Community Justice panels.. What are they useful for?

[truthwillout]

Have you ever done a community justice panel? Im wondering if you found the exeperience useful or not? I did a panel as the harmed person and found it to be very beneficial to the recovery of my wellbeing after the event that had altered my life:gag: I was so impressed infact that I decided I wanted to be part of the whole thing and went and did the training to become a volunteer... During the training I had a niggeling fear that when the police (who at this point were still not impressed by the whole idea of first time offenders getting away with their crimes in this manner) realized alot of their work could be resolved by panels and not themselves that suddenly panels would become a very popular aid..this is true, they love them like they are married to them, cant get enough of them... For what reason should community justice panels be used? I may sound contradictory of myself here as the first incident involved an occurance with a young mans penis and a child, as I have said above I found the whole experience very helpful, hopefully for both parties, I was eager he stay off the sex offenders register(as were his parents) due to his age and future, more open to the prospect of long term help for him to over come his past problems which he had in no way brought on himself, the panel was a god send at that point, i got to tell him how his staring into my house after the event had frightened me, he got to respond by telling me, he was hoping it would all just go away and we could be friends again, i understood he was staring at me in hope not hate, I stuck by my word and never mentioned his name or what had happened, his step dad eased my fears and concerns further 1 yr later by moving from his property and starting again, thus giving me the feeling that we too could start again, even though I never actually saw the young man again after the panel, I always knew he was there and thought it very fair and decent of his step dad to up and move without there ever being a word said on the subject again...(if indeed his moving had anything to do with the incident, i am pressuming it did but could be wrong, he might have won the lottery and gone to barbados for all i know.) So anyway I finish my training, there is nothing from the panel, still no cases..the police are still learning all about them.... I make my predictions about panels flying as soon as the police realize what this actually means for them, and as if by magic off they go, up up and away... Due to a persoanl circumstance I backed away from doing a panel of my own when one then two, three, four, five, came up, however I knew they were growing fast as I was kept up to date by email. Last month there was an incident that I wont go far into on this thread as that would just be asking for ridicule from those who like to turn other peoples crimes into some sort of paranoid error on the victims part I will say it involved a man, children a camera, his bedroom window and the admitance of plenty more footage and alot of anger in all directions, while the police were talking to him I was thinking to myself, "they are going to come back to my house and tell me that a community justice panel is the way forward", as a facilitator of course I knew this was absalutly out of the question, i could see clearly with my own eyes just why this wasnt going to work and more importantly it brought my concern of the facilitators wellbeing to the forfront of my mind.. since the police signed over this incident as some kind of minor neighbour dispute, i am now more concerned.. Indeed panels have been very useful bringing murderers together with family members of the victim, im not suggesting in anyway they cant be used in a multitude of ways, if a young woman can sit in a prison cell and speak openly with the man who killed her mother and come away able to get along with her life better (as is true) then I am in no way suggesting they should not be used, however this panel would have taken along time to come into fruition with alot of preperation and guidence, the panels the police should be aiming in the direction of volunteers without much background info should be ones relating to neighbours arguing over boundries, or boys smashing windows of the local church for example, not men acting in a harrassing and truly frightening manner, with mental health problems and a history of violent and petrifying actions against many people in one community??? I have spoken with 2 other facilitators in regards to this, one simply said it would never have worked, the other laughed and walked away saying he wasnt enetering the guys house....(However this was on my information about what had happened and his past history which by now the police had told me was accurate, they hadnt mentioned it to him, he was stepping into this mans house alone with no prior knowledge of what he had done to one young man previously) I wonder if you have had to do a panel for anything extra ordinary as Im seriously concerned about what danger the facilitaors are actually being put into, I for one wouldnt dream of doing a panel with a man of his nature and the protection on offer is usually in the form of community support officers who have what power? and to do what? Get on a radio and ask for help, that help will take approximatly the same amount of time as my 999 call would also take whereby the damage may very well be done, Im all for helping the police with the low level crime, but come on, putting 2 men in the same room to discuss why one was caught taking photos of the others kids from his bedroom and why he then went on to admitt he had plenty more footage of them its only going to end in disaster really, all you have to do before a panel is convince the volunteer you are safe to go along with it, if they believe you after having no training at all in pyschology, your good to go... What do you reckon? Its a confusing one because they really are a good helpful aid to have in our society, but at what point should the police be saying "eye eye, his background suggests hes a danger, its our job to deal with this", not look up into the sky and imagine how many pub brawls will be taking place because the sun has got its hat on, and pass it on to unpaid people with an interest in its usual good history (when used under the right circumstances and in the right nature) Aplogies in advance for my grammer lack of paragraphs or anything else that may well cause the bored 30,0000000000 post posters to react by trying to somehow accuse me of racial harrasment plucked from no where, based on not much and to only cause damage, lets stick to the topic, community justice panels:confused: