RESTORATIVE justice projects in Northern Ireland are to be denied funding by the government unless they operate under police supervision and share information with the PSNI.

New guidelines to be issued tomorrow by David Hanson, the Northern Ireland security minister, will seek to dispel suggestions that such projects can function as a front for paramilitaries.

Restorative justice projects mediate between the victims of crime and the perpetrators. An independent body, with police input, is to be set up to select and vet applicants to operate the schemes. Those involved in organised crime or paramilitary activity will be barred. Former prisoners may be allowed to take part.

The schemes will not be allowed to decide the guilt or innocence of suspected offenders and will not be allowed to investigate crimes.

There are two main restorative justice organisations in Northern Ireland. The Community Restorative Justice (CRJ) operates in nationalist areas of Belfast and Londonderry, and Northern Ireland Alternatives operates in loyalist areas. The organisations bring the perpetrators of crime face to face with their victims to agree an appropriate penalty.

Both organisations have been funded by Atlantic Philanthropies, a charitable trust founded by Chuck Feeney, the Irish-American tycoon who made millions on duty-free shops and is one of the world’s most generous charitable donors.

The Atlantic Philanthropies grant aid ends next April, and that will force the schemes to seek government funding. However, CRJ has already secured some European Union money.

Northern Ireland Alternatives has accepted police involvement and has PSNI representatives on its management committees. However, CRJ refuses to deal with the police. Last month Jim Auld, who heads the organisation, said: “We are talking generations before the PSNI is accepted as a police force.”

His organisation is one of four that has an application for funding with the British government.

The decision to attach strings to the money will be a blow to Sinn Fein, which had argued that restorative justice should provide a community alternative to the formal criminal justice system. Paramilitary groups often tell those convicted of offences by their kangaroo courts to go to CRJ as an alternative to being beaten or shot. Under the new guidelines such threats will have to be reported to the police.

CRJ has been linked in the popular mind to Sinn Fein and the IRA. It grew out of discussions between community activists and republicans in 1993-94 just before the IRA ceasefire, which aimed to provide the IRA with an alternative to punishment beatings of suspected offenders.

The SDLP and other parties say that if suspected offenders did not accept the penalties proposed by CRJ, then the IRA would step in again to punish them, so CRJ settlements are backed by IRA muscle. About 15% of its workers are former paramilitary prisoners.

The Belfast Rape Crisis and Sexual Abuse Centre said that “members of community justice schemes have threatened women and attempted to cover up crimes committed by those with IRA/Sinn Fein or CRJ connections”.

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