Shadd Maruna - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

Who Owns Resettlement? 13Talbot, 2005), the Inside-Out Trust (Culver, 2004), and the Restorative Prisons Project(Stern, 2005), thousands of prisoners already volunteer to repair wheelchairs, furniture, andbicycles, audio-tape information for blind listeners, and other good deeds. Similar projectsare at work in the community, where the most good can be done, with the help of groupslike the London-based ‗Payback‘ organisation. In one strength-based resettlement project,prisoners nearing release from H.M. Springhill Prison are travelling to Oxford on dayrelease to act as ―citizens advisors‖ (Burnett and Maruna, 2006) making their move fromoutcast to ―good neighbour‖ complete.Participating in these forms of positive volunteer work is thought to lead to a sense ofhope, an orientation toward the future, and the willingness to take responsibility for theirbehaviour. Moreover, such demonstrations send a message to the community that theoffender is worthy of further support and investment in their reintegration. Of course,former political prisoners in Northern Ireland have led the way in terms of taking onleadership positions at the highest reaches of government and society. There is no reasonwhy this redemptive story should be consigned only to political prisoners. Ex-prisoners ofall persuasions have similar leadership skills and abilities they could draw on in such roles.3. Restorative Re-integration Should Be Symbolically RichIn a restorative model, these contributions need to be recognised and publicly ―certified‖ inorder to symbolically ―de-label‖ the stigmatised person. This is often the most difficult