Restorative Justice in Action
How might we take Jesus’ words of Matthew 25:36 to heart and apply them in our own lives?
Inspired by the testimonies of ex-offenders and current prisoners her late mother had visited, Alison Austin and husband Mark have now been members of the Prison Fellowship for several years.
In Spring 2023 they both became trained volunteer facilitators of the Sycamore Tree course; Alison subsequently becoming a course tutor.
Here they tell us something of their experiences working for the Prison Fellowship in three prisons in Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire.
Based on Jesus’s encounter with Zacchaeus in Luke 19: 1-10, Sycamore Tree is a volunteer-led programme fully funded by Prison Fellowship teaching the principles of restorative justice.
The Sycamore Tree Course is taught in prisons in groups of up to 20 learners, over a 6-week period. Learners on the programme explore the effects of crime on victims, offenders, and the wider community, and discuss what it would mean to take responsibility for their personal actions.
Sycamore Tree is an accredited programme and is proven to change attitudes that contribute to reoffending: the content of the programme being consistent with the pathways determined by the His Majesty’s Prison and Probation service (HMPPS) to reduce re-offending.*
The supportive, group-based, learning environment, connections with the community and a highly economic structure, are just a few reasons why Sycamore Tree holds highly favourable endorsements from participants, staff and other stakeholders.
The programme is a tool that Prison Fellowship offers to both men and women in prison, where they are encouraged to do the hard work of turning their lives around.
The journey of desistance is a life-long one, with many challenges and barriers to overcome, but so much of the feedback Prison Fellowship receives shows that this course is a powerful and transformative moment on that journey for many learners.
The impact is widespread. Between April 2023 to March 2024, Prison Fellowship ran 144 Sycamore Tree courses in 58 prisons across England and Wales, allowing over 2,000 learners to explore the impact of their crime.
As well as encouraging offenders to face up to the impact of their crimes and take responsibility for their actions, Restorative Justice also gives victims a greater voice in the criminal justice system.
In their first 18 months Alison and Mark helped run eleven of the six-week courses at three different category C men’s prisons. And now, as a Sycamore Tree Course Tutor, Alison has already run courses at HMP Aylesbury, Bucks and HMP The Mount in Bovingdon, Herts, seeing 28 offenders graduate.
For most learners the most powerful element of the programme is the point when a victim of crime visits to talk through how crime has impacted their lives.
Learners have an opportunity in the final session to express their remorse – some write letters, poems or create works of art or craft. Members of the community are invited to support and bear witness to these symbolic acts of restitution.
Alison and Mark have witnessed, first-hand, lives being genuinely changed on every course, with dozens of prisoners embracing the catalyst of opportunity that the Sycamore Tree Course provides for them to take personal responsibility for their past actions, aim to make amends, and put an action plan in place (along with the necessary support), which if enacted by them will enable them to tread a constructive path when they eventually return to their community.
To find out more about Sycamore Tree and Prison Fellowship visit https://prisonfellowship.org.uk/our-work/sycamore-tree/
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* A review of evidence by Professors Lawrence Sherman and Heather Strang of Cambridge University, found that in one study, the rate of re-conviction amongst those offenders participating in Restorative Justice was reduced by as much as 28% (Restorative Justice: The Evidence, Sherman & Strang, The Smith Institute 2007).
