Mike Batley is the executive director of the Restorative Justice Centre (RJC) and one of its co-founders. He has worked as a probation officer and chaired the Inter-Ministerial Committee Pilot Project on Family Group Conferencing. Mike has extensive experience in restorative justice as well as managing the implementation of policy, including the poverty relief programme and the financing of NGOs. He has a social work degree from UNISA.
Amanda Dissel is programme manager of the Criminal Justice Programme (CJP) at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. She works in the fields of policing, corrections and human rights. She is responsible for the research component of the Restorative Justice Initiative’s Victim Offender Conferencing project.
Janet Dodd worked at the Restorative Justice Centre from March 2001 until December 2002 as the project manager for training and victim-offender conferencing. She gained experience in community and psychiatric social work while at Pretoria Mental Health, and has experience in training, counselling and group work from her involvement with the Students’ Christian Organisation based at the University of Witwatersrand. Janet qualified with a social work degree from Rhodes University.
Ted Leggett works in the research section of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna. At the time of writing, Ted was a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies’ Crime and Justice Programme. His professional background includes police work, prosecution, and social work. He holds the degrees of Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law and a Masters of Social Science in Development Studies from the University of Natal, Durban.
Traggy Maepa is currently employed as a senior analyst in the criminal justice and security sector in South Africa. At the time of writing, Traggy was a researcher and process facilitator in the Crime and Justice Programme at the Institute for Security Studies, where he was involved in various crime prevention research, facilitation and evaluation processes.
Buyi Mbambo is the project officer on child protection at UNICEF in Pretoria. She has extensive experience in child protection, community and youth development, family preservation, and human as well as children’s rights. She assisted the SA Law Reform Commission in the development of the Children’s Bill and has been involved in numerous policy reform initiatives relating to children and famili es. Before joining UNICEF, Buyi worked for the United Nations Child Justice Project to promote the Child Justice Bill and the use of diverse models of diversion and alternative sentencing. She is a qualified social worker with a MA (Social Science) from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Lukas Muntingh is the deputy executive director of NICRO, and co-manager of the Civil Society Prison Reform Initiative (CSPRI), a joint initiative of NICRO and the Community Law Centre at the University of the Western Cape. Lukas has been involved in criminal justice reform for the past ten years, has undertaken child justice work in Southern Africa, and has published on child justice and offender reintegration. He holds a Masters degree in Sociology from the University of Stellenbosch.
Beaty Naudé was head of the department of criminology at the University of South Africa at her retirement in 1999 and is currently emeritus professor and research fellow in criminology at UNISA. She serves on the editorial and advisory boards of various international and national journals and is the author and co-author of 128 research publications. She has received a number of awards for her contributions and community work relating to the criminological sciences.
Professor Johan Prinsloo is the director of the Institute for Criminological Sciences at the University of South Africa. He holds a doctorate degree in criminology from the University of South Africa.
Ann Skelton is a human rights lawyer who has specialised in the rights of children in the criminal justice system. Ann has been at the forefront of efforts to reform the juvenile justice system in South Africa, and in this role has consistently promoted restorative justice solutions. She has worked for Lawyers for Human Rights and for the United Nations at both national and international level. She is currently based at the Centre for Child Law at the University of Pretoria.