Ideas of restorative justice in penitentiary institutions.

Throughout 2007–2008, the 'Space Without Conflict' Charitable Foundation, within the framework of the 'Development of Civil Society in Ukraine' project—implemented by the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine with the financial support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark—carried out the project 'Dissemination of restorative justice ideas within the system of law enforcement agencies and penitentiary institutions'.

Within the framework of the project, work was carried out to establish distance university education for the inmates of the Sambir Educational Colony. Educational outreach was conducted among staff of the Juvenile Prevention Service and departments for children's affairs in Lviv and the surrounding region, as well as among minors held in the Sambir Educational Colony, regarding the possibility of peaceful conflict resolution and the principles of applying restorative justice during the sentence-serving stage. Upon completion of the project, a brochure titled 'Restorative Justice in the Prevention of Repeat Offending' was prepared and printed.
For the staff of the Juvenile Prevention Service and departments for children's affairs in Lviv and the surrounding region, five one-day seminars were held on the topic 'Restorative Justice as a Method of Humanising the Criminal Justice System'. For the staff of the Sambir Educational Colony for Minors, a one-day seminar on the specifics of pedagogical work with adolescents exhibiting deviant behaviour was organised and conducted, as well as a seminar titled 'Restorative Justice Processes at the Sentence-Serving Stage as a Preventive Method of Resocialisation for Minors'.

For the minors held in the Sambir Educational Colony, two two-day training sessions were conducted, and a 'Mediator School' was established based on the 'peer-to-peer' principle, with the aim of teaching teenagers how to resolve conflicts within their peer group through non-violent methods (selection for the School was open to those who had completed both previous training sessions).

Educational outreach among law enforcement and penitentiary staff regarding the effectiveness of implementing and actively applying the Rule of Law in work with suspects, the accused, and the convicted has expanded the possibilities for using a restorative approach as an alternative to punitive methods. This allows for the humanisation of the system as a whole and provides teenagers who have made mistakes with a chance to rectify them, restore their self-respect, and become full members of the community, rather than turning into stigmatised recidivists with no alternative path for their lives.