Debate contribution: Restorative Justice Practitioners
Debate contribution by Mrs Naomi Long on .
- MLA
- Mrs Naomi Long
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 10 November 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Restorative Justice Practitioners
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5224638
Read the official Assembly record
Text
The new restorative hub will be integral to the delivery of adult restorative justice services. The benefits of the hub are that practitioners can co-facilitate their referrals to gather experience, participate in group training and professional supervision, and contribute to a monthly community of practice. It is about allowing all those who work in the sector to share their experience and skills and, hopefully, to find some economies of scale when it comes to training and development. All that is critical to ensure consistent and high-quality delivery of restorative justice. The hub is going to be managed by the independent referrals body — it will sit within the Probation Board's victim unit, because the hub has to be victim-centred — as a well-established and neutral statutory organisation with expertise that can deliver those services. The Probation Board works in perpetrator-victim conferencing, and it is really important that it brings that to bear and work with others in the community who may be able to become more engaged in the formal justice process as a result.
175 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.03 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.83).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.02 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.02 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.83 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.03 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.79 |
| Legacy of the Troubles, victims and paramilitarism | 0.18 |
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 0.02 |
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.01 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:42 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
Disagree with this assessment?
Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.