Indigenous leaders, others to be trained in restorative justice
Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, SC, at the opening ceremony of the restorative justice training program.
Kaieteur News – The Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall, SC, have announced that indigenous leaders, teachers, religious leaders, judicial officials and probation officers are among those who will benefit from ongoing training in restorative justice to reduce the need for prison for people who are vulnerable to crime.
In his remarks at the opening ceremony of facilitator training in restorative justice, last week, Nandlall noted that the program was designed to help close the gaps of the criminal justice system.
He explained, “We found that traditional theories and methods of dealing with criminal and violent behavior have not yielded the predicted results. In fact, there has been an increase or increase in these criminal atrocities … ”
In that regard, the Attorney General said the program is one of the new innovations the experts have thought of to deal with criminal, violent, and deviant behavior.
The Attorney General explained that restorative justice seeks to assess the cause of homicides and address social issues such as poverty, the prevalence of domestic violence and other forms of domestic violence and seek to prevent other incidents.
“[The programme] bringing victims and offenders together to melt that ice of hatred and lack of communication and together reflect on what caused the violence. ”
The AG announced that the program will engage with several stakeholders, including the Ministry of Education, the Human Services Ministries and Amerindian Affairs.
He noted that “the Ministry of Human Services has been asked to make all its probation officers available for training in restorative justice. The Ministry of Education was urged to train all teachers, so that young people could be targeted, so that the next generation could settle disputes in children’s formative years. “
“We believe that if we can plant that seed there, when those children grow up, it will have a positive effect in keeping them away from prisons; that’s the ultimate objective of this program, ”he said
AG Nandlall also charged the Toshaos who attended the workshop to give back to their communities and practice the techniques learned.
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has been supporting the Restorative Justice Programs since 2018. The main objective of the restorative justice project is to reduce the prison population in Guyana.