In October last year, The Bridge carried a feature on Restorative Justice
Breaking the cycle of re-offending

Justice Stuart Dew, Churches' Criminal Justice Forum, outlines what the church is doing in this field

At a meeting of Mothers' Union prison volunteers, I watched a powerful role-play in which a volunteer offered to pray for a distraught woman prisoner. "Your God doesn't listen to bad girls like me" wailed the prisoner. The volunteer assured her that He does.

That assurance, in a sense, encapsulates the work of the Churches' Criminal Justice Forum: impressing upon the Church, the fact that Christ came not for nice respectable folks, but for those who polite society often shuns.

CCJF is a national ecumenical group which has as its Chair, the Rev. Dr. Peter Sedgwick policy officer on criminal justice for the Church of England. It seeks to raise awareness of criminal justice concerns among local congregations and encourages more churchgoing people to get involved in practical ways.

Christians visit prisoners who may have no family ties, help look after children in prison visits halls, provide opportunities for parents in prison to record stories and send them home for children, mentor teenagers on the fringes of crime, counsel victims, run housing schemes for ex-offenders, and assist with many other practical projects.

CCJF looks to suggest new ways in which more church people might make a difference, and shares news of local initiatives that might be replicated elsewhere. It has helped produce a "What Can I Do?" pack listing these and other possibilities.

Through two seconded Salvation Army officers, CCJF is helping to start local community chaplaincy projects, where church volunteers are recruited to work to a chaplaincy organiser, in advising and befriending people coming out of prison, and in helping their integration into the community. It also promotes the concept of Restorative Justice, as being in keeping with Christian teaching on respect, justice, healing, restoration and forgiveness.

Of course, there are things that many churches are doing, perhaps without realising their significance. A parent and toddler group or a structured youth activity which encourages a sense of community, and offers support and role modelling, may ultimately be more effective as a form of crime prevention than fitting a burglar alarm or forming a neighbourhood watch.

Inadequate education, unemployment, poor family support, homelessness, mental ill-health and lack of life skills, are all factors significant in offending. Go to any of our prisons and they will be full - most of them over-full because of ever-rising prison numbers - with people who have suffered this kind of disadvantage. CCJF meets with politicians to encourage them to adopt policies which address such aspects of social exclusion.

There are troubling statistics. For instance, compared with the general population, prisoners are thirteen times as likely to have been in care as a child. Eighty per cent have writing skills worse, or no better, than those expected of a child aged eleven, and seventy per cent will be suffering from some kind of mental disorder.

Criminal justice policy, CCJF reminds us, is not just about broken laws; it is also about broken lives.

The Churches' Criminal Justice Forum can be contacted at 39 Eccleston Square, London SW1V 1BX or www.ccjf.org.uk.