The Restorative Justice Centre pilot programme was officially launched at the Police Training Centre, Camp and Young Streets, Georgetown on Wednesday.
Restorative justice seeks to evaluate the damaging impact of a crime and then detect what may be done to repair that harm while holding the offender responsible for his or her actions.
The Centre will only target offenders who committed minor and non-violent crimes.
Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall, S.C explained that the punitive and restitutive methods of punishment are not aiding in reducing the crime rate. However, the initiative seeks to ultimately reduce overcrowding in prisons countrywide.
It also focuses on repairing the harm caused by criminal behaviour, bringing the victim, offender, and their communities together in a decision-making process, to determine how the victim can be healed and to address the underlying cause of the offender’s inappropriate, illegal, or antisocial behaviour.
Different institutions in society including family, education, religion, and the justice system are interconnected, thus persons from various institutions were trained to aid in the success of the initiative. Teachers, religious entities, and the Guyana Police Force are among those who benefitted from such training.
The minister urged students of the University of Guyana, particularly from the social sciences faculty, to conduct studies on restorative methods to deal with crime.
Meanwhile, Minister of Human Services and Social Security, Dr Vindhya Persaud, underlined that rehabilitating persons who commit non-violent crimes can possibly prevent them from committing more severe offences.
Minister of Home Affairs, Robeson Benn added that the issue of restorative justice goes beyond incarceration, to understanding how to prevent the escalation of less violent offences at the community level.
