Mr. Alan Todd:

There has been a journey with community-based restorative justice. The police service had mixed views on it at the start. That was partly due to the possibly inaccurate perception that some former combatants were becoming involved in low-level community policing. That was dealt with by accreditation, training and confidence building around the process. The policing view is that it seems to work and has high degrees of community acceptance. If community policing is working and has community engagement, approval and acceptance, it would be almost churlish for policing not to take advantage of that. It is an opportunity to utilise an important element of the spectrum of responses to combating crime. If we were to continue the current practice involving partnership hubs, service providers and commissioned services under a partnership management structure, it would sit very neatly with what is happening in terms of the partnership structures to reduce offending which operate between ourselves, the probation service, the Youth Justice Agency and others. Community restorative justice is part of that spectrum and contributes to decreasing the rates of prolific offenders.

Community-based restorative justice has travelled a journey. That model fits in with the parts of the Fresh Start agreement in Northern Ireland around community co-design of solutions for community problems. It sits very much in that space.