RESTORATIVE justice is the most likely fix to stem the recent tide of violent clashes amongst students since the resumption of full face-to-face classes, according to Justice Minister Delroy Chuck.

As such, he says the justice ministry last week already began interventions in Westmoreland where the most recent student feud left one student nursing stab wounds. That stabbing came on the heels of an earlier fatal wounding of 16-year-old student Kamal Hall by his peer at the William Knibb Memorial High School in Trelawny. Chuck said the parish of Clarendon stands to benefit next.

“One of the areas we are hoping to be able to train teachers and even students in, is how do we resolve conflicts and there are several programmes we would want to introduce into the schools. Apart from victims’ services where you have a victim and that victim could get a fair amount of counselling because oftentimes the victims seek to retaliate or find ways and means to hurt the offender, we also have situations in which a child between the ages of 12 and 17 may well need psychological counselling, mentoring or some form of assistance in straightening out their behaviour pattern; but the more important one is restorative justice,” Chuck said.

The minister, who was speaking during an interview recently with host Deon Mattis on the Jamaica Observer’s sister radio station The Edge, said the prescription was particularly apt as in 99 per cent of cases the feuding students are not strangers.

“In many of the school communities, the fights, the quarrels, the violence really occur between students who know one another and so to that extent it is a relationship that has been breached because of a wrongdoing and so the issue is how do we restore that relationship and that is where restorative justice is the most appropriate method that we can use to resolve many of the conflicts within the schools,” he pointed out.

“Restorative justice is how do we get parties together where one has committed a wrong and how do we encourage the offender to admit that he or she has done a wrong; and having done that, how do we get a victim to forgive the offender for the wrong that has been committed and in that respect, we have what is known as a settlement or a circle where the offender and the victim can sit with other students, the teachers and you really discuss what took place and hopefully the relationship can continue,” Chuck explained further.

Noting that the episodes of violence in schools are a real challenge and problem for the Ministry of Education, and for the society at large, the justice minister said the intention was to assist the education ministry as much as possible.

In the meantime, he said community and familial conflicts were undoubtedly at play in the students’ behaviours.

“The reasons behind it are obviously still being examined. Certainly, a lot of it has to do with maybe the pandemic and people coming out from virtual interface, but also I am concerned that a number of the areas where students are getting involved in many of these conflicts, these students are coming from areas where you have a fair amount of violence and it may well be that the students are literally learning from what they are seeing,” the justice minister noted.

Expressing concerns over the weapons of choice, several of which have been seized in searches by the police and school administrators, Chuck said: “Whether it is protractors or pens or knives, the truth of the matter is we need to be able to get our students to resolve their conflicts in an amicable and harmonious way. Once students have a dispute and a conflict then anything can happen. Whether they use an implement or they punch someone, the truth of the matter is that these students need to be able to find appropriate matters to resolve these disputes and conflicts”.

Meanwhile, Chuck said the ministry is continuing its push to have restorative justice introduced in churches and communities across the island to further “reduce the volatility that exists”.

“If families are fighting, communities are fighting then the likelihood is that the children see one another as being from enemy territory and in those circumstances the slightest infraction can cause a violent response. The point is, we need to get families, neighbourhoods, communities to resolve their differences because unless you do that, you never know what the children or adults themselves might engage in, in trying to resolve these differences,” the justice minister added.