Reparation in South Tyneside
Reparation in South Tyneside enables young people whom have come into contact with the criminal justices system the opportunity to make amends for their actions.
Reparation comes in three main forms, direct for a victim of crime, who may want the young person to directly participate in the restorative process. For example, this may be if a young person has written their name on the property of a home/shop owner. The owner would be consulted and if appropriate the young person would remove the graffiti under supervision.
Often victims of crime when consulted would like to direct the young person to work in a specific area of the Borough. The sites often include litter picking in cemeteries, cleaning parks of graffiti or assisting in community projects.
Where victims do not wish to participate or a victim cannot be identified, young people participate in community reparation. This form of reparation comes in various guises. Often at the request of residents and non-profit organisation in the Borough, these range from distributing leaflets for the Fire Service to planting bulbs for Britain in Bloom. We also boast fence making, bird box construction and painting skills and have saved various groups a considerable amount of resources on a regular basis.
Our work is closely monitored by experienced and skilled staff from a variety of backgrounds and recorded on a central computer system. Our age range is from 10 years to 18 and our sites reflect the huge variation in maturity and skills. We can have up to 100 young people subject to reparation at any given time, hence reparation schemes run everyday of the week including weekends. The disposals range from a minimum of 2 hours to a maximum of 24 hours. If a young person does not attend reparation on three occasions they are returned to court for breach proceedings which inevitably leads to an increase in the original sentence.
To conclude, our aim is to engage young people to take responsibility for their offending, give back to victims of crime and the community in general. We are committed to making schemes as educational as possible to encourage transferable skills and empowering the young people to achieve.
