Answer

Victim-Offender Dialogue Restorative Justice Program

Restorative justice (RJ) refers to an approach to justice whereby one of the reactions to a crime is to plan a meeting between an offender and the victim, sometimes with community representatives (Gang et al., 2021). The objective of such approaches is to allow the offender and victim to share their individual experiences of what transpired, discuss the individual who was injured by the crime and how the injury was inflicted, and reach an agreement about what the offender should or can do to mend the injury from the crime (Hashim et al., 2018). Among the things that can be done by the offender to mend the injury caused include payment of money to the victim, apologies, along with other actions to repay the victims affected and to avert the offender from causing harm in the future. There are various restorative justice programs (RJPs): victim-offender dialogue or mediation, conferencing, peacemaking circles, victim involvement and assistance, ex-prisoner involvement and assistance, reduction of DMI (Disparate Minority Incarceration), community service, and real restitution. This paper aims to describe a chosen program, victim-offender dialogue (VOD), explaining whether it is a self-identify restorative and why I chose it.

RJ is a social movement and philosophy which offers different ways of thinking concerning victimization and crime. RJ concentrates upon rehabilitation and healing, incorporating robust human rights assessment that stress the factors of class and race in the over-incarceration of individuals (Bouffard et al., 2017). The approach presumes that the individuals most affected by crime, offenders, and victims, ought to have a chance to become engaged in conflict resolution (Hansen & Umbreit, 2018). Gang et al. (2021) add that RJPs are good to the society because they significantly minimize repeat offending for some criminals, double (or more) the criminal acts brought to justice as departures from criminal justice, provide both offenders and victims with extra satisfaction that justice is offered better than it would be with traditional criminal justice, minimize crime sufferers’ post-traumatic anxiety and stress signs and symptoms along with associated costs, minimize crime victims’ desire for violent revenge against their offenders, and minimize costs of criminal justice when used as a diversion. With a focus upon the wellbeing of victims during aftermaths of crimes, RJ advocates bringing victim and criminal together to heal injuries of violation through alternative techniques, like intensive community supervision.

Among the widely employed RJPs is victim-offender (VOD) (also referred to as victim-offender conferencing, RJ dialogue, victim-offender reconciliation, or victim-offender mediation) is often a meeting conducted in the presence of at least one trained facilitator between offender and victim (Moran, 2017). VOD is the most popular of RJPs. Apart from being the most popular, there are a number of reasons why VOD has been chosen for this paper. First, VOD is the only option available for incarcerated offenders (Gang et al., 2021) and studies and research have shown that the program has high client satisfaction rates, restitution completion rates, victim participation rates, and result in minimized fear among victims as well as minimized criminal conduct by offenders (Bouffard et al., 2017).  With the help of the trained mediator, the offender and victim start to resolve a conflict and construct their individual approach to realizing justice in the face of a specific crime. During such meetings, both the offender and victim have a chance to share their perceptions and feelings of the crime/offense, thus allowing the offender and the victim to dispel misconceptions that they may have had about each other before the mediation process (Hashim et al., 2018). The meetings often culminate with an attempt to agree on the steps that the offender will take in order to amend the injury that the victim suffered and in other strategies of making things right. According to Bouffard et al. (2017),VOD offers a curative conflict resolution mechanism that actively engages offenders and victims to the extent possible in repairing the material and emotional damage caused by the criminal act; offers a chance for both offenders and victims to discuss offenses as well as express their opinions and feelings and for the victims to receive responses to their questions; offers a chance for offenders and victims to develop conjointly suitable resolution programs that tackle the damage caused by the criminal act.

Worth noting is that participation during VOD is voluntary. Hansen and Umbreit (2018) point out that the offender’s engagement is often voluntary, though it ought to be acknowledged that wrongdoers may “volunteer” so that they can avert onerous results that would be imposed on them otherwise. There is no particular result is imposed on the victim and/or offender by the mediator as is the case with arbitration. The role of the mediator is to facilitate exchange between the offender and victim whereby each presumes a proactive responsibility in realizing a result that is considered by both as fair (Pavelka, 2017). VODs involve active engagement of the offender and victim, offering an opportunity to rectify mutually the injury that is done to the victim in a way that enhances dialogue between the offender and the victim. It is, therefore, evident that VOD, a self-identifying program as a restorative program, is a program for a number of reasons. According to Moran (2017), RJ needs a kind of meeting between the victim and offender. A face-to-face meeting is necessary for the parties in the presence of people representing the larger community. Gang et al. (2021) note that VOD is effective since it allows the offender to learn about the injury they have inflicted on their victim, thereby making it difficult to justify their conduct.

Additionally, VOD provides an opportunity to discuss moral developments with offenders who possibly may have had too little of the same in their entire life (Pavelka, 2017). Offenders are also extra likely to perceive their penalties as legitimate. Lastly, VOD tends to avoid stigmatizing and shaming the offender (Hashim et al., 2018). Thus, RJ perceives criminal acts as a crumble of human and society relationships and tries to amend the relationships via dialogue, involvement, community support, and inclusion. RJPs, like VOD, aim at getting offenders to be responsible for their actions, to have them comprehend the injury they have caused, to offer them a chance to redeem themselves, as well as to demoralize them from causing more injury. For victims, VOD aims at offering them an active role during the process of justice-seeking and to minimize powerlessness and anxiety feelings.

Another reason why this paper has considered VOD is with regard to the principles upon which the RJP is founded. VOD is founded on the premise that human beings have inner capabilities, potentials, and resources that (under right conditions) are accessible and useable to resolve challenges and tackle issues of significance to them (Hansen & Umbreit, 2018). Suitable structures, including procedural guidelines, an impartial third-party facilitator, and a seating plan, has the ability of neutralizing differences in power and status and providing a conducive atmosphere to meaningful dialogue even within emotionally intense contexts (Bouffard et al., 2017).  Similarly, the employment of specific strategies and techniques by moderators must serve the larger objective of creating comfortable, safe environments within which a mediated dialogue can take place. Another principle is that presenting parties with choices whenever possible helps in maximizing chances for the parties to feel empowered during and by the process and that discovering underlying interests and needs can better a collaborative determination and offer extra satisfying outcomes (Gang et al., 2021).

Further, VOD is among the clearest expressions of RJ. Present day criminal and juvenile criminal justice systems are largely offender-propelled, with a retributive “nail them,” “trail them,” and “jail them” viewpoints that perceive criminal acts as offenses against the state and provides little assistance to victims of crimes (Hashim et al., 2018). VOD, nonetheless, offers a different structure for comprehending and reacting to victimization and crime. Moving past the offender-propelled focus, this form of RJ identifies three clients: victimized communities, individual victims, and offenders. Based on the notion that restoration of the material and emotional losses resulting from criminal act is far more crucial relative to imposing ever-rising levels of expensive penalties upon the offender, VOD encourages offenders to actively restore losses to communities and victims to the extent possible (Gang et al., 2021). The employment of negotiation and dialogue among victimized communities, victims, and offenders is stressed.

As opposed to being offender- or settlement-driven, VOD was also chosen for this paper because it is dialogue-driven. Moran (2017) reasons that mediation is currently being employed in a rising number of situations of conflict, like child labour custody and divorce cases, commercial disputes, community disputes, along with other civil court-associated conflicts. Within such contexts, the parties are referred to as “disputants,” and it is presumed that both parties are contributing to the disagreement or dispute, and therefore both should compromise to achieve an agreement or settlement (Hansen & Umbreit, 2018). In most cases, mediation in these contexts concentrates largely on realizing a settlement or agreement, with less stress on discussing the whole effect of the disagreement upon the lives of the disputants. Nonetheless, in VOD, the parties involved are not referred to as “disputants.” Largely, one out of the parties conflicting has vividly done a crime and has accepted doing the same, while the other party has vividly been victimized. Thus, in VOD, the issues of innocence and/or guilt are neither mediated nor are there anticipations that the crime victims would comprise or request for less than what they require to restore their damages and losses (Hashim et al., 2018). While many other kinds of mediation are principally “settlement-propelled,” VOD is fundamentally “dialogue-propelled,” with its stress on victim empowerment, restoration of losses, and offender accountability (Moran, 2017). Most VOM sessions result in a signed compensation agreement, which agreement is nonetheless secondary to the significance of the original dialogue between the conflicting parties (Pavelka, 2017). VOD, therefore, tackles victims’ informational and emotional needs that are crucial both to the improvement of victim compassion in offenders and victims’ empowerment, which have the ability of preventing criminal behaviours in the future. According to Hansen and Umbreit (2018), research has established that the compensation agreement is less crucial to victims of crimes than the chance to express their emotions and feelings regarding the offense directly to the criminals. Restorative impact is robustly associated with the development of a safe place for dialogue between the offender and victim of the crime.

To conclude, it is clear that RJ mechanisms and programs not only pay attention the damage or injury inflicted upon the direct victims of a particular crime, but equally to the manners in which the criminal act has injured both the community and offender. The principal focus for RJPs is, thus, upon victim healing, community restoration, and offender reintegration. The stress upon victim healing has convinced some people to regard RJ as VOD. Nonetheless, the stress upon provision of offenders with a chance to make amends as well as to raise their awareness of the implications of their undertakings has convinced others to consider RJ as offender-focused. It is the community restoration that places offender reparation and victim healing into perspective. VOD is considered a viable alternative to extra traditional RJ for serving the needs of crime victims by probation, courts, prosecuting attorneys, correctional facilities, as well as communities.

Annotated Bibliography

Bouffard, J., Cooper, M., & Bergseth, K. (2017). The Effectiveness of Various Restorative Justice Interventions on Recidivism Outcomes Among Juvenile Offenders. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 15(4), 465–480. Retrieved March 14, 2021, from http://www.antoniocasella.eu/restorative/Bouffard_2016.pdf

Studies continue to back up the effectiveness of RJPs on several outcomes. Nonetheless, little research has been concentrated on the effectiveness of various interventions. This article explored various RJ programs for juvenile criminals. Results backed up the effectiveness of several variations in RJ implementation. The study is important to this study since it supports the efficacy of the various types of RJPs in the restitution of offenders, indicating that RJPs are more effective than the traditional criminal justice system. The article’s accuracy is attested to by intensive research as evidenced by the many references employed, by the fact that the statistical data and information in it can verified in other sources, and the relatively large sample size that was employed and the analytical frameworks that were employed. Similarly, the article is credible since its authors are lecturers some of the U.S. most reputable universities: Jeff Bouffard and Maisha Cooper lecture at Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas, while Kathleen Bergseth lectures at North Dakota State University, Fargo, New Delhi. The credibility of the article is also buttressed by its publication by one of the world’s famous establishments, the SAGE Journals.  

Gang, D., Loff, B., Naylor, B., & Kirkman, M. (2021). A Call for Evaluation of Restorative Justice Programs. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 22(1), 186–190. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838019833003

To prove that RJ, as a reaction to sexual violence, remains the subject of significant criticism, the researchers appraised and synthesized restorative programs for family violence and sexual offenses by systematically reviewing peer-reviewed literature. The article highlights that due to shortage of evidence, it is difficult to identify how best the aims for various RJPs can be achieved. The paper is relevant to this study because it discusses the various forms of RJPs, noting that evaluations of RJPs that accept family violence and sexual cases be carried out as a matter of urgency. The article is credible since its authors, Daye Gang, Bebe Loff, Bronwyn Naylor, and Maggie Kirkman are university lecturers in some of the reputable universities, like Monash and RMIT universities of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Since the article is a peer-reviewed and is published by the SAGE Journals, a globally reliable and respectable. Additionally, the article is reliable and accurate since it well researched, having references that provide proof for the assertions made. The information and data contained in the article are also verifiable from other sources; the findings of the article agree with findings of others by other researchers that were done under different contexts and slightly different variables.

Hansen, T., & Umbreit, M. (2018). State of knowledge: Four decades of victim-offender mediation research and practice: the evidence. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 36(2), 99-113. https://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21234

This paper demonstrates that offenders and victims are extra satisfied with the outcomes and process compared with the law courts, noting that they are extra likely to complete and draft resolution contracts, they derive psycho-social paybacks, the process is inexpensive, criminal acts’ victims are extra likely to obtain apologies from wrongdoers, and wrongdoers have high chances of recidivating. The article is relevant to this study because by highlights 40 years of VOD assessment research and noting some of the benefits of VOD, it acknowledges that the benefits are not distributed uniformly. The article’s reliability and accuracy is supported by the many references used to provide the information shared in the article to support the arguments made either for or against VOD. Moreover, there are statistical data and facts used to support the assertions in the article. Since the findings of the paper are in coherence with those of other studies, the paper’s reliability and accuracy are reinforced since the article’s information is verifiable. The method of data collection also enhanced its reliability. Regarding credibility, the article is written by two authors, Toran Hansen, a conflict analysis and dispute resolution professional at Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland, and Mark Umbreit of the School of Social Work, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota. With vast years of experience in these respective fields, along with the publication of the journal by Conflict Resolution Quarterly, add to the credibility of the article.

Hashim, K. A., Strunk, K. O., & Dhaliwal, T. K. (2018). Justice for All? Suspension Bans and Restorative Justice Programs in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Peabody Journal of Education, 93(2), 174-189. Retrieved February 16, 2021, from http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

The article examines how RJP and Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) suspension are related with the suspension of learners over a period of time, along with suspension across various cohorts of learners and learning institutions targeted by         policies to ban suspension. The study is relevant to the current one since it established large decline rates in suspensions in the years that followed the ban of suspension by LAUSD and minimized suspension breaks between students that are frequently disciplined and their less-disciplined counterparts. Additionally, the article is relevant since shows that there is a need for continued reform along with provision of RJ training to schools, a finding that is congruence with the findings of this paper. The document is authored by multiple authors, Hashim Ayesha,  Strunk Katharine, and  Dhaliwal Tasminda and is published Peabody Journal of Education. The multiple authors with varied years of experience in various fields and being professors in different universities buttress the article’s findings’ credibility and authority. The use of references both in the article and at the bibliography shows that the paper was well researched, bolstering the paper’s findings’ accuracy and reliability. Similarly, the employment of statistical facts and analyses in the paper add to its reliability and accuracy.

Moran, K. L. (2017). Restorative Justice: A Look at Victim Offender Mediation Programs. 21st Century Social Justice, 4(1), 1-5. Retrieved from https://fordham.bepress.com/swjournal/vol4/iss1/4

This study conceptualizes the benefits and effectiveness of using VOD as a RJP within the juvenile and criminal justice systems to serve the rights of offenders, victims, and           society in a just way. The article discusses the VOD as a possible substitute justice model          that frames the relationship between a victim and offender in order to foster as well as         respect the integrity and dignity of each participant. Along with the abovementioned points, the article is relevant since it stresses the fact that VOD combats’ feelings of helplessness by giving them back their voice, while having the possibility of particularly offering relief to the individuals that are secondarily victimized by legal structure in simple rape cases. By discussing the various forms of VOD available for use, the reader is allowed to choose the most appropriate VOD format to use for a given case. The credibility of the article is that its author, Katie Moran, is a senior university lecturer at Fordham University. The article is also published by 21st Century Social Justice, a journal publisher that is known for thoroughly researched and peer-reviewed works. The article is reliable since it uses other authentic materials, books and journals, to support its arguments. Statistical data and analysis are also employed to help correlate variables. Data collection of the article was equally thorough, adding to its reliability and accuracy.

Pavelka, S. (2017). Restorative Justice in the States: An Analysis of Statutory Legislation and Policy. Justice Policy Journal, 2(13), 1-23. Retrieved February 16, 2021, from http://www.cjcj.org/uploads/cjcj/documents/jpj_restorative_justice_in_the_states.pdf

According to this article, two models have guided the world’s justice systems a few decades ago rehabilitation/individual treatment and retributive justice.  However, with the limitations that have attended the employment of the two, justice systems administrators and lawmakers try to elucidate the objectives of policy and management, while simultaneously exploring possibilities for the justice system’s future. The paper is relevant to this study since it gives a thorough analysis of the two models of justice systems that have been employed since time immemorial, highlighting their various forms, weaknesses, and strengths. That way, it allows readers to come to a point of making educated decision regarding the choice of a particular model or form of a model for a given situation. The employment of data gathered through a rigorous process both from primary and secondary sources and the inclusion of statistical figures to corroborate the paper’s positions and assertions bolsters the reliability and accuracy of the paper’s findings. Similarly, the paper uses past studies to back its assertions in the author’s attempt to ensure that the findings of the study are reliable and accurate. Despite being published by a single author, Sandra Pavelka, the paper’s findings’ credibility is warranted by the fact that the author is professor at Florida Gulf Coast University and is published by Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice both of which are undisputedly recognized for their excellent work in research and academia.