Ja­maica’s Min­is­ter of Jus­tice, Del­roy Chuck, is urg­ing Caribbean coun­tries to use restora­tive jus­tice (RJ) to have their cit­i­zens set­tle their dif­fer­ences in­stead of us­ing abus­es, as­saults and crim­i­nal vi­o­lence, say­ing it could al­so “ make a huge dent on the lev­el of vi­o­lent crimes across the re­gion”.

Ad­dress­ing the re­gion­al sym­po­sium on vi­o­lence as a pub­lic health is­sue, Chuck, speak­ing on the top­ic “ Com­mu­ni­ty Ap­proach­es” said RJ is and has been a re­mark­able and out­stand­ing suc­cess to re­solve dis­putes, set­tle dis­agree­ments and de-es­ca­late con­flicts.

It is these mi­nor dis­putes, mis­guid­ed dis­agree­ments and un­re­solved con­flicts that in many in­stances es­ca­late in­to brutish abus­es, se­ri­ous vi­o­lence and can have fa­tal con­se­quences.

“If re­la­tion­ships can be re­stored by RJ be­fore they de­scend in­to crim­i­nal vi­o­lence and, some­times, even af­ter vi­o­lence has been used, then RJ can be deemed a re­me­di­al suc­cess, with sig­nif­i­cant cu­ra­tive val­ue be­ing de­rived by not on­ly the par­tic­i­pants, but the com­mu­ni­ties that would oth­er­wise have been im­pact­ed by con­tin­ued cy­cles of vi­o­lence and by ex­ten­sion, the coun­try at large. “

He said Ja­maica start­ed to ac­tive­ly col­lect and track da­ta orig­i­nat­ing out of the pro­gramme in 2018 and that the suc­cess rate em­a­nat­ing from the RJ con­fer­ences held av­er­ages over 80 per cent an­nu­al­ly.

He said from 1,022 RJ cir­cles in 2018, to 3,662 cas­es in 2022, more than eight out of every 10 cas­es have been suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed, which means the par­ties are sat­is­fied with the out­come and the com­mu­ni­ty or the court sanc­tions the out­come, as ac­cept­able and agree­able.

Chuck said that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 75 per cent of the cas­es that are re­ferred to RJ are court re­fer­rals and the suc­cess rate in these court re­fer­rals is over 90 per cent.

He said to put it in­to prospec­tive in 2021 and 2022, a to­tal of 4,460 cas­es were re­ferred to RJ by the Courts, with 3,904 be­ing sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly re­solved “which of­ten­times means the charges are with­drawn or the of­fend­ers ad­mon­ished and dis­charged.

“In­vari­ably, the par­ties come to a mu­tu­al un­der­stand­ing and that is why, ladies and gen­tle­men, we re­fer to RJ as “jus­tice that heals.”

Chuck said there are 20 RJ Cen­tres across Ja­maica with an­oth­er two to be opened short­ly. There are al­so 1,000 trained RJ fa­cil­i­ta­tors who can con­duct the heal­ing process in RJ cir­cles, most of whom, un­for­tu­nate­ly, are un­der­uti­lized.

“Our fo­cus is to ex­pand the pro­gramme so these trained RJ per­son­nel can be more ful­ly uti­lized, as we try to stem the vi­o­lence in our com­mu­ni­ties. “

He said when mat­ters are re­ferred to the RJ Cen­tres, fa­cil­i­ta­tors are ap­point­ed to meet sep­a­rate­ly with the al­leged wrong­do­er who fre­quent­ly de­nies cul­pa­bil­i­ty and with the vic­tim who of­ten­times is seek­ing Ret­ribu­tive Jus­tice.

“The al­leged wrong­do­er is, how­ev­er, en­cour­aged and per­suad­ed to ac­knowl­edge and ac­cept that his/her ver­bal abus­es or ac­tions are wrong, and that the wrong­do­ing has caused hurt, pain and suf­fer­ing to the vic­tim. If this is ac­com­plished, the process is more than 50 per cent com­plet­ed.”

Chuck said the next chal­lenge is to en­cour­age the vic­tim to for­give the wrong­do­er who has hope­ful­ly ac­knowl­edged and ac­cept­ed that he/she was wrong.

“If that is ac­com­plished then a RJ cir­cle is arranged in which the two sides are brought to­geth­er along with oth­er mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty, school, church, work­place or just friends of both par­ties. It is in these cir­cles that is­sues are ad­dressed, emo­tions are calmed and con­tentious mat­ters set­tled.

“Time does not al­low for the thou­sands of won­der­ful tes­ti­mo­ni­als to be high­light­ed, save and ex­cept to in­di­cate that in many, many cas­es the par­ties end up hug­ging and cry­ing on each oth­er’s shoul­ders while ac­knowl­edg­ing how mis­in­for­ma­tion and mis­un­der­stand­ing caused their prob­lems, and in vir­tu­al­ly all cas­es re­la­tion­ships are re­stored,” he told the re­gion­al au­di­ence.

But he said, de­spite the suc­cess­es of RJ, “this ap­pro­pri­ate mech­a­nism to re­solve dis­putes is not well known, and there­fore not well used”.

Hee said he is shocked that as he trav­els across Ja­maica “no one or less than 10 per cent of the au­di­ence has ever heard of or about RJ or even what it means.

“If we can get more per­sons to use RJ to set­tle their dif­fer­ences in­stead of us­ing abus­es, as­saults and crim­i­nal vi­o­lence to re­solve con­flicts, we would make a huge dent on the lev­el of vi­o­lent crimes across the re­gion,” he added.

CMC/ad/ir/2023

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Apr 18, CMC