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April 2009
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Restoring Justice There were 33 presentations from researchers around the world with one common bond: they each had an interest in the area and had looked at the Caribbean situation. Speaking on the second day, Dr Dianne Williams said the models currently used locally: crime control and due process, have been ineffective. The problem, she said, is that both were retributive, punitive models and it is now necessary to look at a different approach to reducing crime. She recommended the concept of restorative justice, which focuses directly on the victims and the offenders and seeks redress and some degree of satisfaction for the victim, and consequences for the offender. One of the organisers, Keron King said, “This conference was the culmination of a grant funded by the Government of Trinidad and Tobago through The UWI St Augustine Researcher- Initiated programme to study the causes of crime in the country, the region and globally. Consequently, the Unit thought it wise to host a Criminology Conference with the sole aim of evaluating the contributions to a Caribbean Criminology.” The next step will be to combine all the presentations into one manuscript for publication in the hope that it will provide a useful guide. Also, said King, a research assistant at the Criminology Unit, the conference provided a useful opportunity to broaden the network of researchers involved in this area. The plan is also to work more closely with the criminal justice system, and to strengthen The UWI Institute of Criminology based at the Mona Campus. Featured speakers were Professor Ramesh Deosaran, Professor at the Centre for Criminology and Public Safety at the University of Trinidad and Tobago, and Professor David Plummer, Adjunct Professor in Public Health at the University of Texas.
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It couldn’t have come at a better time: “Developing a Caribbean Criminology,” was the theme of a two-day conference earlier this month hosted by the Criminology Unit of The University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine Campus. The conference, held at the Institute of Critical Thinking, was part of a multidisciplinary research project investigating the causes of crime both locally and internationally.