Reducing the Conflict: An Analysis of Victim-Offender Mediation as an Interactive Process (From Criminal Justice, Restitution, and Reconciliation, P 59-71, 1990, Burt Galaway and Joe Hudson, eds. -- See NCJ-126460)

• NCJ Number: 126466
• Author(s): H Messmer
• Date Published: 1990
• Length: 13 pages
• Sale Source: Criminal Justice Press/Willow Tree Press
• Publication Type: Program Description (Demonstrative)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This case study analyzes interactive processes in the mediation procedures between juveniles and their victims used in Bielefeld, West Germany.

Abstract

In the Bielefeld project, a direct confrontation between delinquents and victims is used for physical injury offenses. The social worker as a mediator establishes a framework of interaction within which an agreement between offender and victim can be reached. The social worker must check victim and offender readiness for an agreement, since this cannot be concluded from the files. The case examined involved three juveniles, aged 14 and 15, who brutally assaulted a fellow student because he refused to leave the school yard to get some rolls from a bakery. This analysis considers the preparatory talk between the delinquents and the social worker; the constructions of a competing version of the conflict, a competing norm concept, doubts about offense consequences, and negative characterizations of the opposing party; neutralization techniques; and third-party tasks and prerequisites. Overall, the case study shows how the delinquents were gradually brought by the social worker to accept and verbalize their accountability in causing injury to the victim and become open to the development of a reparation agreement with the victim. 15 references