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Victim-Offender Dialogue Restorative Justice Program

Abstract

Restorative justice (RJ) was coined during the 1970s as an optional approach to the conventional or traditional criminal sentencing, which was, and still is considered an adversarial justice system. Victim-offender dialogue (VOD) happens to be among the widely used RJ programs. VOD provides many benefits to offenders and victims of crime including a mechanism for effectively addressing or meeting the needs of victims and offenders, secure and safe setting for resolving crime-related conflicts, active involvement of victims and offenders and effective restoration process. This program has also been established to be beneficial to the community in terms of reducing recidivism. However, this program is associated with certain issues that negatively impact its effectiveness. These issues include inability to ensure participation of all offenders as it is voluntary and demanding in terms of time needed for preparation on the part of facilitators. Nevertheless, there exist opportunities for making VOD more effective including adoption of modern technologies such as video conferences, investment in facilitator training facilities, introduction of mediator courses focusing on crime-related conflicts in colleges and universities, and intensive VOD awareness campaigns.

Victim-Offender Dialogue Restorative Justice Program

Background

Restorative justice (RJ) was coined during the 1970s as an optional approach to the conventional or traditional criminal sentencing (Lloyd & Borrill, 2020). Gang et al. (2021) consider RJ a justice approach whereby one of the measures or acts following a crime involves planning a meeting between the victim and the offender, sometimes with representatives from the community. RJ emerged as an option to the traditional justice model, which was considered adversarial (Lloyd & Borrill, 2020; Moran, 2017). The conventional approach to justice is associated with the disputing parties being positioned against each other and must offer evidence for their account of events (Lloyd & Borrill, 2020; Pavelka, 2017). These accounts or reports are then assessed by a neutral body, which passes judgment in favour of one of the parties in dispute. However, this system of administering justice was and has been criticized for being adversarial when it comes to serving justice, as it overlooks or neglects the victims’ rights and fails to tackle the harms or injuries caused to them (Lloyd & Borrill, 2020; Pavelka, 2017). In some situations, the traditional justice system has been established to re-traumatize crime victims, which in turn posses a hindrance to the improvement of victims’ outcomes (Lloyd & Borrill, 2020). As such, RJ was considered a suitable option for the conventional approach to justice. According to Bouffard et al. (2017), RJ focuses on rehabilitating and healing, and incorporates robust human rights evaluations that highlight or emphasize the factors of race and class in over-incarcerating individuals. This approach assumes that persons most impacted by crimes, who in this case are the victims and offenders, ought to have an opportunity to become engaged in resolving conflicts (Hansen & Umbreit, 2018). Moreover, RJ programs are considered beneficial to society as they largely reduce repeated offences for certain wrongdoers, double or increase the criminal actions brought to justice, provide victims and offenders with additional gratification that justice is attained, limit their post-traumatic anxiety along with their expenses, and reduce the desire of victims for violent vengeance against their offenders (Gang et al. 2021).

According to Lloyd and Borrill (2020), RJ considers criminality actions as disobedience to interpersonal associations between the victim and the offender. This violation or disobedience creates a duty on the part of the offender to focus on repairing the broken relationship or community and restoring it to its original status (Lloyd & Borrill, 2020). This goal is pursued involving victims, offenders, and the wider community in restorative meeting discussions and decision-making for appropriate actions to be adopted after a criminal action (Lloyd & Borrill, 2020). The objective of these discussions or meetings is to permit victims and offenders to share their individual encounters or experiences associated with the criminal events, discuss the persons who were negatively affected by the crime and level of harm or injury caused, and attain an agreement concerning what offenders can or should do to repair or mend the harm caused to the victim (Hashim et al., 2018). Offenders subsequently engage in various rehabilitative activities targeted at reintegrating them into the community. By engaging in restorative activities individuals manage to redefine themselves as law-abiders and consequently stop engaging in criminal activities (Lloyd & Borrill, 2020). Among the activities in which offenders engage to mend the harms caused to victims are payment of money to victims and apologizing among other actions focused on repaying the victims and averting offenders from causing injury or harm in the future. According to Stewart et al. (2018), RJ programs are effective in addressing all types of offences. There exist several RJ programs including victim-offender mediation or dialogue, ex-prisoner involvement and assistance, victim involvement and assistance, community service, real restitution, and reduction of Disparate Minority Incarceration (DMI) (Stewart et al., 2018). This paper describes the victim-offender dialogue (VOD), as the preferred or selected restorative justice program (RJP).

The Victim-Offender Dialogue (VOD)

VOD, which is also known as victim-offender conferencing, victim-offender mediation (VOM), RJ dialogue, or victim-offender reconciliation, happens to be among the widely employed RJPs. The history of VOD can be traced to 1970s when RJ emerged as an alternative justice system approach (Stewart et al., 2018). VOD is considered a process in which crime victims or surviving family members of crime victims, and offenders who perpetrated the offenses meet face-to-face within a secure and sae setting. For some victims or survivors of adverse violation and violence, the facilitated process of VOD can serve as a source of further justice and further healing (Jonas-van Dijk et al., 2020). According to Moran (2017) and Jonas-van Dijk et al. (2020), the VOD meeting is often held between crime victims and offender with the presence of at least one qualified or trained facilitator. In advance to in-person or direct meeting between offenders and victims, the mediators prepare every party though individuals conversations (Jonas-van Dijk et al., 2020).

In many situations, VOD culminates in a written or drafted agreement. Nonetheless, such an agreement is considered subservient to the conversation or discussion between offenders and victims (Jonas-van Dijk et al., 2020). Apart from the direct face-to-face discussion, other indirect types of communications can be employed in VOD (Bouffard et al., 2017). For instance, the exchanges of letters enable victims and offenders to write their queries and answers on papers, which are delivered to the corresponding parties by mediators (Bouffard et al., 2017; Jonas-van Dijk et al., 2020). Besides, shuttle mediation is considered a form of indirect communication and it is associated with mediators orally communicating the messages from parties to parties. Options provided by parties involved in the conflict enable offenders and victims to communicate without necessarily meeting one another (Bouffard et al., 2017). VOD is associated with numerous strengths. This justice approach enhances individuals’ satisfaction with the justice system by creating a favourable environment for resolving a crime dispute, as opposed to the adversarial climate created by the conventional approach to justice. The trained mediator helps the victim and offender to commence the conflict resolution process and establish their individuals approach to attaining justice within the context of a particular crime. Besides, meetings held between victims and offenders provide them with an opportunity to share their feelings and perceptions regarding the offense or crime, thereby enabling them to dispel misconceptions that they might have developed concerning each other prior to the process of mediation (Hashim et al., 2018). VOD meetings always end with an effort to agree on procedures to be embraced by offenders with the aim of amending the injured suffered by victims. In relation to this, Bouffard et al. (2017) assert that VOD provides a curative mechanism for resolving conflicts that actively engages victims and offenders to a level that permits the repair of the emotional and material damage caused.

VOD provides a suitable mechanism for effectively addressing the needs of offenders and victims. The active involvement of offenders and victims provides them with an opportunity to collectively or mutually rectify the harm on victims in a manner that facilitates dialogue between victims and offenders. In this manner, the parties involved in the conflict can effectively identify their remedies or activities that adequately meet their needs within the context of the crime involved. Moreover, the presence of mediators in this discussion facilitates the exchanges between victims and offenders whereby all parties play a proactive role in attaining an outcome that is perceived as fair by all individuals involved in the dispute (Pavelka, 2017). Moran (2017) and Gang et al. (2021) assert that the form of interaction between victims and offenders, particularly the face-to-face discussion permits offenders to learn more about the harms they have caused to their victims, which in turn makes it difficult for offenders to justify their actions. In addition, Pavelka (2017) asserts that VOD offers individuals an opportunity to talk about moral developments with offenders, who potentially did not witness much in their lives. This process also provides offenders with an opportunity to view their penalties as valid. As such, it can be noted that RJ serves as a facet of human associations within the society and strives to amend relationships through inclusion, dialogue, engagement, and community support.

Apart from providing an avenue for effectively addressing the needs of offenders and victims, VOD plays a vital role in the restoration process. According to Hashim et al. (2018), VOD happens to be among the clearest RJ expressions. The current criminal justice is largely propelled by offenders, with retributive “jail them”, “nail them” and “trail them” viewpoints that view criminal actions as violations against the state and offer limited assistance to crime victims (Hashim et al., 2018). On the other hand, VOD provides a different model for understanding and responding to crime and victimization. By transcending the offender-propelled focus, the VOD establishes three categories of clients including offenders, victimized communities, and individual victims. Gang et al. (2021) assert that VOD inspires offenders to actively focus on the restoration of victims and communities to the reasonable or possible extent, as it is founded on the perspective that restoring emotional and material losses caused by criminal actions is far more significant than imposing ever-growing levels of costly penalties on offenders.      

Nevertheless, despite having these benefits, VOD is associated with certain weaknesses. For instance, in the absence of a qualified facilitator, the process cannot be satisfying to victims and offenders.  Cases involving sexual exploitation, sexual assault, and domestic assault as well as cases associated with severely psychopathic or sadistic criminal acts require specially trained facilitators (Hansen & Umbreit, 2018). As such, it can be noted that this process requires a lengthy and thorough preparation with trained facilitators, which is demanding in terms of time and personnel. It is vital to note that the through and lengthy preparation. VOD’s weakness also lies in the fact that it is only applicable or effective in situations where offenders volunteer or admit their crimes and that it can be rejected by victims. Hansen and Umbreit (2018) that the involvement of offenders in VOD is always voluntary and that there is no specific result imposed on victims and offenders by mediators or facilitators as is the case of arbitration. As such, this approach in not effective in circumstances where victims and offenders do not volunteer to the process, which in turn limits its applicability to all offenders.  Besides, since there is no mechanism to controlling the actions of offenders and victims during the discussions, victims may choose to shame offenders, and offenders may act defiantly towards the hurt victims, thereby resulting in unintended psychological harms to victims and offenders including lowered self-esteem.

Efficacy

The existing body of literature, particularly the evaluative research studies, provides adequate evidence on the effectiveness and success of VOD as an approach to justice (Bouffard et al., 2017; Jonas-van Dijk et al., 2020; Stewart et al., 2018). In the study executed by Bouffard et al. (2017), the findings revealed that VOD results in high rates of client satisfaction, restitution completion and victim participation, which in turn minimize fear among victims and criminal behaviours by offenders.

Jonas-van Dijk et al. (2020) compared the rates of reoffending of three different categories of offenders with the aim of establishing the aspect of selection bias in VOD. This study was informed by the fact that involvement in VOD is voluntary, and that previous studies in this areas might have likely suffered from bias associated with self-selection. The three categories of offenders included in this study were offenders who engaged in VOM, wrongdoers who were willing to engage, but whose counterpart refused to participant in VOM, and wrongdoers who were unwilling to engage in VOM. The outcomes of the study showed that the involvement in VOD predicts lower rates of reoffending and that this effect is not primarily attributed to self-selection bias. The appropriateness of this study in evaluating the effectiveness of VOD lies in the fact that it was a follow-up of the research executed by Claessen et al. (2015) on the relationship between recidivism or reoffending and mediation. The research executed by Claessen et al. (2015) revealed that offenders who engaged in VOD, particularly in indirect form by exchanging letters or participating in shuttle mediation, direct form by engaging in face-to-face meeting, and in semi-forms of VOM registered lower risk of reoffending relative to offenders who did not engage in VOM. As such, it can be noted that these outcomes confirm the effectiveness of VOD in reducing VOM regardless of the nature of participation. Nonetheless, this study differed from the previous study executed by Claessen et al. (2015) on the same area where the researchers did not provide a distinction between wrongdoers who declined to engage in VOD and wrongdoers who were ready, but unable to engage in VOD because their counterpart declined. As such, these findings must have been impacted by self-selection. In relation to this, the study, executed by Jonas-van Dijk et al. (2020) focused testing and eliminating this bias by identifying the differences between four categories and performing in-depth, secondary evaluations on their datasets. The categories of focus were offenders whose cases were addressed through semi-mediation, and mediation, criminal prosecutors, as well as wrongdoers who were unwilling to involve in VOM. The results showed that wrongdoers who were unwilling to engage in VOD registered substantially higher risk of recidivism relative to mediation categories. Wrongdoers whose cases were addressed through court prosecutors registered a higher risk of reoffending relative to the semi-mediation group. Offenders who engage in semi-mediation registered the lowest risk or likelihood of reoffending relative other four groups. The findings seemed to show that the relation between VOD and decreased reoffending might be attributed to pre-existing dissimilarities between wrongdoers who are ready to engage in VOM and wrongdoers who are unwilling to participant in mediation, and partly due to experienced during the process of mediation itself. As such, the researchers concluded that the beneficial effect of VOD appears to have on recidivism might be a unified impact of offenders’ readiness to embrace restorative steps and participant in VOD, and VOM experience itself with victims. However, even though these findings corroborate the outcomes of other studies by revealing that wrongdoers engaging in VOM possess a lower risk of recidivism relative to offenders, who are not willing to involve in mediation, the authors were unable to identify the mediation processes that accounted for lower risk of reoffending on the part of offenders (Jonas-van Dijk et al., 2020).

Stewart et al. (2018) employed survival analysis in comparing rates of revocation of 122 offenders who engaged in facilitated face-to-face conferences or meetings to a matched sample consisting of 122 non-participants. The outcomes of the study revealed that the difference between rates of revocation when wrongdoers involved in mediations while incarcerated was not significant even though the trend was characterized by participants doing better. However, when meetings were conducted within community post-release, participants were substantially more likely to take longer periods under supervision within the community without going back to custody or reoffending, and had a higher likelihood of being revoked relative to their matched counterparts. The researchers concluded that that their findings support involvement in RJ sessions while under the supervision of the community for higher risk wrongdoers within past record of engagement in violent and serious crimes. As such, it can be noted that these findings emphasise the significance of involving the community representatives in victim-offender discussions.

Lauwaert and Aertsen (2016) evaluated the effectiveness of VOD in minimizing recidivism by focusing on interviews executed with 25 adult male participants, who had participated in VOM within the French-speaking region of Belgium and were desisting from engaging in criminal acts. Participants’ narratives were employed in investigating three factors or issue. The first issue concerned whether the involvement in RJ positively impacted the offenders’ journey toward discontinuance from crime. The second issue involved the elements or aspects within the process of victim-offender dialogue that supported the change process of participants. The third issue was the investigation of how the elements within the VOM process that facilitated desistance from crime were helpful. The outcomes of the study showed that possesses the potential to contribute to discontinuance of criminal acts in a modest, but consideration manner. In most situations, core elements of mediation strengthened pre-existing processes of desistance, primarily by reinforcing the cognitive elements of the process. Nevertheless, the researchers proposed further study on the helpful and specific presence of the facilitator and reflection on the notable absence in the practice of mediation involved in the research of various forms of practical reinforcements towards desistance. The researchers concluded with the notion that, from a point of view of desistance, a strategic encouragement from the offender’s side within the context of a favourable judicial judgment should not be a counter-signal for commencing mediation process. This conclusion implies that the realization of a judgment that favours offenders from the courts should not be considered as a positive signal or indication for starting a mediation process. Nevertheless, there is a significant need for conducting studies targeted at establishing the aspect of the mediation process, apart from the community, that enhances the effectiveness of VOM in limiting recidivism. 

Discussion

Currently, VOD continues to provide a suitable avenue for victims and offenders to resolve conflict in a manner that eradicates enmity and facilitates the realization of settlements considered fair by all parties involved. Nevertheless, there are still other areas within this RJ program that should be pursued to make it even more effective in the administration of justice. Amidst the uncertainty presently experienced in the society, particularly with the emergence of deadly diseases such as COVID19, there is a need for leveraging the power of modern technologies including video conferencing or virtual meetings as a means of enhancing the effectiveness of VOD within the global context and overcoming the barrier presented by geographical distance. The overreliance on in-person or face-to-face meetings can greatly undermine the effectiveness of VOD in situations where issues of geographical distance and infectious global pandemics such as COVID19 are involved. Nonetheless, Bouffard et al. (2017) argues that other forms of indirect communication can also be employed in VOM apart from in-person discussions. Examples of such types of communications are exchanges of letters (Bouffard et al., 2017; Jonas-van Dijk et al., 2020). With the presence of modern technologies, particularly video conferencing solutions such as zoom, offenders and victims can hold their discussions online regardless of the barrier presented by geographical distance or threats posed by infectious worldwide pandemics. It is also vital to note that technology plays a significant role in circumstances involving constraints of resources to participants in terms of travelling costs.

Apart from the employment of contemporary technologies such as virtual meetings in enhancing VOD’s effectiveness, there is a robust need to invest in the establishment of training centres or facilities for facilitators or mediators. In situations where this option is considered costly or there are limitations of resources, special courses that focus on training mediators or facilitators on how they can intervene in a range of criminal offences should be introduced in colleges and universities. Mediators play a vital role in facilitating the VOM process and ensuring that outcomes that are satisfying to all parties involved in a conflict are attained. However, the effectiveness of facilitators in the VOM process requires special training in a range of cases including sexual assault, sexual exploitation, domestic assault, and criminal cases involving severely psychopathic or sadistic acts (Hansen & Umbreit, 2018). As such, this process can be demanding in terms of time and resources considering that mediators require adequate preparations. Therefore, investment in training facilities and introduction of facilitator courses that focus on resolving crime-related conflicts can contribute significantly to addressing issues such as shortage of personnel needed to conduct the VOM process and lengthy times involves preparing mediators before they embark on facilitating the VOD process.

There is also a need to focus on intensive awareness campaigns about the significance of VOD in addressing crime-related conflict in an amicable and satisfying manner to offenders and victims. The engagement of victims and offenders in VOD is always voluntary (Hansen & Umbreit, 2018). Therefore, in situations where offenders decline to attend such meetings, the process can be futile. The lack of awareness about the benefits of participating in VOM happens to be among the major impediments to participation of parties. Nonetheless, it is significant to note that VOD functions to provide safe opportunities for victims or survivors of violent crimes and violations as a means of giving powerful and direct voice to the trauma of their encounters, and for offenders, particularly those who have engaged in brutally violent crimes, to fully experience or face the terrible effects and impacts of their actions and choices (Bouffard et al., 2017). As such, this message should be emphasized in VOM promotion campaigns, as a means of encouraging attendance or involvement.

In conclusion, VOD happens to be among the widespread or widely used RJ programs. This RJ program provides many benefits to offenders and victims of crime including providing a mechanism for effectively addressing or meeting the needs of victims and offenders, secure and safe setting for resolving crime-related conflict, active involvement of victims and offenders and effective restoration process. This program has also been established to be beneficial to the community in terms of reducing recidivism. However, this program is associated with certain issues that negatively impact its effectiveness. These issues include inability to ensure participation of all offenders as it is voluntary and demanding in terms of time needed for preparation on the part of facilitators. Nevertheless, there exist opportunities for making VOD more effective including adoption of modern technologies such as video conferences, investment in facilitator training facilities, introduction of mediator courses focusing on crime-related conflicts in colleges and universities, and intensive VOD awareness campaigns.