What you can find on this homepage:
I am a young person (27 years old) living in South Africa. I am a social worker specializing in work with children in trouble with the law. I am married to Trish!!!
I am a Christian and attend a church called Capital City Church International. As a Christian, I am committed to finding God's will for my life and for my work. I am particularly concerned about seeking what God's heart is on issues pertaining to the poor and socially abused.
"to be inserted"
Me in Sydney, Australia
Nigel Branken
email: branken@iafrica.com
PO Box 11201
Hatfield, Pretoria
0028
Tel/Fax: +27 - (0) 12 - 342 3879
Articles
Copyright note: None of these articles may be reproduced without written permission from the author
Family Group Conferences in the context of juvenile justice transformation in South Africa
by Nigel Branken(1)
Introduction
"...the Government will, as a matter of urgency, attend to the tragic and complex question of children and juveniles in detention and prison. The basic principle from which we will proceed from now onwards is that we must rescue the children of the nation and ensure that the system of criminal justice must be the very last resort in the case of juvenile offenders." President Nelson Mandela
The above quote is an excerpt from a speech by President Mandela at the opening of Parliament in1994 after the first democratic elections in South Africa. It came at a time when it was clear that there was a need for change. Four years later we have developed and tested some of the most exciting innovations in juvenile justice on the globe. Transformation of the juvenile justice system in South Africa has begun. This article focuses on this transformation and one of the innovations currently being developed in South Africa called Family Group Conferences (FGCs).
A History of Juvenile Justice in South Africa
In October 1992, a 13-year old boy, Neville Snyman was arrested on a charge of stealing sweets, cooldrinks and cigarettes from a local shop in Robertson. In the police cell that night, Neville Snyman was strangled, sodomised and then killed by his cell mates.
Four and a half years later, in May 1997, 13 year old Lubabalo Mazweni was killed by an older detainee in a police cell in Butterworth. He was there because he had allegedly stolen some sweets from a Butterworth store. Legally, he should not have been in a police cell at all, nor should he have been in a cell with a adult offender. Because he was, he was battered to death.
Neither of these children lived to stand trial. Nobody knows whether or not they would have been found guilty. Neville Snyman and Lubabalo Mazweni are not the only children to have died behind bars. Their stories are, however, both significant in the development of juvenile justice in South Africa.
Neville's death came at a time when very few organisations were working with children in trouble with the law. The media attention and subsequent response to his death led to a campaign being launched in December 1992, which was titled "Free a child for Christmas". In this campaign lawyers assisted in bail applications and in speeding up the trials of children to see them released from police custody. It must also be said that this campaign was run with the political backdrop of Nelson Mandela's release from prison in February 1992 and the unbanning of the African National Congress. The National Party government was still however in power. The call in this campaign was a simplistic, yet important one: a call for freedom from abuse. "Let us get the children out of these terrible conditions."
The campaign did of course come under severe criticism from many parties, including some child rights activists, who argued that children were simply being released onto the streets. It was argued that the conditions in prison were better than those on the streets. Others, however, argued that the conditions on the street were better than those in prison. The reality was that releasing children onto the streets did not meet the needs of the community for justice, while keeping children in prison under horrific conditions was a complete violation of their rights.
All of the above led to a watershed conference held in November 1993 entitled: Juvenile Justice: Towards Policy and Legislative Change. At this conference it was agreed that as current policy and legislation were fragmented, there was a need to develop a new comprehensive juvenile justice system. The conference report proposed that a Juvenile Justice Drafting Consultancy (Drafting Consultancy) be set up to draft new juvenile justice legislation for South Africa. The Drafting Consultancy, consisting mainly of non-governmental organisations, began their work almost immediately by running workshops with key role players across the country and by looking at international trends in youth justice. The Drafting Consultancy completed their recommendations in November 1994 and released: Juvenile Justice: Proposals for Policy and Legislative Change. These proposals outlined a comprehensive new juvenile justice system with Family Group Conferences central to all interventions with children in trouble with the law.
Earlier in the year South Africa underwent it's first democratic elections. This heralded a new era for juvenile justice. Nelson Mandela was elected president and in every major speech in his first year he alluded to the plight of children in trouble with the law and committed his government to action. Inter-Sectoral Working Groups focussing on the issue of children in trouble with the law were set up in most magisterial districts to consider the issues and debate new ways forward. The need for a new juvenile justice system was widely recognised and many saw the proposals of the Drafting Consultancy as the way forward. There was, however, one problem: the Drafting Consultancy was not set up by government and so had no way to implement it's recommendations.
In the mean time the Department of Correctional Services had been involved in a concurrent and conflicting initiative. This department had set about developing legislation which prevented children from being held in prisons or police cells. In May of 1995 an amendment to section 29 of the Correctional Services Act came into force. The legislation in effect stated that no children could be held in prisons, police cells or lock ups. The sudden, unexpected implementation of this piece of legislation aggravated the crisis which already existed in the broader child and youth care system. Places of safety, primarily designed for housing children in need of care and protection, were already overcrowded and could not cope with the sudden influx of children who had in some instances committed some very serious crimes.
With the above crises, an opportunity was created to formally look at the transformation of the juvenile justice system, as proposed by the Drafting Consultancy, and to consider broader child and youth care system transformation. An Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) was set up to manage this process and to draft policy which would lead to legislation and the transformation of not only the juvenile justice system, but, the child and youth care system as a whole. The IMC's drafting of policy guidelines culminated in the release of Interim Policy Recommendations in November 1996. Within this document a number of ideas, including a whole new paradigm in youth care thinking were outlined, which, if implemented, would mean radical changes to the child and youth care system. One of the key principles of this new paradigm was that of restorative justice. The IMC proposed that, "the approach to young people in trouble with the law should include resolution of conflict, family and community involvement in decision making, diversion, and community-based interventions"(2). As such, the IMC set up several pilot projects to test this new policy. The Family Group Conference pilot project was one of these.
It is in this context-one of legislation preventing children from being held in prisons, of new policy having been drafted and pilot projects testing new legislation that Lubabalo's death came. His death points to the need for the total transformation of the system. NICRO has been concerned that this should happen urgently and is of the opinion that transformation is not just about better jails for children or better resources criminal justice processes, it is about a new way of thinking and dealing with children. As Thomas Kuhn(3) put it, we need a paradigm shift.
Towards a restorative justice paradigm
Most criminal justice systems across the world are based on a retributive paradigm. In this paradigm, crime is defined as a violation of the state and it's laws. The solution to dealing with crime is therefore to punish. However, there is a growing global trend to understand crime and justice within a restorative paradigm. Within a restorative paradigm, crime is understood to be a violation of people and relationships. Justice therefore attempts to heal these relationships and to restore the damage caused by crime. The following tables from Howard Zehr's book Changing Lenses, shows how the retributive justice paradigm differs from the paradigm of restorative justice.
| Retributive Justice | Restorative Justice |
| Crime violates the state and its laws. | Crime violates people and relationships. |
| Justice focuses on establishing guilt | Justice aims to identify needs and obligations |
| so that doses of pain can be measured out. | so that things can be made right in so far as possible. |
| Justice is sought through a conflict between adversaries | Justice encourages dialogue, mutual agreement, and an exchange of information |
| in which the offender is pitted against the state, | gives victims and offenders central roles, |
| rules and intentions outweigh outcomes, and one side wins and the other loses. | And is judged by the extent to which responsibilities are assumed, needs are met and healing of individuals and relationships is encouraged |
| The Problem | |
| defined narrowly, abstractly a legal infraction | defined relationally as violation of people |
| only legal variables relevant | overall context relevant |
| state as victim | people as victims |
| Actors | |
| state (active) & offender (passive) | victim and offender primary along with state and community |
| adversarial, authoritarian, technical, impersonal | participatory, maximising, information, dialogue and mutual agreement |
| focus = guilt/blame | focus = needs and obligations |
| "neutralising strategies" encouraged; offender responsible for self | empathy and responsibility encouraged |
| Retributive Justice | Restorative Justice |
| Solution | |
| pain, suffering | making things right by identifying needs and obligations; healing, problem solving |
| harm by offender balanced by harm to offender | harm by offender balanced by making right |
| oriented to past | oriented to future |
The following yardstick adapted from one by Howard Zehr has been used by NICRO to determine whether or not people experience justice in a fair manner and whether or not it restores the imbalance. The yardstick provides questions on whether or not the different parties affected by crime experience justice. It has been a useful tool not only in programme evaluation, but also in programme planning.
A Restorative Justice Yardstick
1. Do victims experience justice?
2. Do offenders experience justice?
3. Is the victim-offender relationship addressed?
4. Are community concerns taken into account?
5. Is the future addressed?
6. Is the way we are working transformational?
Family Group Conferences: A Restorative Approach
Family Group Conferences are an example of an approach which operates within the restorative justice paradigm. The victims and offenders, as the central role players, are brought together and allowed to talk about the issues which led to the offence, to talk about the offence itself, the hurts it caused, to make plans to put the wrong right and to forgive. The power of Family Group Conferences lies in their ability to restore what has been lost through crime to those most affected. They are based on the notion that families and communities have traditionally dealt with offending and that they know best how to deal with this behaviour. Victims need to have their story heard and the wrong they felt needs to be validated. Family Group Conferences put the key role players back into the centre playing field.
Family Group Conferences: How they work
There are three key phases of Family Group Conferences:
1. The preparation phase;
2. The facilitation phase; and
3. The monitoring phase.
While all three phases are equally important to the success of the process, it is in the facilitation phase that "the magic" happens. For the purpose of brevity, this article will therefore only focus on this phase(4).
The facilitation phase
During this phase all those affected by the crime meet. The diagram below indicates who attends a Family Group Conference:
Diagram Showing participants of a Family Group Conference
The aim of the meeting which takes place between all of the above parties is to come up with a plan which addresses the following:
The process whereby this is achieved can be divided into three phases:
Information Sharing
During this first phase of the process information is gathered about what happened and recommendations are made about what needs to be done to put the wrong right. The following is an outline of the process which takes place here:
(if the child accepts responsibility then the FGC proceeds, however if the child does not accept responsibility, then the case is referred back to court for trial)
In this phase victims are given the space to express their anger and ask the questions about why the offender chose them. Victims often testify to the healing effects of being able to confront the people who hurt them. Offenders on the other hand said when the victims spoke this enabled them to understand how their actions had hurt others and that this had created in them a longing to put the wrong right.
Family Deliberations
During this second phase the family, friends of the offender, and the offender meet by themselves with the offender to discuss the plan which needs to be developed. This gives the family the responsibility for dealing with what has happened and puts them in control of determining their own future.
The strength of this phase lies in the power which is given to families to take control of their own lives. A saying which was adopted by the facilitators of the pilot project which illustrates this point was: "If we want families to take more responsibility, we need to give them more opportunity".
Negotiation and Agreement
Here, during this final phase, the family get back together with the larger group to discuss the plans which they have come up with. The plans are evaluated according to whether or not they meet various criteria about what plans should achieve.
The Benefits of the Above Process
The whole process of the Family Group Conferences allows for the following to happen:
Two Case Examples
Case study one.
Lesego, a 16-year-old girl from Stanza Bopape, east of Pretoria, went to Sales House with a friend. She saw some clothes which she really liked but because her family was very poor, she couldn't afford them. So she decided to take a chance and steal them. She got stopped at the door and her bag was searched. Lesego was taken to security and charged with shoplifting. A prosecutor from the Pretoria magistrate's court referred the case for an FGC. The meeting was held at Sales House head office in Pretoria. Representing the victim was the Public Relations Officer of Sales House, while Lesego was supported by her uncle, a niece, her brother and his wife.
The victim was asked what he wanted to say to the offender and explained how shoplifting affects Sales House. The offender, Lesego, then explained that she had taken the clothes as she felt she needed them but didn't have the money. However, she had not thought of the consequences of taking them. Everyone cried when she said sorry to her family for bringing shame on them as she didn't realise how her crime had affected them. The family then discussed a plan for Lesego to stick to and it was agreed that she would give a written apology to Sales House, as well as make a sculpture of herself which she would present to them. Her brother, who is a sculptor by trade, came up with this idea as he thought it would keep her busy and possibly provide a source of income for the future. It was also agreed that she would do community service at a local clinic and sell sweets at school to earn pocket money for all her extra needs. Lesego's family circumstances were addressed by referring the matter to Child Welfare. It was also agreed that she'd move from her uncle's house to her brother where his wife could keep more of an eye on Lesego. This FGC was extremely effective, it was felt, for several reasons: firstly, the family was very involved in coming up with a creative plan for Lesego; secondly, the victim also participated actively in the FGC, even coming up with suggestions for the plan; thirdly, it gave Lesego a greater understanding of the consequences of her crime on both her family and the victim - hopefully preventing her from re-offending and fourthly, the victim was able to gain a greater understanding of why the crime was committed. The victim told the FGC facilitator he was glad he could be part of the FGC process as he had never seen shoplifters in that way before. "It gave me more insight and understanding into the background of the young person and what drove her to steal."
Case study two
Christopher and Vincent were 14 year olds who both came from Lotus Gardens, attended the same school and lived near to each other. One day they had an argument at school and later Christopher attacked Vincent in the street. Christopher claimed Vincent provoked him by picking up a brick and he then stabbed him in self defence. Vincent was rushed to the nearby hospital's ICU with a punctured lung and a stab wound. The knife had missed his heart by millimetres.
An FGC was held with the mothers of both boys present. Vincent's mother was still traumatised by the incident and initially demanded R 8 000 from Christopher to cover medical expenses.
However, a real breakthrough took place when Christopher's mother showed sympathy for what Vincent's mother had gone through, accepting that her son was at fault.
The second meaningful moment was when Vincent asked Christopher to say sorry. Christopher then got up, shook Vincent's hand and apologised.
While developing the plan, Christopher and his mother sat for some time drafting a letter of apology which was later presented to Vincent. It was also agreed that Christopher would pay back R1 000 of Vincent's medical costs, which he would earn by helping his mother sell vegetables.
The policeman present got involved in formulating the plan by suggesting that he take Christopher to court and to prison to see what they were like. Vincent said he would also like to come with them. The policeman also told Christopher what sort of punishment he would normally have got in court for assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and told him what prison was like.
Another creative part of the plan was that both boys were to spend time together at the library every Wednesday and make anti-crime posters - one of which would go to the police station and the other to the school principal.
In the end, the FGC was successful as there was real reconciliation between the offender and the victim, as well as between their two families.
Conclusion
Transformation of a juvenile justice system begins with a desire to see change. In South Africa this has come about as a result of the nations unjust history which saw children as the primary targets of exploitation. This has created in many a passion to see the change they dreamed about become a reality. Drafting policy and putting new legislation in place are only the first steps. Implementing this policy and changing the paradigm of professionals working with the children is a far grater challenge. The true test of whether or not this change has been achieved will be how the change has effected the lives of individual children.
"At the southern tip of the continent of Africa, a rich reward is in the making, an invaluable gift is in the preparation, for those who suffered in the name of all humanity when they sacrificed everything - for liberty, peace, human dignity and human fulfilment. This reward will not be measured in money. Nor can it be reckoned in the collective price of the rare metals and precious stones that rest in the bowels of the African soil we tread in the footsteps of our ancestors. It will and must be measured by the happiness and welfare of the children, at once the most vulnerable citizens in any society and the greatest of our treasures. The children must, at last, play in the open veld, no longer tortured by the pangs of hunger or ravaged by disease or threatened with the scourge of ignorance, molestation and abuse, and no longer required to engage in deeds whose gravity exceeds the demands of their tender years." Nelson Mandela on acceptance of Nobel Peace Prize.
South Africa has begun and although we are still a long way from transforming the system completely, there have been significant advances. Juvenile justice transformation is a case in point.
References
Branken,NK and Batley,M (1998)Family Group Conferences: Putting the wrong right: A practice research study and implementation manual, Inter-Ministerial Committee on Young People at Risk: Pretoria, South Africa
Christie, Nils (1977) Conflicts as Property, British Journal of Criminology,
Inter-Ministerial Committee on Young People at Risk: Interim Policy Recommendations, Pretoria 1996
Juvenile Justice Drafting Consultancy: Juvenile Justice for South Africa- Proposals for Policy and Legislative Change (1994)
Kuhn, Thomas (1970) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions University of Chicago Press, 2nd Edition
Muntingh L.M & Shapiro R. (1993) An introduction to Diversion from the Criminal Justice System
South African Law Commission. Issue Paper 9. Project 106: "Juvenile Justice".
Zehr, H. 1985. "Retributive justice, Restorative Justice" New Perspectives on Crime and Justice. Issue no. 4. Akron: MCC Office of Crime and Justice.
Zehr, H. 1990. Changing Lenses: A New Focus on Crime and Justice. Scottdale: Herald Press.
By
Nigel Branken(5)
The History of Family Group Conferences in South Africa
Family Group Conferences have been discussed in South Africa ever since 1993 when a juvenile justice legislative drafting consultancy was set up by Adv. Dullah Omar, then director of the Community Law Centre and now the Minister of Justice, after the seminar: "Juvenile Justice: Towards policy and legislative change held in November that year. In a document entitled Juvenile Justice for South Africa: Proposals for policy and legislative change(6), this drafting consultancy proposed the creation of a juvenile justice system for South Africa with Family Group Conferencing as the central intervention for youth in conflict with the law.
The ideas in the document became central to much of the thought about the creation of a new system. However, as the legislative drafting consultancy had been driven mainly by the non-government community, it was not possible to implement it's recommendations in a formal way. With the advent of the Inter-ministerial committee, after the initial amendment to section 29 of the Correctional Services Act and it's promulgation in May 1995, an opportunity was created to formally look at the transformation of the child and youth care system.
This committee set about drafting policy guidelines for the transformation of the child an youth care system which culminated in the release of: Interim Policy Recommendation(7) in November 1996. Within the document a number of ideas including a whole new paradigm in youth care thinking are outlined which if implemented will mean radical changes to the child and youth care system. One of the key principles of this new paradigm is that of restorative justice. They propose that: "the approach to young people in trouble with the law should include; resolution of conflict, family and community involvement in decision making, diversion, and community based interventions."(8)
As such the Inter-ministerial committee has set up several pilot projects to test this new policy. The Family Group Conference pilot project is one of these pilots which is testing the applicability of the new paradigm and of the practice principles. This project forms the basis of this paper.
The Process of Family Group Conferences
There are three key phases of Family Group Conference's:
1. The preparation phase;
2. The facilitation phase; and
3. The monitoring phase.
Each of these phases are equally essential and important to the success of other phases and to the Family Group Conference achieving all of it's aims and outcome objectives.
Preparation before the Family Group Conference
This is a critical phase of the Family Group Conference process. Without proper preparation of all of the parties, many problems could arise. Often problems which arise at later stages are attributed to poor preparation. The role players which need to be prepared include: families of offenders, victims, the young person, the police, and the facilitator.
The average time(9) used in preparation of each of these parties is:
Victim 1 hour
Family 1.5 hours
Offender 1.5 hours
Police 45 minutes
Logistics 1 hour
Facilitator 2 hours paperwork + preparation and creative thinking
Most of the preparation is done by the organiser, with him/her visiting the parties at their homes. The young persons and their families take responsibility for inviting their immediate and extended families or support people to the FGC. According to the organisers, the preparation phase is the most time consuming part of the their job.
The Facilitation Phase
This is the phase where everyone comes together to discuss what happened and make plans to put the wrong right and prevent re-offending. In this stage there are three phases:
1. Information Sharing: here the charge is read out, the child accepts or denies responsibility and gets a chance to tell his/her story, the victim also tells his/her story and gets a chance to say what he/she feels needs to be done to put the wrong right, other family members or support people also get a chance to speak.
2. Family Deliberations: here the young person, together with his/her family and support people meet by themselves and make plans to:
- put the wrong right to the victim
- put the wrong right to their families
- put the wrong right to the community
- prevent re-offending
3. Plan finalisation: here the family presents the plan to the larger group, some negotiation may be done, monitoring is set in place and time frames for the plan are finalised.
After the Family Group Conference, the plan is written up and distributed to all parties present at the FGC.
The Monitoring Phase
During this phase the plan is monitored by a responsible family member. The philosophy behind this is that if we want families to take more responsibility , we need to give them more opportunity. The Family Group Conference facilitator receives reports on the progress of the plan once every 2 weeks. This is usually done by telephone. The organiser visits the family once during the duration of the plan to provide support. If the plan appears to be breaking down, the organiser may visit the family more regularly.
On the successful completion of the plan, the charges are withdrawn.
The Family Group Conferences Philosophy
As has been shown above, Family Group Conferences bring together victims, offenders and their families in an attempt to restore the brokenness which has been brought about through the crime. The underlying philosophy of family group conferences is based on the age old notion that justice needs to restore the imbalance between victims and offenders caused by crime, It is about putting the wrong right. It is about healing. As adversarial, retributive justice systems are failing, there is an increasing interest, to get back to our roots and ask the questions: "What is justice?" and "What is justice supposed to do?".
If we take a look at the justice scales, often
found in justice departmental logo's, we can see that the ancient
Greeks, who first used the scales as a symbol for justice, had an
understanding that justice was about restoring balance.
This understanding of justice is not unique to the Greeks. Exploring traditional African models of justice, one finds the Sotho practices of the "lekhotla". If an offence is reported to a traditional leader, he may call a lekhotla to session. The lekhotla is normally attended by the victim, the offender, family members and support people (people who give support to others involved) of both the offender and the victim and community members. Anyone may however attend. Everyone attending enjoys full participation and all decisions are taken by consensus. The aim is to restore what has been lost through the offence This age old system with its restorative roots provides a stark contrast to the current system in use which is based on a retributive approach to justice.
As one looks at the current system, one has to ask what has gone wrong? Where did we lose our common sense approach to justice. When we look at our justice systems across the globe and ask what they achieve, we see:
Criminologist, Nils Christie(10) in his article on property of conflicts, argues that in court based adversarial systems, the state claims ownership of the conflict and those who really own the conflict are left out completely. The role of victims is taken over by the state while the role of offenders becomes a very passive one. The paradigm on which the adversarial criminal justice system is based is a retributive paradigm. The following tables from Howard Zehr's book Changing Lenses,(11) shows how the retributive justice paradigm differs from the paradigm of restorative justice.
| Retributive Justice | Restorative Justice |
| Crime violates the state and it's laws. | Crime violates people and relationships. |
| Justice focuses on establishing guilt | Justice aims to identify needs and obligations |
| so that doses of pain can be measured out. | so that things can be made right in so far as possible. |
| Justice is sought through a conflict between adversaries | Justice encourages dialogue, mutual agreement, and an exchange of information |
| in which the offender is pitted against the state, | gives victims and offenders central roles, |
| rules and intentions outweigh outcomes, and one side wins and the other loses. | And is judged by the extent to which responsibilities are assumed, needs are met and healing of individuals and relationships is encouraged |
The Problem |
|
| defined narrowly, abstractly a legal infraction | defined relationally as violation of people |
| only legal variables relevant | overall context relevant |
| state as victim | people as victims |
Actors |
|
| state (active) & offender (passive) | victim and offender primary along with state and community |
| adversarial, authoritarian, technical, impersonal | participatory, maximising, information, dialogue and mutual agreement |
| focus = guilt/blame | focus = needs and obligations |
| "neutralising strategies" encouraged; offender responsible for self | empathy and responsibility encouraged |
Retributive Justice |
Restorative Justice |
Solution |
|
| pain, suffering | making things right by identifying needs and obligations; healing, problem solving |
| harm by offender balanced by harm to offender | harm by offender balanced by making right |
| oriented to past | oriented to future |
Family Group Conferences are an attempt towards a restorative justice paradigm. They once again put victims and offenders as the central role players by bringing them together and allowing them to talk out the issues which led to the offence, to talk about the offence itself and how it hurt, to make plans to put the wrong right and to forgive. The power of Family Group Conferences lies in their ability to restore what has been lost through crime to those most affected by it. They are based on the notion that, as in the Sotho lekhotla practice, families and communities have traditionally dealt with offending and that they are the people who know best about how to deal with this behaviour. Victims need to have their story heard and the wrong they felt needs to be validated. Family Group Conferences allow this to happen. Family Group Conferences respond to the arguments of Nils Christie by putting the key role players back into the centre playing field.
Family group Conferences in Action: A Case Study(12)
Jabu, a 8 year old boy, living in Atteridgeville, went to a corner cafe which had a pool table. There he met Vuyo, a 17 year old. Vuyo was playing pool with a 7 year old boy and was beating him. Jabu took over the game from the 7 year old. Jabu started beating Vuyo at pool. Vuyo decided that this was not on and so hit Jabu. Jabu ran away and called his older brother Mike. Mike went straight to Vuyo and hit him. Vuyo retaliated by stabbing Mike with a knife once in the chest. Mike started running away. Vuyo chased him and stabbed him twice more in the back. Vuyo found shelter in a bottle store.
Mike spent 3 weeks in hospital. The doctor said that if the wound in his chest has been two centimetres to the right, it would have got his heart. Mike's mother, Joyce was extremely concerned when she first heard Mike was admitted to hospital. In the Family Group Conference she told of all the worry that she had experienced as a mother. Young Jabu told of the guilt that he felt during the Family Group Conference. He blamed himself for the whole incident - if he had not been playing pool and beaten Vuyo, this probably would not have happened. These feelings would not have been expressed if Vuyo had gone through the traditional justice system.
Vuyo was arrested on Christmas day. The police came to the house while they had family over celebrating Christmas. Vuyo's mother, Mary, told of how she felt that this was the end of her child. She knew what happened to boys when they went to prison. She knew of the abuse, of the criminalisation. For her she felt like she had failed as a parent. All of the above she expressed in the Family Group conference.
In the Family Group Conference, Vuyo listened to all of the stories told. He listened to how his actions had impacted on the lives of those around him. He felt responsible and began to cry, not because he was sorry he was caught, not because he was to be punished, but, because he realised how what he had done had affected other people in such a traumatic way.
The plan of this Family Group Conference involved Vuyo apologising to all those in the conference. He also agreed to pay for all the medical expenses incurred by Mike's family. He also sat down with Mike after the conference and made up some slogans which spoke of violence not being the answer to society's problems. From these slogans, Vuyo made posters to put up in the Community.
What was apparent after the family group conference was that these two young people had reconciled and forgiven each other. The mother of Mike said in her evaluation interview that "just because a young person makes a mistake, it does not mean we have to damage his life forever".
Conclusions
We need to return to what we have always believed that justice is not about inflicting pain, it is about healing. Justice is about restoring balance between victims and offenders. It is about meeting the needs of those who are affected by crime. Family Group Conferences provide for the above to occur through community driven process which empower and heal. In conclusion the following quote sums up what we do not want to be doing with children in conflict with the law:
PRISONS
WE WANT THEM TO HAVE SELF-WORTH...
So we destroy their self-worth.
WE WANT THEM TO BE RESPONSIBLE...
So we take away all responsibilities.
WE WANT THEM TO BE PART OF OUR COMMUNITY...
So we isolate them from our community.
WE WANT THEM TO BE POSITIVE AND CONSTRUCTIVE...
So we degrade them and make them useless.
WE WANT THEM TO BE TRUSTWORTHY...
So we put them where there is no trust.
WE WANT THEM TO BE NONVIOLENT...
So we put them where there is violence all around them.
WE WANT THEM TO BE KIND AND LOVING PEOPLE...
So we subject them to hatred and cruelty.
WE WANT THEM TO QUIT BEING THE TOUGH GUY...
So we put them where the tough guy is respected.
WE WANT THEM TO QUIT HANGING AROUND LOSERS...
So we put all the losers in the state under one roof.
WE WANT THEM TO QUIT EXPLOITING US...
So we put them where they exploit each other.
WE WANT THEM TO TAKE CONTROL OF THEIR LIVES, OWN THEIR
PROBLEMS, AND QUIT BEING A PARASITE...
So we make them totally dependent on us."(13)
Endnotes
1. Nigel Branken is currently the Gauteng Project Manager of Diversion for the National Institute for Crime Prevention and the Re-integration of Offenders (NICRO), he has also been involved in managing the Family Group Conference Pilot Project for the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Young People at Risk.
2. Inter-Ministerial Committee on Young People at Risk (1996) Interim Policy Recommendations p 5
3. Kuhn, Thomas (1970) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions University of Chicago Press, 2nd Edition
4. For a fuller description of Family Group Conference Processes see: Branken, NK and Batley, M (1998). Family Group Conferences: Putting the wrong right: A practice research study and implementation manual, Inter-Ministerial Committee on Young People at Risk: Pretoria, South Africa
5. NICRO: Gauteng Project Manager: Diversion;
Project Manager: Family Group Conference Pilot Project of the Inter-Ministerial
Committee on Young People at Risk.
6. Juvenile Justice Drafting Consultancy (1994) Juvenile Justice for South Africa:
Proposals for Policy and Legislative Change, Institute of Criminology, University of
Cape Town.
7. The Inter-Ministerial Committee on Young People at Risk: Interim Policy
Recommendations: November 1996
8. The Inter-Ministerial Committee on Young People at Risk: Interim Policy
Recommendations: November 1996: p 17
9. Branken, N and Solomon, A (1997): Family Group Conferencing in Inter-Ministerial
Committee on Young People at Risk. Report on the Pilot Projects: p 10.
10. Christie, N.:Conflicts as property, British Journal of Criminology, 1977, 17,1.
11. Zehr, H (1989) Changing Lenses, Herald Press, Scottdale (Pennsylvania), 1990.
12. Names and places have been changed to protect the identity of those concerned.
13. From: Making It Right: A Common Sense Approach to Criminal Justice
by Dennis A. Challeen. Melius & Peterson Publishing Corporation, 1986,
pp. 37-39.