NCJ Number
172619
Date Published
1996
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This paper examines whether victim-offender mediation that produces reparation for the victim and accountability for the offender can be expected to replace current policies based in an offender-oriented punitive response to crime.
Abstract
Recently, several countries have experienced movement toward adopting a new fundamental principle for criminal justice processing -- restorative justice -- which many people, including crime victims, find attractive (Zehr, 1990). This principle is based on two guiding premises: reparation, a response to crimes that focuses on making good the harm done; and mediation, an acknowledgment that the process as well as the outcome is important. Mediation can work well, as shown by numerous case histories and research that shows a high level of satisfaction among participants. When introduced in an adversarial and punitive system, however, mediation could lead to three problems: pressure on victims to participate, infringement of defendants' rights to due process, and inconsistencies among outcomes. Sentencing would be simpler and more consistent if it were based entirely on the restorative principle, with imprisonment only for reasons of public protection, not for punishment, and the use of noncustodial restraints such as disqualification unless detention is unavoidable. There would be a single quantum for the offense; if the victim demanded less for private reparation, more would be owed to the community in the court's order for public reparation. The victim would thus not be under pressure, because he/she could affect only the private/public distribution, not the total. There would still be questions about how much reparation a particular offense merited and about the equivalence of reparation through money and community service. The human rights implications are less serious when it is a question of how much good a person should be required to do, rather than how much pain he/she should be required to suffer. There is no existing pure restorative model of case processing being practiced; the closest is a hybrid that includes both reparation for the victim and punishment for the offender. In a move toward a system based on healing, it is better to think, not of conflicting theories, but of a continuum; for the time being, the best hope of progress is to work for a gradual shift from the repressive toward the restorative. 28 references