovil from a local councillor who decided to apply on our behalf. If that support is available, then great - the fact that SP's is primarily a Christian charity shouldn't prevent local authorities and agencies from supporting it. The British Humanist Association recently got a grant from national government, but not many people are suggesting they pay it back.

- SP's will deal equally with everyone they come across: male, female, gay, straight, drunk, sober etc. etc.

Meanwhile here is a long list of the awards that SP's have recieved from local communities who appreciate what they do, and here is an account from an Essex MP of what Street Pastors do in Chelmsford. Simon Burns MP quotes the following statistics:

In Lewisham there was a 30% reduction in street crime in the first 13 weeks that they were operating, in Camberwell a 95% reduction and in Peckham 74%. In Chelmsford they have made an immediate and significant impact.

a few other links
positive noises here on ConservativeHome.
Derby police nominate local SP's for award.
SP's praised by police for bringing down crime in Kingston.
Home Office paper which mentions Street Pastors as an example of good public sector/charity partnership in community safety.
Example of what's going on in Taunton, where they offer a 'safe space' for folk to wait for friends and taxis, and recover from a heavy night in a safe place, rather than in a hedge.
Good explanation of the SP ethos in this BBC Scotland report.
SP's in Bridgend praised by police and welcomed by the council.

and so on...

I don't have the stats for Yeovil yet, but we were told by the town centre beat manager a couple of weeks ago that recorded crime had been steadily dropping on a Saturday night since the Street Pastors started up here, and they're very keen for us to do Friday's too. We've just interviewed about 17 applicants to join the team, and hopefully will start doing Friday and Saturday nights from the spring of 2010.

We could run Street Pastors without funding from the council - it would make the £300 fee a bit tougher for some of the folk who do it, but many of them would probably manage to raise it anyway. Even without the funding, we want to do it in partnership with the council and the police, because that's what works best. And local councillors around the UK clearly see it as something worth supporting. Some people may be opposed in principle to anything done by Christians, but there's not much we can do about that except say: come and see what really happens, and then make up your mind.

Final point: it's been argued that Street Pastors should let folk of any faith or none sign up. In some places this happens - there are 'street angel' projects in several towns. However, it seems a little bizarre to insist that if Christians want to get together to do something of benefit to the public, that they have to let anyone else join in. Surely the important thing is that the benefit is open to all, rather than the membership.

It's a positive thing that Christians want to do this, and do it in partnership with the police and the local authority. That partnership is healthier than forcing the church to go it alone, and freezing it out of any partnership because we're motivated by a set of values and beliefs that some other people don't agree with. Even if your vision is of a secular society, that vision will only work if people with faith and people without it are able to live and work together.

PS Blogger comments has gone a bit weird, I keep getting error messages during the review process, so they may take a bit of time to appear.