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Crime, community and justice

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Related pages: Crime Community and Justice, Quaker United Nations Office

Quakers are well known for work in supporting prisoners and in campaigning for reform of our justice system.

Depressed looking personIn 2009 our Crime, Community and Justice Group (CCJG) embarked on a new piece of work, “Learning from Experience”, to find out what actually happens to individuals affected when someone receives a prison or community sentence. This includes the person convicted, their family and friends and also the victim, their family and friends, and the wider community. It is hoped that a better understanding of the effects will encourage a search for less damaging and more constructive responses.

Quakers are also committed to improving the situation of imprisoned women and the children of prisoners. In 2009 the UN agreed to many of the recommendations of the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) in Geneva on the minimum standards for the treatment of women in prisons, to be adopted in 2010.

In 2009:

  • QUNO Geneva gave expert advice to diplomats investigating the treatment of children of imprisoned mothers as part of the UN Human Rights Council’s review processes
  • QUNO Geneva produced two authoritative new publications on children in prison, Orphans of justice: In search of the best interests of the child when a parent is imprisoned and Children need dads too: Children with fathers in prison
  • two-thirds of the prisons in Britain were served by Quaker prison chaplains, who offer support and friendship to all prisoners regardless of faith or tradition
  • we welcomed 34 Quaker prison chaplains to a conference in December on dealing with loss

“Justice should be compassionate, forgiving and healing – restorative, not retributive. We want to change attitudes and encourage the criminal justice system to move towards this vision of justice.”

Crime, Community and Justice Group, 2009

Documents

Please find below CCJG response to the government’s Green Paper on sentencing policy, ‘Breaking the Cycle: Effective Punishment, Rehabilitation and Sentencing of Offenders’ : Response to Breaking the Cycle [Word: 66kb - new window]