The crime and justice

Regardless of their particular point-of-view, most people agree that crime and violence are exploding out-of-control in the streets of our towns and cities. Most also agree that what we are doing about it is not working. We are fearful and we have good reason. We know our criminal justice system is broken and we don't know how to fix it.

Victim-offender mediation, with its focus on restorative justice, cannot provide all of the answers to our crime problem, but it is an essential part of the solution. Some background about the author and a description of victim-offender mediation will be helpful before proceeding with a discussion about crime, punishment and restorative justice.Victim-Offender Mediation Programs (VOMP), also known as Victim-Offender Reconciliation Programs (VORP) bring offenders face-to-face with the victims of their crimes, with the assistance of a trained mediator, usually a community volunteer. Crime is personalized as offenders learn the human consequences of their actions, and victims (who are largely ignored by the justice system) have the opportunity to speak their minds and their feelings to the one who most ought to hear them, contributing to the healing process of the victim.Offenders take meaningful responsibility for their actions by mediating a restitution agreement with the victim, to restore the victims' losses, in whatever ways that may be possible. Restitution may be monetary or symbolic; it may consist of work for the victim, community service or anything else that creates a sense of justice between the victim and the offender.

Victim-Offender Mediation Programs have been mediating meaningful justice between crime victims and offenders for over twenty years; there are now over 300 such programs in the U.S. and Canada and about 500 in England, Germany, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Remarkably consistent statistics from a cross-section of the North American programs show that about two-thirds of the cases referred resulted in a face-to-face mediation meeting; over 95% of the cases mediated resulted in a written restitution agreement; over 90% of those restitution agreements are completed within one year. On the other hand, the actual rate of payment of court-ordered restitution (nationally) is typically only from 20-30%. Why is there such a huge difference in restitution compliance? Offenders do not experience court-ordered restitution as a moral obligation. It seems like just one more fine being levied against them. When the restitution obligation is reached voluntarily and face-to-face, it is experienced by offenders in a very different way.

Perhaps most important, after facing the victims of their crimes, offenders commit fewer and less serious offenses than similar offenders who are processed by the traditional juvenile or criminal justice system.When a case is referred to a VOMP, a mediator contacts both the victim and the offender to arrange appointments for separate meetings with each. At the individual meetings, the mediator explains the program, answers questions and screens the case for its appropriateness for mediation. If the case is a suitable one and the offender and the victim agree to participate, they are prepared for a mediation session. The preparation may include homework assignments and sometimes there are additional preliminary meetings.

Mediation sessions, at their best, focus upon dialogue rather than upon reaching a restitution agreement, facilitating empathy and understanding between victim and offender. Before beginning the session, the mediator provides ground rules to assure safety and respect. The victim usually speaks first, telling the offender how the crime affected him/her and may ask questions of the offender. The offender may offer an explanation and/or an apology. The victim's losses are discussed.

Whatever agreements the victim and offender make will reflect justice that is meaningful to them, rather than being limited to the narrow definitions of the law. In cross-state and cross-national studies, the overwhelming majority of participants, both victims and offenders, have reported in post mediation interviews and questionnaires that they obtained a just and satisfying result. Victims who have feared revictimization by the offender whom they have met in mediation typically report this fear is now gone.Such violent offenses are usually mediated upon the initiation of the victim, and only after many months (sometimes even years) of work with a specially trained and qualified mediator, collaborating with the victim's therapist and/or other helping professionals. Participation must be completely voluntary, for both victim and offender. Mediators carefully screen cases and every aspect of the mediation process has the safety of the victim as its foremost concern. Only offenders who admit their guilt, express remorse and want to make amends are candidates for mediation.In cases of severely violent crime, victim-offender mediation is not a substitute for punishment. In such cases, judges seldom reduce prison sentences as a result of mediation.If punishment is not really about incapacitation, deterrence or rehabilitation, then what is it about? Punishment is primarily for revenge (or retribution .) Victims of heinous crimes commonly demand revenge. It seems like a natural response. Some may argue that the desire for revenge in response to victimization is "hardwired" into the human animal. History suggests this may be true.If our system of retributive justice is not working and not meeting our needs, then what is more effective? Victim-offender mediation is but one of many approaches to restorative justice. Restorative justice sees crime as a violation of human relationships rather than the breaking of laws. Crimes are committed against victims and communities, rather than against a government.Over the years, there has sometimes been an uneasy relationship between victims' rights advocates and the growing restorative justice/victim-offender mediation movement. Victim advocates objected loudly (and rightly so!) when early victim-offender programs were overly persuasive or even coercive, in their well-meaning but misguided efforts to enlist the participation of victims. Victims' assistance programs are now co-training with victim-offender mediation programs, teaching mediators how to work more sensitively and respectfully with victims.

Social research is suggesting that for many crimes, sentences of from one to two years are the most likely to be effective, while longer sentences may be counter-productive to rehabilitating offenders. Such relatively moderate sentences serve the dual purposes of denouncing the crime and punishing the offender, while reducing the likelihood that the offender's bonds with family and community support systems will be permanently destroyed and replaced with allegiances to other criminals. The fracturing of family and community bonds and the long-term imprinting of prison culture and values are the two factors which are the most predictive of an offender's prompt return to crime after being released from prison.

Let us work together to implement restorative approaches to justice that focus the attention of offenders upon the victims of their crimes and upon their communities, instead of upon the law and the legal system. A restorative justice approach concerned with righting the wrongs to victims and making amends, repairing the harm done (in whatever ways possible, including victim compensation) and restoring the lives affected by crime, offers us a much more hopeful vision for the future.