Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows aspects of the restorative justice process in Australia. It opens with a slow pan of a room that has chairs arranged in a circle, ready for a restorative justice conference. It then shows Senior Sergeant Terry O’Connell explaining the purpose and process involved in restorative justice and its links with Indigenous 'shaming ceremonies’. A music soundtrack of slow, melancholy voice and guitar accompanies this section of the clip. A shot of the sign outside the Junee Correctional Centre introduces the final sequence, featuring a man in prison garb speaking to an interviewer.

Educational value points

• Facing the Demons was released in 1999, only 8 years after restorative justice was introduced in Australia, and shows the emotional and practical difficulties involved in bringing perpetrators and victims of crime face to face. To facilitate the restorative justice conference the organiser must overcome the reluctance of those who were hurt by the crime, as they may believe that restorative justice is soft on the criminal. Many offenders are also unwilling to participate, although one of the primary aims of restorative justice is that perpetrators accept responsibility for their crime, as this assists in rehabilitation and reduces recidivism.

• Restorative justice is a term referring to a range of practices, first implemented in the juvenile justice system, that are designed to repair the harm caused by a crime by bringing together the victims, offenders and others affected by the crime. Ideas of restorative (as opposed to retributive) justice predate modern society but current applications of the idea were first developed in 1974 in Canada. That model was essentially a victim–offender reconciliation program, and similar programs emerged in parts of the USA and Europe. It was not until 1989 that a somewhat different model of restorative justice was adopted by New Zealand.

• The Australian model of restorative justice was first introduced in 1991 in the New South Wales city of Wagga Wagga. It borrowed elements from the model used in NZ, where restorative justice is based on family-group decision making drawn from Maori justice practices and applied to juvenile justice and child protection. The Wagga Wagga model differed from NZ’s in that the family conferences were organised and run by police officers. Subsequently all other Australian states have introduced various forms of restorative justice conferencing.

• The reference in the clip to 'shaming ceremonies’ alludes to the link between restorative justice and Indigenous forms of dispute resolution. A feature of Indigenous customary law for thousands of years and an initiative in the area of mainstream restorative justice, the practice of re-integrative shaming has the purpose of resocialising the individual. 'Shaming’ activities such as the proposed publication of the names and addresses of known paedophiles or shaming by the media in the areas of environmental law and corporate crime could be seen as the application of public shaming within the broader community. This is questionable, however, as traditionally the importance of the shaming ceremony occurs within the direct community of the offender.

• The clip depicts one of the perpetrators of a serious crime prior to a restorative justice meeting. Karl Kramer was one of four men who in 1994 held up a Pizza Hut in Jannali, NSW. The intended robbery went wrong and Michael Marslew, one of the employees, was shot dead. The four men were jailed for periods of up to 18 years. Karl Kramer is one of two of the men involved in the crime who agreed to take part in the restorative justice conference. Candidates for conferencing must admit responsibility for the crime and express remorse. The parents of the dead man, Joan Griffiths and Ken Marslew, also agreed to attend the conference.

• The 'horrific incident’ referred to in the clip, which resulted in the death of Michael Marslew, led Michael’s father, Ken Marslew, to establish Enough is Enough, an organisation with the aim of preventing violence and achieving justice for victims of crime. Ken Marslew has gained considerable influence in NSW as a lobbyist for a 'tough-on-crime’ position. Deeply affronted by a trial process that did not allow him a voice, he agreed to take part in the restorative justice conference.

• Since this film was released in 1999, at a time when the concept and practices of restorative justice were relatively new to the Australian legal system, Australia has come to be regarded as a world leader in restorative justice conferencing. Legislatively based conferencing exists in all states and territories except Victoria and is now firmly established in Australian juvenile justice. However, despite the fact that in Australia there is a high rate of compliance with restorative justice outcome agreements, the number of eligible offenders referred for conferencing is still only a small percentage of cases processed by the courts.

• Facing the Demons was made by the Australian documentary filmmaker Aviva Ziegler. Ziegler started her television career with the ABC, working on the social issues documentary series Chequerboard, and has worked in both commercial and non-commercial Australian television for more than 30 years. She has won two Logies for Best Documentary, first for Quentin, one of the highest rating documentaries screened on Australian television, and then for Facing the Demons, which she cowrote and directed. In 2001 and 2002 Ziegler directed and narrated Plumpton High Babies, a four-part documentary series that attempted to confront prejudices about secondary school student mothers.

This clip starts approximately 6 minutes into the documentary.

This clip shows aspects of the restorative justice process in Australia. It opens with a slow pan of a room that has chairs arranged in a circle, ready for a restorative justice conference. It then shows Senior Sergeant Terry O’Connell explaining the purpose and process involved in restorative justice. A music soundtrack of slow, melancholy voice and guitar accompanies this section of the clip. A shot of the sign outside the Junee Correctional Centre introduces the final sequence, featuring a man in prison garb speaking to an interviewer.

Senior Sergeant Terry O’Connell Well the conference is simply a forum whereby those directly affected by a tragic incident, a murder, ie offenders, victims and their respective families, to be able to share in a process that would allow them to feel better as a result of that experience. The notion of shaming ceremonies historically goes back hundreds and hundreds of years. It’s often seen in indigenous terms as a strong cultural dimension, and if you think about the shame associated with this particular incident, which is an horrific innocent, um, unless we actually allow people to experience a deep sense of shame about what it is they’ve done and the emphasis is on what it is they’ve done, they can’ ever begin to feel good about themselves.
Karl Kramer For myself, there’s been many times at night, you know, locked in a lonely cell or different emotional states, where I’ve actually spoken out aloud and I’ve spoken to Michael’s mother, his father and his brother. And when I say spoken out, it’s because I’ve let out what I’d like to say. I’ve wanted to just express and say something. But the thing that’s held me back all this time is that – what right do I have to send a letter, what right do I have to state an opinion, you know? By doing that, will I cause more pain? Will I cause more frustration? Will I raise more questions?