Gwent Police has not facilitated a single restorative justice conference in three years, and the main reason is straightforward: victims simply do not want to sit down with the people who wronged them.
Restorative justice brings together victims and offenders in a structured setting, giving victims a chance to explain the impact of a crime and offenders an opportunity to take responsibility. It is widely used across other forces in Wales and England as a way to reduce reoffending and help victims find closure. But in Gwent, the practice has ground to a complete halt.
The figures cover a three year period and show zero conferences have taken place across the force area, which covers Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Monmouthshire, Newport and Torfaen. The most commonly recorded reason is that victims declined to take part, choosing not to meet or have any form of communication with the offender involved in their case.
Victim participation in restorative justice is always voluntary, and nobody can be forced to engage with the process. Advocates of the approach are clear that it only works when both sides genuinely want to be involved. But the complete absence of any conferences over such a long stretch raises questions about how actively the option is being promoted and supported within the force.
Critics have pointed out that a lack of conferences does not necessarily mean restorative justice is being offered consistently to victims in the first place. If people are not properly informed about what the process involves or what it could offer them, it is hard to know whether the low uptake reflects genuine reluctance or a gap in how the option is being communicated.
Restorative justice has a reasonable evidence base behind it. Studies have suggested it can cut reoffending rates and that victims who go through the process often report higher levels of satisfaction than those who go through the traditional court route alone. For some, it provides answers that a conviction simply cannot give them, like understanding why something happened or having the chance to say directly how a crime affected their life.
Gwent Police has not been alone in struggling with restorative justice delivery. Across Wales and England, forces have faced challenges around staffing, training and consistent referral pathways. But a total of zero conferences over three years is an outlier that is difficult to explain away.
The force covers some of the most deprived communities in Wales, areas where crime can have a significant impact on already stretched households and neighbourhoods. Supporters of restorative approaches argue that community-level justice tools are particularly valuable in those kinds of settings, where rebuilding trust and reducing repeat offending can have a real knock-on effect.
At this stage, Gwent Police has not set out any specific plans to increase restorative justice activity or address the reasons behind the prolonged gap in conferences. The figures have drawn attention to a part of the criminal justice process that often flies under the radar but which many practitioners believe has a genuine role to play alongside more traditional enforcement and prosecution work.
For victims in the Gwent area, the message for now appears to be that while restorative justice remains an option in theory, in practice it has not been a live part of how the force handles cases for quite some time.