Restorative Justice and Faith-based Hate Crime

With rising hate crime in the UK, including religious hate crime, there is an urgent need to find new approaches to strengthening community interfaith relations. Current responses to faith and race hate emphasise prosecution and improving ‘hard’ security measures, such as the Strengthening Faith Institutions initiative.

Whilst there is a need to protect victims, there is also an urgency to support them and their communities to cope and recover in the aftermath of crime. People have questions they want answered and a need to have their voices heard. Exploring how we can develop restorative strategies to repair the harm caused by faith and race hate crime is a solution that not only has the potential to strengthen social cohesion, but to also develop strategies to reduce the crimes.

This workshop convenes faith leaders, change leaders and restorative justice practitioners together in a restorative circle. Together they will examine how such a practice could look in their communities, as well as the potential for collaboration.