Zoomtard

As the three avid readers of Zoomtard know, I have quite a problem with Northern Ireland. And seeing as those three avid readers are my wife, my colleague and my disapproving ex-housemate, they would have known about the chips on my shoulders even if I didn’t unburden them here.

I mostly only engage with Protestant Norn Iron, which still sadly mostly means Unionist Norn Iron. So I admittedly only get one side of the story and weirdly, if I could see the grizzly underbelly of Nationalism I’d probably have much more sympathy for our friends in the North.

But as I come to terms with the blighted head of our island, I was delighted to see that their innovative Youth Conferences are starting to work. The idea is that when a teenager commits an offence instead of sending them to juvie, they have to present in a semi-public forum an account of their crime. Their victims are there. Dialogue, guided by trained professionals ensues, where the teenager can apologise and the victim can choose to lay out a plan for “restorative justice” instead of simple punishment.

It works. There is half as much chance of re-offence if a kid goes through a Youth Conference as against the traditional options. How cool is that?

It is so much cooler that this is being tried and found successful in Northern Ireland; the one place in the EU that more than any other longs for restorative justice but can’t find it because of the culture’s lack of grace. (End controversial but ironic opinions.)

Your Correspondent, Hears Belfast is good for cheap food, cheap booze and cheap women