Restorative justice is a viable alternative – Chuck

AS THE court system continues to be beleaguered by an ever-increasing number of cases, Minister of Justice Delroy Chuck is touting restorative justice as a viable alternative to having matters settled in court and to clear the current backlog.

This is despite challenges of limited resources faced by his ministry.

“The truth is that our judicial system and our courts are under pressure. This is where the Ministry of Justice will be on almost a missionary zeal for alternative dispute resolution to take away as many of the less serious cases from the dockets from the court system itself,” Chuck, who addressed the launch of Restorative Justice Week at Boulevard Baptist Church on Sunday, said.

The minister revealed that there are 55,000 cases in the parish courts currently. Every year 23,000 cases come to the parish court and another 21,000 cases in the family courts. Thus, as a consequence, he explained that parish courts have had to administer 44,000 cases each year on average over the last six years.

He stressed that at present, there is a need for greater resources in the sector. He told The Gleaner during an interview on Sunday that the current budget is simply inadequate.

“From where we sit at the Ministry of Justice, we have not had enough funding to really promote it and to employ the number of people to be in the communities, but I am hoping that this will be rectified in the next fiscal year because I have been able to appeal to Minister Clarke to say we need more funds to really promote what is an effective tool at conflict resolution.”

Elaborating on some of the challenges, he said, “Apart from paying the staff, we have a minimum amount to promote it and also to engage with facilitators. At the moment, we pay a restorative justice facilitator $5,000 to settle a matter. I am hoping that we can increase that to about $8,000 in the next fiscal budget.”

Chuck revealed that his ministry requested $100 million to promote alternative disruptive resolution mechanisms but the final amount to be allocated is to be determined.

While acknowledging that alternative dispute resolution is difficult for more serious crimes, he believes that it can be used for communities prone to violence. However, he added that unless additional resources are channelled to promote restorative justice then more Jamaicans would be willing to turn to criminal actors such as dons to seek justice.

“At the moment, the major areas that we get are from the courts but also from the communities, and the two communities that we get a fair amount of cases that have been extremely successful have been Denham Town and Tivoli,” Chuck said. It has also been noted that the August Town justice centre has seen an increase in usage.

Meanwhile, community liaison officer at the Denham Town Restorative Justice Centre, Damion Burke, has welcomed Minister Chuck’s commitment to pumping more resources into the alternative justice state apparatus as it has been shown to work in the volatile West Kingston community.

“We deal with matters coming from the court, or referrals from the police. We have persons coming in with their conflict or dispute with their family member or friend, and we assist by providing dispute resolution methods to have both parties coming to a level of agreement.

“These are mostly minor disputes that occur in most households, and from 2020 to 2021, we had five cases of wounding with intent. Those charges were reduced when it eventually went to court, which is what is likely to happen once again to us,” said Burke, adding that there have been instances where wounding with intent cases from the community led to murder.

“The minor dispute cases that we handle are where some of the violence comes from because those wounding with intent cases that come to us sometimes lead to murder, he said.

Since its establishment in 2016, the centre has seen close to 300 minor dispute cases redirected from the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court, with about 90 per cent of those cases being resolved through restorative justice.

This high figure, Burke argued, speaks to the impact that restorative justice can have on alleviating the glut of cases at the courts.

“Out of every five cases that come here, four are normally minor disputes. Whether persons are fighting over land, or relationship disputes, common assault, and wounding with intent. And out of the 295 cases that we have done since 2016, we have resolved 286.

“If the law gave the police the right to take minor cases to restorative justice, I believe that some of these minor cases would not have to be a backlog in the court. There are restorative justice centres across the island, they need to make use of them in settling minor disputes because persons are coming to us because of minor assault or basic threats.

“Restorative justice has a role, but until the Government gives the restorative justice centres that power to effectively deal with these minor conflicts that can lead to major crime, the country would benefit, because we know the police can’t do it alone. Most of these minor disputes are what leads to murders and violence,” Burke concluded.

Coordinator for the Restorative Justice programme in the Ministry of Justice, Adrienne Lindsay, revealed that in 2021 there were 2,500 referrals to the unit and from that number 2,200 effective agreements were reached. This represents a success rate of over 80 per cent.

Currently, 18 justice centres are located across the island with at least one in each parish. He explained that a new centre is being opened on February 1 in Pembroke Hall with the aim to open another centre in Greenwich Farm by the end of March.

Furthermore, close to 100 facilitators will officially be inducted this week.

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