Activities

Conferences

The European Forum organises biennial international conferences.

Final conference ' Developing standards for assistance to victims of terrorism'

2008: Tilburg, The Netherlands


Helsinki (Finland), 14 - 16 June 2012

Connecting people - Linking Victims, Offenders and Community

Theme of the conference
The title of the conference – Connecting people – describes the potential of restorative justice to build bridges and repair conflicts between people. Victims and offenders are not the only ones affected by crime. Frequently members of the community are greatly disturbed by violence, abuse and other crimes, but they rarely get to voice those concerns. Linking all those affected by crime and letting them express concerns, needs and wishes is what the 7th International Conference of the European Forum for Restorative Justice is about.

The 3 themes of the conference are victims, offenders and the larger community:
Victims and restorative justice
Although restorative justice puts victims and offenders at the heart of the response to crime, concerns are voiced about the position of victims in restorative justice practices. The European Forum is the promoter in a research project on the needs, experiences and position of victims in restorative justice. Preliminary results of this research will be presented.

Offenders and restorative justice
When it comes to offenders and restorative justice, a first focus often lies with recidivism but broader issues are at stake such as offender rehabilitation and reintegration into the community.

The Community and restorative justice
As restorative justice develops, we see more ways of how it can progress to include more meaningful participation by the community, for example through different forms of conferencing and circles. Furthermore, more areas within the community can be distinguished where restorative justice practices can be used to great effect in schools and the workplace, for example.

Programme
The conference will take place on Thursday 14 June, Friday 15 June and Saturday 16 June 2012.

Registration already starts in the afternoon of Wednesday 13 June. That day the Forum's 2012 Annual General Meeting will also take place at the conference venue. After the General Meeting a reception will be offered for participants in the conference.

On Friday 15 June the conference dinner will take place in the very nice Restaurant Katsomo. This requires an extra fee of 50 euro.

In the afternoon of Saturday 16 June a boat trip will be organised to the Island Suomenlinna Fortress. At the island a guided tour will be organised and lunch will be offered. Places for this trip are limited so don't wait too long to register.

In the document below you can find the programme
Programme

Registration
If you want to register for the conference, please fill out the registration form and send it back to Karolien Mariën as instructed on the form.
The registration fee includes entrance, conference materials, 5 coffee breaks and 2 lunches

Registration form

Venue
The conference will take place at the University of Helsinki, located on the beautiful Senate Square, right in the city centre of Helsinki

Accommodation
Block reservations have been made in some hotels close to the conference venue. If you want to make a reservation in one of the hotels, you have to contact the hotel yourself, the Forum will not do this. More information on these hotels can be found in the document below. Of course you are also free to make a reservation in a hotel which is not on the list.

List of hotels with block reservations

We hope to see you in Helsinki!

If you have any further questions, please contact Karolien Mariën (karolien@euforumrj.org)

Bilbao (Spain), 17 - 19 June 2010

The 2010 Conference "Doing Restorative Justice in Europe - Established Practices and Innovative Programmes" covered 3 main themes:
- The work of the practitioners - Restorative justice in different countries
- Cooperation with legal practitioners - A way to increase the involvement of judges, prosecutors and police
- Conferencing - A way forward for restorative justice in Europe

The conference took place at the "Palacio de congresos y de la musica".

Pictures of the event can be found here.
The report of the conference consists of 3 parts: 1 for each day:
Day 1 - Thursday 17 June
Day 2 - Friday 18 June
Day 3 - Saturday 19 June

In case you have questions concerning this conference, please contact the Secretariat of the Forum.

Verona (Italy), 17-19 April 2008

'Building restorative justice in Europe. Cooperation between the public, policy makers, practitioners and researchers' was the title of the fifth conference of the European Forum, which was held in Verona in April 2008.

Restorative justice is about people acting together to resolve their conflicts and to find a way to set wrongdoing right by repairing the harm incurred. It builds on the cooperation between different professions and institutions supporting the efforts of the stakeholders. Moreover, for the restorative justice movement to gain momentum and to become ingrained in society, an understanding and accepting attitude of the wider public, including the media, is needed. This conference therefore invited participants to take a closer look at the practices and the structures of cooperation between the major actors in this field.

A substantial part of the conference was devoted to the AGIS project "Restorative justice: an agenda for Europe". Next to presenting and discussing the difficulties encountered in Southern Europe to consolidate the implementation of restorative justice and their possible answers, the need and possibilities for further regulation and action in this field on behalf of the European Union were discussed.

Pictures of the Verona conference can be found here.

The conference report can be consulted here.

Barcelona (Spain), 15-17 June 2006

Everyone wants 'justice', but people mean different things by it, as mediators and other restorative justice practitioners experience in their daily work.

The fourth conference of the European Forum, Restorative justice and beyond - an agenda for Europe, intended to broaden the perspective on restorative justice whilst retaining the core topic of 'justice'. In this conference the European Forum, for the first time, explored in detail what lies beyond the 'classical' application of restorative justice.

The conference covered five major themes:
1. restorative justice, peace-making and peace-building;
2. community mediation, working towards justice in a broad sense - beyond the intervention of criminal law agencies;
3. dealing with more severe crimes in a restorative way: exploring the place for restorative justice programmes that are not restricted to pre-trial diversion of petty offences;
4. the school mediation movement is increasingly widespread, attempting to handle conflicts beyond - or rather before - the law according to the same principles as restorative justice, and beyond the traditional offender orientation that marks the criminal justice system;
5. good practice for restorative justice, which is vital to establish a solid basis for the new approach to justice.

The full report of the conference is available here.

Budapest (Hungary), 14-16 October 2004

On 14-16 October 2004, the Forum organised its third biennial conference, "Restorative justice in Europe: Where are we heading?" in Budapest, Hungary. The conference mainly looked at the consequences of the increased implementation of restorative justice. Indeed, restorative justice is becoming fashionable with politicians and the criminal justice system in several European countries. Why has it suddenly attracted so much interest? Should we welcome it or treat it with caution? Are there specific societal factors that favour restorative justice? The conference reviewed the present situation in a European context, but also considered potentially positive and negative effects when restorative justice is being embraced by the establishment.
On the other hand, some initiatives in countrues especially in Eastern Europe are still struggling to find a place for restorative justice, to make it known and understood by professionals and the public and to influence the criminal justice system.
We should take care that the restorative justice ideals and values are not overruled by the established criminal justice system, but we should also consider strategies that will enable restorative justice to develop its transformative potential.
217 people from 35 different European and non-European countries participated in this conference, making it the best attended conference that the Forum has organised up till now. More than 50 Central and Eastern Europeans could benefit from a waiver of the registration fee. They were invited to the conference in the framework of the AGIS 2 project.

The full report of the conference is available here.

Oostende (Belgium), 10-12 October 2002

On 10-12 October 2002, the Forum organised its second biennial conference, "Restorative justice and its relation to the criminal justice system", in Oostende, at the Belgian coast. This conference brougt together some 180 people from all around Europe to discuss the modes of co-operation between the criminal justice system and restorative justice practices. The conference focused on the perception of restorative justice practices by different agencies of the criminal justice system and on the way these practices can have an impact on the different stages of the criminal justice process. The relationship between the criminal justice system and restorative justice practices was explored at the different stages of the criminal justice process and from the viewpoint of its respective protagonists: the police, the state prosecutors, the judges, the prison and other agencies involved in the implementation of (non-) custodial sentences.

The papers presented at this conference have been brought together in a PDF-document. Click here to open the publication.

Leuven (Belgium), 27-29 October 1999

The Forum's first conference, Victim-Offender Mediation in Europe. Making Restorative Justice Work, was organised in Leuven on 27 till 29 October 1999. The conference dealt with information and issues specifically on victim-offender mediation, but placed it in a larger theoretical and policy-oriented context of restorative justice. It brought together about 140 people from 24 different European countries.
For an overview of the programme of this conference, please click here.
Some of the papers presented at this conference were collected in a book.