wfn.org | Methodists work for restorative justice in Northern Ireland

["NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Oct. 20, 2003  News media contact: Tim Tanton7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn. 
ALL-I-YE{498}

NOTE: For related coverage, see UMNS stories #497 and #499.

By Kathleen LaCamera*

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (UMNS) - Methodists are backing a new restorative
justice program that helps young people face the real consequences of their
antisocial behavior. 

In the past, East Belfast teenagers caught stealing from a local store might
get a beating or worse from local paramilitaries. It has been the
paramilitaries, rather than the police, that this working class community has
counted on to make things right when  "young lads" get caught shoplifting,
vandalizing a car or even making too much noise late at night.

The new project, called East Belfast Alternatives, opened its doors in
October and offers a different way of dealing with children and teens who
commit crimes. It also aims to prevent them from getting into trouble in the
first place. 

Linda Armitage, a United Methodist Board of Global Ministries-funded
missionary, is part of the project's management team, which includes police,
probation officers, churches, educators, paramilitaries and social service
representatives.

"Everyone has had to work together. It's taken four years to get East Belfast
Alternatives opened," Armitage explains. 

She and her team at the East Belfast Mission run a youth club called "Luk4,"
in a former paramilitary pub. Through Luk4, they take on some of the
preventive work key to the restorative justice initiative. That work includes
organizing trips, working in small groups and extending outreach to area
families, something the mission already does as part of its ongoing pastoral
care. 

"You can imagine what it's like for the parents of these children," Armitage
explains. "A lot of them are single mothers who don't know what to do. We
want to be involved in supporting the families, victims and the offenders."

Young people are referred to East Belfast Alternatives by social service
agencies, the police and others. Working with specially trained counselors
and mediators, offenders face the consequences of their actions and may meet
the victims of their crimes. 

Performing community service is part of the restoration process. A similar
restorative justice initiative in the Skankill Road area of north Belfast
reports as few as 2 percent of young people involved in the program
re-offend.

"People here have demanded instant justice," explains Jim McKennley, who
manages East Belfast Alternatives. A former paramilitary member himself who
did prison time, McKennley says people now see paramilitarism is not the
answer either in resolving problems between Catholics and Protestants, or
within those groups. 

"In conjunction with the peace process, we have to find nonviolent ways of
dealing with all conflict," McKennley says. "And that means, in the wider
sense, within our communities as well."

Armitage says children as young as 8 years old have benefited from
restorative justice efforts. In one example, she explains how a teenager who
kept stealing from a local store came to understand he was actually taking
away the store owner's livelihood. 
"The boy had to go back and clear out the backyard of the shop, which was a
bit humiliating, but in the process he got to know the shopkeeper," Armitage
recounts. "Trust built up, and the boy eventually got a job in the shop."

Not only has crime fallen dramatically in areas where similar restorative
justice programs are in place, but real reconciliation has occurred, she
says.

"Many people's lives have been restored," Armitage says. "The church should
be involved with this."

More information is available at www.ebm.org.uk.

# # #

*LaCamera is a United Methodist News Service correspondent based in England.

 
 

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