I read amendment No. 104 as having a slightly broader effect than one of pure reparation. That is why I support it. The only problem that I have with it is the name given to the requirement, which should really be something like “restorative justice requirement”, rather than just “reparation requirement”.

Amendment No. 104 would provide that

“the offender must attend an activity or activities involving contact between an offender and persons affected by the offences”.

That is not just reparation in the ordinary sense of payback. It includes the element of an encounter, in controlled conditions, between the offender and the victim. It is that encounter that is often the most successful part of a restorative justice exercise. Reparation itself can be part of the process, but the encounter is important as well. That is what the order includes.

What we now know about restorative justice is that it is successful. It is probably the most tested criminal justice intervention of recent years, and the evidence is piling up, not only of its potential, but of its actual success. If we look at the research reported by Professor Lawrence Sherman and Heather Strang for the Smith Institute, we see scientifically validated evidence piling up in favour of that type of intervention.

The intervention works, often in surprising ways. For example, it works not just for property crime, which is what people normally think of restorative justice and reparation being about, but for some forms of violent crime. In fact, it sometimes works better for violent crime than for property crime. Perhaps even more surprisingly, it can work successfully for serious offences as well as for minor offences.

That is probably because of the element of the encounter. Offenders often have in their heads a series of quite unacceptable excuses for their behaviour—excuses they give themselves, which downplay the humanity of the victim and the entitlement of the victim to live a safe life. A series of studies shows clearly that those sort of excuses can be dismantled as a consequence of the encounter between a victim and an offender. Therefore, restorative justice works, but it works best for crimes in which there is an individual victim.

The other important aspect of restorative justice is the good it does for victims. Again, it is not just about the payback. Some work might be done for the victim or some payment might be made, which the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate mentioned. However, it is not just that. Often victims want to know the answers to quite simple questions such as, “Why me? Why was I the victim rather than some other person? Was I being picked on for some characteristic of my own?” What comes out of the encounter is that the victim discovers that they were chosen at random. They were not being picked on in any particular way because of who they were, but were chosen because of the circumstances or the coincidence of events.