Greg Mantle

Restorative justice in prisons

Restorative justice (RJ) has found significant utility outside the prison setting. For many reasons, it has not received the same level of consideration inside the institution. While not every case can, or perhaps should be considered for restorative justice processing inside the prison, some could easily fall into the broad purview range of restorative and transformative justice. We provide examples of RJ practices that exist in some prisons focusing on: offending behavior and victim awareness programs, community service work, and victim‐offender mediation, as well as prison systems that exhibit a RJ philosophy. Also considered are the effectiveness of prison RJ practices, and the limitations of such efforts. Although RJ has the potential to have a positive impact on the work of prisons and the experience of imprisonment, it has not found wide acceptance and is currently limited to a relatively small number of prisons and then often only delivered in partial form. We believe that RJ has a realistic future in prison settings and that the contradictions that may be identified are not debilitating.

Establishing Children's Wishes and Feelings for Family Court Reports: The Significance Attached to the Age of the Child.

Current UK government policy is to promote mediation as a way of avoiding family court proceedings and there is a risk, therefore, that welfare report-writing practice may receive less critical attention than it merits. A largely unstudied aspect of this practice is the significance given by practitioners to the childs age. More widely, across a broad academic and policy canvas, preoccupying concerns with childrens rights, their ability to participate and their individuality have shifted attention away from questions about the age relatedness of competence. Two sets of findings from recent research are presented in this article: first, statistical data relating to the age of children involved in welfare report enquiries; and, second, data drawn from a qualitative study of how private lawpractitioners establish the wishes and feelings of children of different ages.

Inequalities in health and community-oriented social work Lessons from Cuba?

English This article argues that, in tackling health inequalities, lessons can be learned from the community-oriented social work which has helped Cuba maintain population health comparable with much wealthier countries, in contrast to the UK where efforts to reduce the health gap between rich and poor have enjoyed limited success. French Cet article soutient que, lorsqu’on aborde les inégalités de santé, des leçons peuvent être tirées du travail social communautaire qui a aidé Cuba à maintenir la santé de sa population à un niveau comparable à celui de pays beaucoup plus riches, par contraste avec le Royaume-Uni où les efforts pour réduire le fossé dans l’accès aux soins entre les riches et les pauvres ont rencontré un succès limité. Spanish Se arguye que, en la lucha contra desigualdades en la salud, se puede aprender de la experiencia del trabajo social comunitario en Cuba. Este trabajo ayudó a que Cuba mantuviera un nivel de salud comparable a la de países mucho más ricos. Todo ello contrasta con el limitado éxito de los esfuerzos en el Reino Unido por reducir distancias en cuanto a salud entre ricos y pobres.