Photo courtesy The Stock Solution.
Ms Cherie Booth, the British Prime Minister’s wife, has called for a huge expansion of face-to-face justice, in which offenders meet their victims and apologise for their crimes. She warns that sending people to jail does not alter their long-term attitudes and behaviour.
Says The Times: “The jail system is facing an overcrowding crisis and courts in England and Wales are being put on standby to hold prisoners in cells overnight.
“A set of emergency measures has been drawn up by the Home Office as the number of prisoners being sent to jail continues to rise. On Monday night 270 prisoners were held in police cells because there were not spaces in jails in those parts of the country.
“The intervention of Ms Booth in the law-and-order debate is based on the ten years that she has spent sitting in courts as a recorder when she has had to sentence offenders.
“She will say in the Radio 4 programme Lent Talk tonight that ‘restorative justice’, in which offenders meet their victims, should be used routinely for assault, robbery and stealing and where appropriate for domestic violence and sexual assault.”
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Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.