Northern Ireland to Run Restorative Justice Pilot Program

Restorative justice practices are making their debut in Northern Ireland after heavy support from several criminal justice organizations as well as judges. An initial move that began at a Criminal Justice Group event led to what one North Ireland judge calls useful debates. This helped confirm that there was indeed enough organizational and community support for offering offenders alternatives to short stints in jail.

Following this positive discourse, the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, Sir Declan Morgan, instructed the Probation Board for Northern Ireland (PBNI) to draw up a new model which will now be ready for its trial run starting in October, 2015 at several jurisdictions including Armagh/South Down and Ards.

Individuals guilty of offenses that normally carry sentences that are under 12 months will be assessed for their suitability for these new alternatives by probation officers. What will this Enhanced Combination Order, as it’s being called, focus on? Those who are deemed fit to participate in these new alternatives, a decision which is still ultimately in the hands of judges, will be required to go into rehabilitation for their actions and take part in reparations to those affected by those actions. This will also include face to face meetings with victims or writing apology letters. With this, Northern Ireland’s leading criminal justice groups wish demonstrate how such practices will lead to a decrease recidivism.

This pilot program is already gaining praises from politicians across Northern Ireland including the Minister of Justice, David Ford, who said: “The Enhanced Combination Order is one of a number of positive developments currently underway which have the potential to improve the effectiveness of our criminal justice system, and are being supported and informed by the involvement of the judiciary working in close partnership with others.”

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Restorative Justice in the Cloud

As cloud computing continues to gain adoption in our personal and professional lives, a new take on this concept is also gaining mass appeal. The Turning Point Justice’s Cloud Justice platform harnesses the power of the cloud that we interact with in our daily lives, be it to upload photos from your mobile device or uploading documents to collaborate on a project with co workers. In a similar fashion, the Cloud Justice platform allows retailers across multiple locations to share information relevant to loss prevention efforts.

Instead of having to rely on separate databases and case management systems to handle all loss prevention needs, retailers can integrate all relevant databases into this cloud computing platform for easy access across multiple venues. Cloud Justice collects data that is needed for law enforcement and justice system reports and becomes available to other retailers with the proper system. Since the platform is flexible and customizable, all data also integrates with whatever existing system may be in place which removes the need for duplicate information.

Prior to innovations like the Cloud Justice platform, it has been increasingly difficult and costly for a retail chain to share information which detracts from even the best efforts to curb shoplifting. Paying for physical storage space is not the most cost effective method, not to mention that our current increasing demand for data and storage space is harmful to the environment. Cloud computing, on the other hand, offers large amounts of data storage space at a much lower price point than traditional data centers. Turning Point Justice, in working to develop Cloud Justice, has realized that for retailers to adopt more modern loss prevention tools, that it would need to avoid being costly.

To that end, TPJ is offering the Cloud Justice Platform for free to retailers. Costs associated with the platform are instead passed onto the offenders, who pay offender participation fees. Of course, all of that relies on the offender being a first time, petty shoplifter and choosing to participate in the Court Alternative Program provided by Turning Point Justice in partnership with the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention (NASP).

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Restorative Justice in Schools

Restorative justice practices seem to have been making impacts on schools who formerly used “zero-tolerance” approaches to discipline. For years schools have used suspension and low tolerance approaches to curb students from participating in wrongful behavior. Since beginning a restorative justice approach to these offenses, Ed White Middle School in San Antonio, Texas has seen favorable results. After changing their discipline tactics, their school was ranked in the top 25% for improvement in state math and reading tests.

In Oakland, California schools who have incorporated restorative justice tactics have seen significant increases to key performance statistics. Chronic absentee numbers have reduced 24%, along with a 128% increase in 9th grade reading levels and a 56% decrease in high school dropout rate. This shows that more people are performing better, staying longer and graduating at a higher frequency.

Studies have shown that the age old practice of suspension does not only hurt the academic performance of those being kicked out, but of the entire student body. Schools with higher suspension rates have performed worse than those with lower rates.

What this shows is that former practices for dealing with misbehavior may not be the most effective for preventing future behavior, which in turn can affect overall performance is an alarming ripple effect. With such success being seen in educational studies, restorative justice practices seem to have been catching on across industries and state borders. Teaching offenders of the impact their actions have on the surrounding community is effective in changing future behavior and educating the public as to why certain rules are in place.

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Mitigate Shrinkage

Are you a retailer who is fed up with continued shrinkage? Shoplifting affects the bottom line of any retail brick and mortar business. Being able to mitigate this offense is of the utmost importance to a business’s health. Shoplifters are not often caught and with an enormous volume of cases flooding courts, the offenders are often not held responsible for their actions. What Lohra Miller and her team at Turning Point Justice aim to do is congregate the interests of retailers as well authorities by educating offenders of the seriousness of their crime and helping them to see the impact of their decisions.

 

With court rooms packed to the gills, judicial time is spent hearing cases from petty crimes to serious offenses. If a young boy steals candy from a corner store, he should not be waiting to plead his case, sitting next to an offender for a much more serious crime. It is an irresponsible expense of the tax payers money to flood court rooms with such offenses, and in some cases, jail time. In an effort to relieve court system and police efforts from unnecessary expenditures, TPJ can bear the weight of the misdemeanors that can are taking up space in a court house.

 

In order for offenders to grasps the seriousness of their actions, Lohra Miller and her team are working with law enforcement to enforce a restitution program. Those who steal will be able to pay back the institution they took from, as well as learn the severity of their actions.

 

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Shoplifting: The Big Picture

A new year is upon us and with it comes a new set of resolutions for the next 52 weeks! This year our New Years resolution is to help reduce shoplifting to ease the impact it has on businesses. Shoplifting takes a certain toll on the business it happens to, as well as our economy as a whole. The common thought within shoplifters is that taking here or there will not affect such a large company’s bottom line. This is very much a fallacy and thieves are doing more damage than they know.

Businesses hedge against shoplifting by offsetting their presumed loss with higher prices, and placing the burden of what is stolen on the rest of the law-abiding patrons. In terms of what the average household pays out for the thievery of others is around $423 per house. Not only are the average citizens affected through paying more at the register, but also in tax dollars as police are spending time chasing down such petty crimes.

Turning Point Justice works closely with the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention to educate first time shoplifting offenders on what their real impact is on their community. Being able to show these first time offenders how their actions affect others, reduces their likelihood of repeating the offense. By exposing them to the Crime Accountability Program (CAP) we ensure that restitution is paid to the retailer who suffered theft.

Turning Point Justice is aiming to make this year better than ever in terms of shoplifting and theft.

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Shoplifting Highest Causes of Losses

All crimes should have consequences, even petty crimes such as shoplifting.

Recently, the annual report entitled the Global Retail Theft Barometer was released, indicating some increasingly scary statistics.  The study reported that shoplifting was the highest cause of losses in most countries surveyed.  Worldwide, shoplifting retailers one hundred and twenty eight billion dollars in the last year alone.  This figure averages one and a third percent of all retail sales and, as a result, indicates that shoplifting costs consumers in the United States four hundred and three dollars per household.  This indicates that shoplifting is a global problem that hurts economies as well as family and community values.  While this figure may not seem overwhelmingly large, in such a strained period following the Great Recession, often every dollar can count.

As a result, Turning Point Justice has teamed up with the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention to address the issue, according to a post completed for the website.  To Turning Point Justice, the biggest problem with shoplifting is a lack of consequences, which, in turn, encourages repeat offenses.  As a result, the two organizations have worked together to create the Crime Accountability Program, otherwise known as CAP.  The program has resolved to work between businesses and qualifying first time offenders in shoplifting to reduce the costs and time consumed in reaching restitution.  The efforts of the two organizations reduce the amount of times police are called to the scene of a petty crime, allowing law enforcement officers the freedom to address more serious crimes and reducing the costs of valuable resources.

CAP has proven to deliver results.  The program helps retailers double restitution collections to repair financial damages.  In addition to this, it reduces police calls to stores by more than fifty percent.  These early indicators have fueled Turning Point Justice with hope that in future Global Retail Theft Barometer reports, their efforts will show a marked improvement in the cost of shoplifting per household in the United States.

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