Tempio Pausania: social conflict resolution in a community setting

Abstract

In Tempio Pausania, a community of about 14,000 inhabitants in the north of the island of Sardinia, it all started with a conflict within the community when a new prison was built for inmates with life sentences for mafia crimes. The citizens of Tempio immediately feared the prisoners and of possible mafia infiltration in their local community, whereas the prisoners were worried about the great dis‐ tance from their families. So, in agreement with the direction of the prison and the municipality, we started our pilot project: Study and analysis of restorative practices for creating a model of restorative community. The aim of the action research is to experience restorative practices which can involve the whole com‐ munity: schools, families, police, courts, municipalities, associations, based on the model of the English restorative cities of Hull and Leeds. Seminars and workshops involving the community and professionals such as journalists and lawyers were organised as they were thought to be good practices to raise awareness and to disseminate the principles of restorative justice and its practices. Since restorative justice has the immediate potential to combine the needs of rehabilitation and social security through community involvement and conflict management, we tried to build in Tempio Pausania an opportunity to establish a cultural change: trying to involve the community to create a restora‐ tive city; involving the schools, social services, NGO, police, church and commer‐ cial activities in adopting a model of restorative justice to give back to community the ability to manage and resolve conflicts and to live the everyday life in a more peaceful way (Wright, 2002, 2010). We tried to develop a sense of community, an important part of our restorative practices that involves a sense of emotional connection and security through significant ties with people and place (McMillan & Chavis, 1986).