Restorative circles forpolice-community dialogue:a facilitation script from the UBUNTU Projectin Dublin, Ireland.

Abstract

Few have usedrestorative practices to structure police-community engagement.Fewer, still, havepublishedtheir scriptafter doing so, enabling others to use or learn fromit. This paper presents and explainsa script that the authors devised and used to facilitate a two-day dialogue process between six Gardaí (Irish police officers)and six young Black adults in Blanchardstown, Dublin, Ireland. Drawing onliterature from the fields of restorative practices and dialogue, the paper recounts the four stages of the processdelivered. It started by 1) establishing relationships, common intentions and norms, before the participants shared and explored their experiences and perceptions of 2) Blanchardstown and belonging,3) policing, and 4) the future. The articleexplains the context in which the project and dialogue process took place, before providing an annotated script to outline thequestions asked and activities undertaken, and explaintheir rationale. Thedialogueprocess was co-designed bythe project lead (Marder), project researcher (Kurz) and young Black adults and police who receivedrestorative practices training, including onepersonfrom each who, with Marder, co-facilitated the dialogue (Ibeanu,O’Neill).