Umbreit (1994) studied four victim/offender mediation programmes involving juveniles. Before mediation, 26% of victims feared re-victimisation, whereas after, only 10% did.
Umbreit also recorded that 80% of victims in New Mexico, Texas, Minnesota and California expressed satisfaction with the outcomes of mediation, compared to 55% not involved in mediation (Umbreit et al, 1993, p39).
Research in the UK show similarly high rates of victim satisfaction. In 1994, research by the West Midlands Probation Service showed that victims where a juvenile offender was involved expressed satisfaction from mediation.
In the Leeds Victim-Offender Unit in 1996-7, 58% of victims said they were very satisfied with the outcomes, 33.3% fairly satisfied and 8.3% satisfied- there was no dissatisfaction. In the MARVEL mediation scheme for young offenders in Wales in 1997, 89% of victims said they would recommend the service to a friend. In Aberdeen, this figure was 92% (Braithwaite and Liebmann, 1997, p11-17).
Although many offenders find meeting their victims a daunting prospect, research on their attitudes after mediation has shown positive results. In the Umbreit and Roberts research in 1996 in Coventry and Leeds, 90% of offenders were satisfied with the outcome, and said it was important to apologise to the victim. (Umbreit and Roberts, 1996, p14 and 23). In Wales, 1997, this figure was also 90% and in the SACRO Scheme in Aberdeen, 1997, the figure was 87% (Braithwaite and Liebmann, 1997, p11-17).
With the case study, I believe a mediation programme for the three juveniles would be appropriate. They would be capable of understanding why they were involved and what mediation was trying to achieve for themselves and for their victim’s wellbeing.
Crucially, I feel the most constructive outcome in restorative justice schemes is that the offenders will be helped to recognise and understand the true impact of their offending on the victim as well as others (such as the neighbours).
I conclude that mediation in this instance would benefit both Mrs Mather and the three youths in helping them take responsibility for their vindictive actions, giving Mrs Mathers a full resolution, sincere apology, along with a chance to regain her sense of security for the future.
Evaluate the role which Crime Reduction Partnerships established under the provisions of the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act, might perform in order to lessen the likelihood of this type of crime being repeated.
The message incorporated by the 1998 legislation involved distributing the responsibility for crime prevention (Hope, 1998), and permitting local people to get more involved in defining problems and suggesting resolutions. Partnership and empowerment are the principles at the heart of the partnerships to reduce crime and disorder in an area. The Crime and Disorder Act places a clear responsibility on the local authority and police to outline and apply a strategy for tackling crime. The design encourages a stronger participatory society and empowerment of local people in attempt to combat crime and disorder (Crawford 1998).
With reference to the case study, the benefits of having members of the local community and experts work together to detect and reduce crime causes us to hold high expectations of the decreasing likelihood of the physical type of crime-as experienced by Mrs Mathers- from occurring yet again.
The process entails a degree of power-sharing and loss of control over many areas of decision making and implementation between the agencies in partnership, which to date has been largely dominated by the police and chief officers because of its power which accrues from its expertise in crime control.
The partnerships work to reduce crime and disorder in an area by establishing the levels of crime problems in that neighbourhood and consulting widely with the population of that area to make sure that the partnership’s perception corresponds to that of local people. After surveying the local patterns and levels of crime, the next stage is to decide what they will do to eliminate the problems identified and prevent the crimes from reoccurring, in this case causing emotional and bodily harm to Mrs Mathers through physical attack. The aim is to advance the physical security of vulnerable targets through the introduction of techniques like surveillance (CCTV’s), Neighbourhood Watch Schemes, increasing the number of street lights, injecting more money to recruit more police officers, and to pay for the expansion of the DNA database and invest in a new national communications system. These act as deterrents for youths who will think twice before committing crime and at the same time reducing peoples’ fear of crime, all resulting in building a safer, more cohesive society.
Much excellent partnership work has been done in many parts of the country for several years, but has so far been random. The partnerships provisions ensure that all communities will benefit from improvement which effective partnerships will have brought.
Evaluate the potential effectiveness of using a Curfew Notice to prevent a recurrence of the crime suffered by Mrs Mathers.
The Crime and Disorder Act (1998) stresses that ‘for their own good and to prevent neighbourhood crime or disorder, young children should not be out unsupervised late at night’.
The act enabled local authorities and police to impose approved temporary curfews on children, lasting for up to 90 days (Home Office 1997b). The effect of which is to ban children under the age of ten, such as 8 year old Mark Brand from the case study, from being in specified geographic areas unless supervised, between 9pm and 6am. A child found violating curfew regulations may then be made subject to a child safety order.
Curfew notices are based on the belief that controlling the hours when young people are in a public place will act as a sharp deterrent to limit their opportunities to commit crime. However, there is no reliable evidence to suggest that curfews actually reduce juvenile delinquency (McDowell et al, 2000).
Corresponding to the case study, although a curfew notice against Mark Brand would seem a suitable suggestion to help prevent the child from re-offending, it does not guarantee that the two other children involved or perhaps other youths in the area would stop pursuing further attacks against Mrs Mather. Additionally, police figures have indicated that although the juvenile arrest rate has declined during curfew hours, the rates have increased at other times of the day (for example, before the curfew times apply), therefore any crimes the children may want to commit again may be done so earlier, leaving Mrs Mather still living in fear for her safety.
We can accept that for a number of youngsters under curfew notices, they may well abstain from further criminal activity, however; to continue observing the development of these youths would prove even more costly than the scheme does already, it is also very time consuming, ineffective and there is little evidence to suggest those who have undergone a curfew notice have completely refrained from criminal activity before.
Curfew notices have also been doubted and opposed by many child welfare and civil liberty groups in several regions. It is also suggested that for the scheme to be effective in areas similar to where Mrs Mather lives, (quiet, council-owned bungalows for elderly people), then local authorities must take the initiative in becoming involved in the rather elaborate procedure, and encourage the police force to make taking children off the street a high priority act to prevent the recurrence of the crime suffered by Mrs Mather.
Youth Offender Panels (YOP) introduced by the 1999 Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act enabled members of the local community to be involved in the sentencing of juvenile offenders whose crimes might be in the nature of those referred to in the case study. Evaluate ONE strength and ONE weakness of this development.
The referral of a young offender to a YOP allows offenders and victims to meet in an informal setting away from the court. People involved in this meeting are the offenders, their family, the victims, a member of the Youth Offending Team and two members of the local community.
The meeting considers the events and effects of the offence on the victim. The panel agrees a contract with the offender, which is to include reparation to the victim, and a programme of activity is designed to prevent re-offending. The aim of this process is for the offenders to accept responsibility for their antisocial behaviour and to consider how to deal with the causes.
By allowing the local community to be involved in the sentencing of juvenile offenders, the panel members chosen must represent an unbiased reflection of society’s views.
A weakness evident through research by McEvoy (2002), established how the local panel members were not socially representative in support of the offender. The research showed that the majority of the members were white, middle class, middle aged females, consequently not representing the offenders at all seeing as they were in almost all instances ‘male youths’ (hence Youth Offender Panels).
My line of argument is that for the local community to participate in the sentencing of juveniles, the panel should be a fair representation of all parties.
With regards to the case study, I maintain there should be another youth present, perhaps a previous young offender who could positively help the youth refrain from further crime. It is youth crime under issue here, therefore the views of young people must be fed back into the process, and the panel must listen to and actively involve young people (who are after all part of the community too).
Because this is currently not the case, then we thoroughly have to question the validity of the youth justice system.
A study by Crawford et al (2001) supports McEvoy’s findings and confirms that 91% of all local panel members are white, when the majority of young offenders are of Afro-Caribbean origin. The figures continue, 69% of panel members are female, when 66% of the young offenders are male, over 50% of panel members were aged 40 years or more and employed in professional/managerial occupations, when unsurprisingly, the mass of young offenders are unemployed.
This indicates that the members of the panel are vastly unrepresentative of the rest of the community. It appears that the concept of Youth Offender Panels is a contradiction in its own right, as it is not doing justice to the offenders in the way it should.
A briefing paper by Ann McDermott, Crime Concern, states that the support and involvement of local residents is fundamental to the effective performance of YOPs.
A strength of Youth Offender Panels is that they successfully reduce crime rates where juvenile delinquency is prominent. The young offenders become aware of the effects their behaviour has had on the community and endeavour to make improvements for everybody’s welfare.
Peter Joyce (2001) establishes, “young offenders would learn a valuable moral lesson through the YOP process”, meaning it enables the offender to earn their acceptance back into the community and solve the damage and distress caused. This increases communities’ self-confidence, in turn improving community cohesion and reducing the social exclusion of juveniles. Accordingly, the likelihood of reformed offenders committing crime again has decreased, after being accepted back into the community.