Guyana expands restorative justice with 6 new regional offices

Amid plans by the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government to establish Restorative Justice Offices in six more regions by the end of August 2025, training was also launched for the restorative justice officers manning this programme.

On Monday, the Legal Affairs Ministry hosted a Restorative Justice – Practitioners Training exercise at the Police Training Center. The event saw a number of restorative justice officers in attendance, with the training being facilitated by Canada.
That training comes at a crucial time, as it was revealed by Director of the Restorative Justice Center Orrin Boston that functional offices will be established in six more administrative regions by August 2025.
Those regions are Regions One, Two, Six, Seven, Nine and 10. Work is also ongoing to find an office in Region Eight. Once office space in Region Eight is found, it will mean all the administrative regions will have their own Restorative Justice offices.
“It is projected that functional offices in Regions One, Two, Six, Seven, Nine and 10, will be actualized by the end of August. Thus, the impetus for the very training that you are here to attend.”
“Notably, we’re still working on finding an ideal space for an office in Region Eight. When that would have been completed, we would have been able to say that we’ve identified and will actualize offices in all 10 of the administrative regions of Guyana,” Boston said.
Canadian High Commissioner to Guyana, Sebastian Sigouin, stressed the importance of restorative justice, a sometimes difficult but nevertheless necessary process. According to him, restorative justice is widely used around the world, including in Canada.
“I don’t need to tell you what restorative justice is. You probably already know about it or will know more about it during training… but it is a concept that has been used around the world. And in Canada, it is a concept to resolve disputes that we’ve been using for decades.”
“In a previous life I used to work at the Canadian Human Rights Commission. And this was a process that was really central to our efforts to address human rights violations and discrimination cases in Canada,” Sigouin added.
Acting Chief Magistrate Faith McGusty meanwhile shared an anecdote of one of the success stories of restorative justice, as originally told by one of her former judicial colleagues. She noted that using this method, a neighbourly relationship that had been torn apart by a feud, was restored.
“There was one famous case where there were two feuding neighbours. And he managed to sort out their issues by getting to the root of those problems. And I think the way they solved it is they each learnt and cooked each other’s favorite meals.”
“And the persons became good friends after that. They forgot about all of their issues that they had before, because they’d gotten over those issues. And they were now the best of friends. And telling everyone how good the other person was,” the Magistrate added.
McGusty meanwhile acknowledged the need for awareness campaigns in schools, communities, prisons and among policy makers. She stressed that restorative justice is not about being lenient, but rather using means of justice that builds, rather than breaks.
Restorative justice is the practice of administering justice for crimes without jail time, including mediating disputes between opposing parties. Community service is also another alternative to imprisonment that is identified by the Support for the Criminal Justice System (SCJS) programme.
Restorative justice also involves using consultation between a victim, perpetrator and community member, to ensure there is justice without imprisonment for non-violent crimes. It is an alternative approach that seeks to repair harm by providing opportunities for the victim and perpetrator to discuss and address their needs in the aftermath, in a way that promotes healing, accountability, and understanding.
There are cases where some persons can end up serving longer periods on remand than they would have served if found guilty of the offence. To address this and other anomalies, the Government had passed the Restorative Justice and Bail Acts in 2022, to ensure greater consistency in the granting of bail and to provide specific guidelines for Magistrates and Judges.
One other alternative to imprisonment is probation. It has been pointed out that being placed on probation does not mean that the offenders are getting off lightly, but instead they have the opportunity to make amends and rehabilitate while remaining in their communities.