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Chuck wants restorative justice training for police officers

Published:Friday | September 9, 2022 | 12:05 AMSashana Small/Staff Reporter
Justice Minister Delroy Chuck (third left), signs the memorandum of understanding that legitimises the Restorative Justice Partnership with the Church. Representing the clergy are from left: Rev. Newton Dixon, general secretary of the Jamaica Council of Ch
Rudolph Brown
Justice Minister Delroy Chuck (third left), signs the memorandum of understanding that legitimises the Restorative Justice Partnership with the Church. Representing the clergy are from left: Rev. Newton Dixon, general secretary of the Jamaica Council of Churches; Most Rev. Father Kenneth Richards, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kingston and chairman of the Jamaica Council of Churches; Dr Everett Brown, president of the Jamaica Union of Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists; Rev. Ian Muirhead, senior pastor of Upper Room Community Church; and Rev. Gladwyn Kiddoe, director of Jamaica School of Preaching and Biblical Studies, Church of Christ in Jamaica. The signing took place at the Ministry of Justice on Constant Spring Road in Kingston on Tuesday, September 6.

MINISTER OF Justice Delroy Chuck said more training is needed for police officers to enable them to make better use of restorative justice as an effective crime-fighting tool.

Currently, the minister said, there are 20 restorative justice centres across the island, but they are not being utilised by police officers due to the lack of training.

“We have been in touch with the commissioner of police to do more training in the constabulary force. He is very keen, but what he has intimated is that it might be a good idea to get a senior superintendent to be trained as a restorative justice trainer and that trainer can go around and train all the police officers,” he said.

Chuck was responding to questions from The Gleaner at the signing of a Restorative Justice Partnership between the justice ministry and churches on Tuesday.

He pointed out that the number of cases being referred to restorative justice centres have steadily increased in four years, with a total of 7,667 cases referred to the restorative justice programme over the period. However, of the 2,838 cases referred to centres last year, only 338 were from the police. The court system is responsible for the bulk of cases referred to restorative justice centres, with 2,254 cases referred last year alone.

This, the minister explained, has significantly reduced the backlog of cases in the system, as 93 per cent of the cases referred resulted in an agreement.

“What you find with the police is that they can refer minor matters to restorative justice, but once an offence is being committed, the police rather take it to court and let the court refer it to restorative justice,” he said.

“If you take a simple matter of a common assault, or a case where the victim is willing to forgive and go to restorative justice, then that’s an appropriate case. But you may have a case where the person has been stabbed and the police are unlikely to refer that to restorative justice because they feel that is a matter like that it is best to refer to the courts and let the court refer it to restorative justice.”

RESTORATIVE JUSTICE

Chuck said that he hopes in time, the police will start referring more interpersonal disputes to restorative justice centres.

Meanwhile, in a press conference on Tuesday, Commissioner of Police Major General Antony Anderson revealed that murders have increased by 6.1 per cent since last year, and according to him, 15 per cent of those murders were attributed to interpersonal conflict. In the last 10 days of August, eight murders and one shooting relating to interpersonal conflicts were committed, among them was the stabbing death of a 21-year-old man in Bethel, Manchester, by his 16-year-old girlfriend.

Anderson shared that a number of police officers are being trained in restorative justice. However, once a crime has been committed, he said the police are obligated to bring the matter to court.

“That’s not really an option for us, we take them to the court and the court may refer them. So, it’s not really up to us to determine once there has been a crime what we do,” he said.

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com