Without the age-old punishment of suspending students from school for bad behaviour, where will we go from here? With the recent notice that schools will no longer be using out-of-school suspension for bad behaviour, there is call for an alternative. We seek an alternative that meets the needs of students, teachers, parents and the community. There are alternatives to suspending children; ones that have a lasting impact; ones that involve everyone.

Police, teachers, judges, parents and others in positions of authority in our society are expected to respond to crime and anti-social behaviour. But their current methods do not seem to be working. Our society's institutions seem powerless to stem the rising tide of negative behaviour and violence that threatens our schools and neighbourhoods. The existing procedures do not require the offenders to face the victims of their crime or misconduct. But how can they really accept responsibility until they truly understand what they have done to their fellow human beings, those they have harmed?

Family Group Conferencing, or Community Accountability Conferencing, offers an alternative to the court system, and traditional methods of discipline. Proponents believe conferences are very beneficial to victims, offenders and their communities of care because they allow for and expect community responsibility in problem-solving.

Conferencing recognises that where guilt is denied, the court process offers an important safeguard against false accusations and employs an adversarial process which safeguards the rights of the accused.The adversarial strategy encourages both prosecution and defence to gather together those people who can inflict maximum damage on the other side. In contrast, the strategy of victims and offenders in the family group conference is to gather those people who can be most supportive to their own group.

Under the present arrangement, the community seems to accept that the government knows best and regards justice as something that can best be determined by government officials. The philosophy of family group conferencing rejects this view. Family group conferences are convened under the assumption that the victims of a crime or other anti-social behaviour and the victim's family and friends (community of care), together with the offender and the offender's community of care, must be involved in the process of determining how best to repair the harm resulting from crime or misconduct.

While offenders in our current judicial and disciplinary systems are guaranteed certain legal rights, the conferencing concept presumes that they also have a right to be confronted with the consequences of their crimes, for their own sake and for the sake of their victims and their communities.Only by communicating directly with the victims can they help repair that harm, apologise and receive the victims' forgiveness, should it be forthcoming. Only in the midst of their own families and friends can offenders and victims be reintegrated into the community. And only by addressing all of these very important needs can our judicial and disciplinary system meet the needs of victims and reduce the likelihood that wrongdoers will re-offend.

Under our current system police, the judicial system, news reporters unthinkingly "steal the crime" from the people most affected and make it their own. While the victims, offenders and their families watch passively, the professionals take all the active roles.In family group conferencing the representatives of justice and educational system serve as neutral facilitators, returning the crime and misconduct to those most affected so that they themselves may resolve the issues. Individual and collective responsibility is at the heart of the conferencing process. Rather than hand over all of the responsibility to government, the family group conference provides offenders, victims, their families and friends with active roles through which they heal their own wounds and right their own wrongs.

Family Group conferences started in New Zealand in 1989 and have been in existence in North America since 1994. They are powerful learning experiences because they force students to face consequences for their behaviour. Conferences are appropriate for almost every incident; from assault, to vandalism, to teacher harassment. Results from family group conferences show that offenders who face those they have affected are less likely to re-offend. Parents of offenders feel conferences help children learn empathy.For the offender, the conference starts the process of restoring trust.There are alternatives to suspensions; ones that have a lasting impact.