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A good old fashioned talking to

Published by Beth Peakall on Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 9:12 am

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I read with great interest that, according to a Housemark study, that verbal warnings work better than court action in tackling anti-social behaviour. Apparently 85% of cases were successfully dealt with by talking to the person/people involved. Are we REALLY surprised by that? These statistics are borne out in case studies of Victim-Offender Mediation studies as well.

I have done many non-violent conflict resolution workshops in prisons. One of the keys I have found is many people lack the vocabulary to express themselves, so they express themselves through deeds. The other key - and this is what makes Victim-Offender mediation successful - is ensuring people understand the consequences of their actions. When the two are combined, the net effect is very frequently no repeat of offences.

This type of work does require training. I hope that the response of housing associations and local authorities will be to find this training for their staff, rather than just hoping that “a good old-fashioned talking to” on its own will achieve these results.