Violent Crimes

Studies have shown that restorative justice processes may be more useful for victims and offenders after violent crimes than less serious ones. These articles and resources explore that counter-intuitive finding and other matters concerning restorative justice and victims and perpetrators of violent crime.

Mississippi officials agree to settlement in '64 slayings: from Michele Norris' interview on NPR.org: On May 2nd, 1964 in the tiny town of Meadville, Mississippi, two 19-year-old black men disappeared while walking along a highway on the edge of town. Two months later, the partial remains of a black man washed ashore in a remote stretch of the Mississippi River. Police identified the victim as Charles Moore, based on a college I.D. in a pants pocket. Another two months passed before FBI investigators got an anonymous tip about the disappearance of Moore and his friend, Henry Dee. That informant described how Dee and Moore were kidnapped by the Ku Klux Klan and driven to a wooded area where they were beaten and then tied to an old engine block before being dumped into the river while they were still alive. The families of the two young men filed a civil lawsuit against Franklin County, Mississippi, claiming that local law enforcement officials aided and abetted the Klan. And today they reached a settlement. Margaret Burnham is one of their attorneys. She's the director of the Civil Rights Restorative Justice program at Northeastern University, and she joins us now. Welcome to the program, Professor Burnham.
Highbridge park shooting resolved with 'restorative justice': from Burnham-On-Sea.com: The teenager accused of shooting a boy in the face with a BB gun in a Highbridge park last weekend has been dealt with by means of restorative justice, police said on Thursday (May 27th). The youngster was called into Burnham police station where he met his 10 year-old victim to discuss Saturday's incident in Apex Park near Mallard Place, which was exclusively first reported on Burnham-On-Sea.com here.
Abuse and restoration: A non-violent approach: By Paige Lawrence Editor's note: Mr. Lawrence sent his powerful story to RJ Online. His story is remarkable particularly because he did not have the assistance of restorative practitioners who could have helped him and his father in their initial conversations. Perpetrators or survivors who wish to make contact with the other should find a restorative facilitator to determine if such a meeting is advisable and to help both prepare. My name is Paige Lawrence and I want to talk to you about reconciling abuse. Reconciliation is about making things whole again, about restoration. My experience was that the anger and the pain that sexual abuse caused in my family and my life was compromising my ability to accomplish the things I wanted for myself ten, fifteen, even twenty years after the actual abuse occurred. So, in my late twenties after trying spiritual counseling and psychotherapy to no avail, I tried contacting the sexual abuser who had started it all and talking to him directly. It was not easy, it was scary and it took a long time to develop the level of respect and trust that we needed to be able to speak plainly to one another; but we did it and I want to share some of what I learned from that experience with you. I am not a therapist and I am not a PhD, I’m just a guy who experienced sexual abuse first hand and I want very much to share with you what helped me.
Restorative justice from a survivor's perspective: by Penny Beerntsen Note: this article originally appeared as a comment responding to a posting by Lisa Rea. We were concerned that many readers may have missed it and so are posting it as its own entry. We are grateful to Penny Beerntsen for her willingness to share her extraordinary story. As a survivor of a violent crime, I am a firm believer in the power of restorative justice programs to transform both the victim and the offender. I learned about victim offender conferencing shortly after surviving a violent sexual assault and attempted murder. Although I was unable to meet with my offender, as he had not taken responsibility for his crime, I began participating in victim impact panels inside prisons. Although I was not speaking directly to my offender, I was telling my story to others who were incarcerated for violent crimes, including rape. Much of my healing took place inside maximum security prisons as a result of the dialogue I engaged in with these offenders. If someone had told me at the time of the crime that this would be the case, I would have told that individual they were crazy! I participated in these panels because I thought I had something to offer the offenders. I learned that the process, if properly conducted, is mutually beneficial.
Restorative justice: A farfetched idea for the Caribbean?: from the article by Abiola Inniss posted on Set Our People Free... Recent years have found the Caribbean embroiled in the challenges of drug trafficking, money laundering, murder, rape, robbery and crimes of all sorts. Gang warfare in Jamaica and Trinidad have resulted in appalling loss of lives, damage to property and devastated the communities involved. Guyana also experienced the murder of a large number of persons in the wasting by gunmen of the Kaieteur News press men, the Lusignan and Bartica massacres and numerous other murders that have remained unsolved. Some of these crimes have been clearly linked to the drug trade while others seem to have been committed in what has become the ordinary run of criminal activities; since as in the words of Guyana’s poet laureate Martin Carter “Men murder men as men must murder men”.
Innovator's Focus: Resolve to Stop the Violence: San Francisco's Resolve to Stop the Violence Project (RSVP) is a restorative justice crime prevention program that utilizes a peer-based job training model to reintegrate violent offenders into the workforce. RSVP offers intervention where people can learn to change their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors while addressing the isolation and polarization of those affected by crime including offenders, victims, community members, and law enforcement officials. (excerpted from the YouTube video description).
Jamaica launches restorative and community justice programme in four violent-prone areas: Justice Minister Dorothy Lightbourne yesterday launched a pilot of the Government's much-touted Restorative and Community Justice programme which will be rolled out in four of the island's violent-prone communities. The areas identified are Spanish Town in St Catherine; May Pen, Clarendon; Tower Hill in St Andrew; and Granville, St James.
Witness Justice: help and healing for victims of violence: From their website: One of the more promising trends in crime victim services has been the advent of "restorative justice," an adjunct to traditional justice systems that can offer a more inclusive and personal approach to addressing trauma and violent victimization.
Tschudi, Finn. Dealing with violent conflicts and mass victimisation: a human dignity approach: "This chapter looks at the inspiring role that human dignity can play in the aftermath of mass victimisation that occurs during violent conflict. It argues that people should look beyond the classic - and in my view narrow - interpretation of restorative justice. By stating this, I face two challenges. Firstly, I will engage in the ongoing debate among restorative justice scholars as to whether and how the scope and definition of restorative justice should be broadened (Roche 2001; Villa-Vicencio 2003: 47). Secondly, I will argue that restorative justice principles should be considered when dealing with violent conflicts that result in mass victimisation (Christie 2001; Cunneen 2001; Parmentier 2003)." (abstract)
Newell, Tim. Face to face with violence and its effects: Restorative justice practice at work.: Restorative justice is developing organically within the criminal justice system and although initially considered most applicable to young offenders and with less serious offences, there is increasing evidence that it is with more serious offending that there is considerable impact and particularly with offences of violence. Restorative processes are considered in the context of increasing concern about violence in society and in prisons. The author's experience of governing prisons gives him a perspective about violence from within the setting in which the most violent and dangerous people in our society are held. David's story, which is part of the article, gives an illustration of how therapeutic work with people who have been violent can be done in a custodial setting where there is time to focus on the needs of all involved and affected by a violent crime. (author's abstract)
Valiñas, Marta and Vanspauwen, Kris. The promise of restorative justice in the search for truth after a violent conflict. Experiences from South Africa and Bosnia-Herzegovina.: Truth-telling and truth-seeking efforts have gained an increasingly central place in the process of dealing with a legacy of mass abuse in the aftermath of a violent conflict. Building a ‘common memory’ of the past has been the explicit aim of several truth-seeking mechanisms or processes such as truth commissions and trials. (excerpt)
Sered, Danielle. Mature Justice: Developing Restorative Practices for Serious Young Offenders.: At the Vera Institute of Justice, I am currently designing a Restorative Justice project that aims to target 16-19-year-olds in the adult Criminal system who are facing a range of offenses, including serious and violent ones. If and only if their ‘victims’ welcome the process, they and the offenders will be diverted into a Victim-Offender Mediation and/or Conferencing program with intensive preparatory and follow-up components. I’ll talk about those components and what they’ll look like as we go on. The project will be conducted in partnership with the courts and will include an intensive research and evaluation component. This project, particularly the inclusion of serious and violent offenses, is a leap for New York. But our house is very much on fire. (excerpt)
Bamfield, Joshua. Paying for Crime: Joshua Bamfield, a director of retail research in Nottingham, England, takes a look in this article at restitution for store thieves. Theft from stores is a significant social and economic problem. The numbers and variety of people involved in stealing from stores make it difficult for the police and the criminal justice system to deal with the offenders. One response by retailers is to use the civil law – based on the law of tort – to provide an additional sanction. 'Retail civil recovery' is the attempt to recover the cost of crime directly from the offender through some form of restitution. Bamfield discusses the nature and process of this civil recovery program as an example of relational justice.
Saskatoon Community Mediation Services. Report on the Consultation on Restorative Justice and Violence against Women, February 8 and 9, 2001: In February 2001, Saskatoon Community Mediation Services facilitated a consultation on restorative justice and violence against women. Participants represented several broad categories of relevant organizations and interested individuals. The purpose of the consultation was to contribute to decision-making for the Province of Saskatchewan by providing dialogue about restorative justice processes and violent offenses against women, with particular attention to the question of safety in restorative justice processes for those women. The report summarizes speakers’ presentations, questions and responses, and small group sessions.
Gustafson, Dave. "Facilitating communication between victims and offenders in cases of serious and violent crime.": In Canada victim-offender reconciliation programs have achieved notable outcomes with less violent crimes. In 1989 a research project in British Columbia investigated a proposed model to apply such programs to violent crimes. In this article Gustafson reports on the findings of that research, which included information from both offenders and victims. Following the research, a pilot victim-offender mediation project was launched to address even the most violent crimes. Gustafson describes the program and its results.
Weitekamp, Elmar G. M. Calculating the damage to be restored: Lessons from the national survey of crime severity: Weitekamp surveys key points in the history of compensation in response to offenses: its prevalence in earlier societies; its eclipse in the modern era; the emergence of restorative justice in the 1970s and efforts to reintroduce restitution, victim-offender reconciliation and other restorative programs; difficulties and shortcomings in the implementation of such programs; and yet attempts to apply such programs to more problematic criminal offenses. Serious objections have been raised against this potential extension of restorative justice programs. One key argument is the difficulty in reckoning the amount of damage and consequently the amount of compensation with respect to serious, violent offenses. Therefore, the viability of applying restorative justice programs to serious, violent offenses is a crucial issue. Yet crime severity studies have not been discussed in this context. Hence, Weitekamp provides a detailed discussion of the development and results of crime severity studies, with particular reference to the Sellin-Wolfgang Index for scaling the severity of offenses. From this Weitekamp advances the idea that the National Survey of Crime Severity (United States) resulted in monetary rankings of the severity of crimes, and that these results could be used to establish restorative programs (such as restitution, and victim-offender mediation) for violent crimes.
Minow, Martha. Between vengeance and forgiveness: Feminist responses to violent injustice.: In the face of violent crime and injustice and hard questions about how to respond to such, Minow asks whether there is or should be a particular feminist perspective on these issues. On the one side are responses based on legal forms, particularly of an adversarial and a punitive character. On the other side are calls for alternative responses, often called restorative justice. Where do feminists stand in these tensions? To explore the issues, Minow discusses the following: punishment versus reconciliation; and the perspectives of feminists on both sides of the controversy. She relates two specific examples that illustrate the tensions, and she concludes her paper with suggestions to guide the choice between prosecutorial and reparative approaches to violent injustice.
Kearney, Niall. Talking after severe crime.: This article gives an outline of a new service in Scotland that draws on restorative justice principles to address some needs of those affected by severe crime. It is based on a presentation on victims and restorative justice given at the annual conference of the European Forum for Victim Offender Mediation and Restorative Justice in Budapest October 2004. Author's abstract.
Griffiths, Mark. Working with serious violent crime using restorative justice conferencing: In Victoria, Australia, restorative justice conferencing is used as a pre-sentence option in the Childrens Court for offenders who would otherwise receive correctional supervision. Since 1995 when the first pilots were introduced, a trend for more serious violent offences to be referred has occurred. This paper will look at some of the practice issues that workers face when preparing participants, facilitating a conference and following through with agreed plans after court for a conference involving resolution of a serious, violent offence such as armed robbery, affray and serious assault. The paper will explore from practice experience the capacity and limitations of restorative justice conferencing in humanizing the sentencing process, achieving reconciliation and reparation, and providing new sentencing solutions for the existing criminal justice system. The challenge to consolidate the existing Childrens Court program and expand into the adult court for the young adult offender population will be briefly outlined. Abstract courtesy of the Centre for Justice and Peace Development, Massey University, http://justpeace.massey.ac.nz.
Wellikoff, Ilyssa. Victim-Offender Mediation and Violent Crimes: On the Way to Justice: This Note will discuss the need for an alternative method within the criminal justice system, such as victim-offender mediation, and will discuss the benefits and implications of extending victim-offender mediation to serious and violent crimes. The first part of this Note will explain the premise and purpose of victim-offender mediation. The Note will detail victimoffender mediation's roots in restorative justice and the various types of victim-offender mediation programs currently in place. The second part of this Note will address the efficacy of victim-offender mediation programs, highlighting the program's overall benefits and shortcomings. The Note will then address the criminal judicial system's role in victim-offender mediation and discuss the consequences and ethical considerations of mediating serious and violent crimes. Ultimately, this Note will conclude that since victim-offender mediation has had great success in handling less serious crimes and has proven to be an effective part of the judicial system, violent crimes would also be appropriate for victim-offender mediation. The benefits attributed to mediating less violent and less serious crimes only further validate the importance of handling violent and serious crimes in victim-offender mediation. This Note does not propose that victim-offender mediation should act as a substitute for judicial criminal proceedings in serious and violent crimes. Rather, the principle should be to provide a separate forum for the victims, themselves, to assert their own claims against their offender. (excerpt)

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Navigation Press Room What is Restorative Justice? Personal Stories Audio/Video Resources Stories from the Media Restorative Justice Processes Kinds of Crimes Theft Burglary Driving While Intoxicated Domestic Violence Hate Crime Sexual Violence and Abuse Violent Crimes Homicide Environmental Crimes White Collar Crime Restorative Justice around the World Uses Outside of Criminal Justice	Info Violent Crimes Studies have shown that restorative justice processes may be more useful for victims and offenders after violent crimes than less serious ones. These articles and resources explore that counter-intuitive finding and other matters concerning restorative justice and victims and perpetrators of violent crime. Mississippi officials agree to settlement in '64 slayings from Michele Norris' interview on NPR.org: On May 2nd, 1964 in the tiny town of Meadville, Mississippi, two 19-year-old black men disappeared while walking along a highway on the edge of town. Two months later, the partial remains of a black man washed ashore in a remote stretch of the Mississippi River. Police identified the victim as Charles Moore, based on a college I.D. in a pants pocket. Another two months passed before FBI investigators got an anonymous tip about the disappearance of Moore and his friend, Henry Dee. That informant described how Dee and Moore were kidnapped by the Ku Klux Klan and driven to a wooded area where they were beaten and then tied to an old engine block before being dumped into the river while they were still alive. The families of the two young men filed a civil lawsuit against Franklin County, Mississippi, claiming that local law enforcement officials aided and abetted the Klan. And today they reached a settlement. Margaret Burnham is one of their attorneys. She's the director of the Civil Rights Restorative Justice program at Northeastern University, and she joins us now. Welcome to the program, Professor Burnham. Highbridge park shooting resolved with 'restorative justice' from Burnham-On-Sea.com: The teenager accused of shooting a boy in the face with a BB gun in a Highbridge park last weekend has been dealt with by means of restorative justice, police said on Thursday (May 27th). The youngster was called into Burnham police station where he met his 10 year-old victim to discuss Saturday's incident in Apex Park near Mallard Place, which was exclusively first reported on Burnham-On-Sea.com here. Abuse and restoration: A non-violent approach By Paige Lawrence Editor's note: Mr. Lawrence sent his powerful story to RJ Online. His story is remarkable particularly because he did not have the assistance of restorative practitioners who could have helped him and his father in their initial conversations. Perpetrators or survivors who wish to make contact with the other should find a restorative facilitator to determine if such a meeting is advisable and to help both prepare. My name is Paige Lawrence and I want to talk to you about reconciling abuse. Reconciliation is about making things whole again, about restoration. My experience was that the anger and the pain that sexual abuse caused in my family and my life was compromising my ability to accomplish the things I wanted for myself ten, fifteen, even twenty years after the actual abuse occurred. So, in my late twenties after trying spiritual counseling and psychotherapy to no avail, I tried contacting the sexual abuser who had started it all and talking to him directly. It was not easy, it was scary and it took a long time to develop the level of respect and trust that we needed to be able to speak plainly to one another; but we did it and I want to share some of what I learned from that experience with you. I am not a therapist and I am not a PhD, I’m just a guy who experienced sexual abuse first hand and I want very much to share with you what helped me. Restorative justice from a survivor's perspective by Penny Beerntsen Note: this article originally appeared as a comment responding to a posting by Lisa Rea. We were concerned that many readers may have missed it and so are posting it as its own entry. We are grateful to Penny Beerntsen for her willingness to share her extraordinary story. As a survivor of a violent crime, I am a firm believer in the power of restorative justice programs to transform both the victim and the offender. I learned about victim offender conferencing shortly after surviving a violent sexual assault and attempted murder. Although I was unable to meet with my offender, as he had not taken responsibility for his crime, I began participating in victim impact panels inside prisons. Although I was not speaking directly to my offender, I was telling my story to others who were incarcerated for violent crimes, including rape. Much of my healing took place inside maximum security prisons as a result of the dialogue I engaged in with these offenders. If someone had told me at the time of the crime that this would be the case, I would have told that individual they were crazy! I participated in these panels because I thought I had something to offer the offenders. I learned that the process, if properly conducted, is mutually beneficial. Restorative justice: A farfetched idea for the Caribbean? from the article by Abiola Inniss posted on Set Our People Free... Recent years have found the Caribbean embroiled in the challenges of drug trafficking, money laundering, murder, rape, robbery and crimes of all sorts. Gang warfare in Jamaica and Trinidad have resulted in appalling loss of lives, damage to property and devastated the communities involved. Guyana also experienced the murder of a large number of persons in the wasting by gunmen of the Kaieteur News press men, the Lusignan and Bartica massacres and numerous other murders that have remained unsolved. Some of these crimes have been clearly linked to the drug trade while others seem to have been committed in what has become the ordinary run of criminal activities; since as in the words of Guyana’s poet laureate Martin Carter “Men murder men as men must murder men”. Innovator's Focus: Resolve to Stop the Violence San Francisco's Resolve to Stop the Violence Project (RSVP) is a restorative justice crime prevention program that utilizes a peer-based job training model to reintegrate violent offenders into the workforce. RSVP offers intervention where people can learn to change their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors while addressing the isolation and polarization of those affected by crime including offenders, victims, community members, and law enforcement officials. (excerpted from the YouTube video description). Jamaica launches restorative and community justice programme in four violent-prone areas Justice Minister Dorothy Lightbourne yesterday launched a pilot of the Government's much-touted Restorative and Community Justice programme which will be rolled out in four of the island's violent-prone communities. The areas identified are Spanish Town in St Catherine; May Pen, Clarendon; Tower Hill in St Andrew; and Granville, St James. Witness Justice: help and healing for victims of violence From their website: One of the more promising trends in crime victim services has been the advent of "restorative justice," an adjunct to traditional justice systems that can offer a more inclusive and personal approach to addressing trauma and violent victimization. Tschudi, Finn. Dealing with violent conflicts and mass victimisation: a human dignity approach "This chapter looks at the inspiring role that human dignity can play in the aftermath of mass victimisation that occurs during violent conflict. It argues that people should look beyond the classic - and in my view narrow - interpretation of restorative justice. By stating this, I face two challenges. Firstly, I will engage in the ongoing debate among restorative justice scholars as to whether and how the scope and definition of restorative justice should be broadened (Roche 2001; Villa-Vicencio 2003: 47). Secondly, I will argue that restorative justice principles should be considered when dealing with violent conflicts that result in mass victimisation (Christie 2001; Cunneen 2001; Parmentier 2003)." (abstract) Newell, Tim. Face to face with violence and its effects: Restorative justice practice at work. Restorative justice is developing organically within the criminal justice system and although initially considered most applicable to young offenders and with less serious offences, there is increasing evidence that it is with more serious offending that there is considerable impact and particularly with offences of violence. Restorative processes are considered in the context of increasing concern about violence in society and in prisons. The author's experience of governing prisons gives him a perspective about violence from within the setting in which the most violent and dangerous people in our society are held. David's story, which is part of the article, gives an illustration of how therapeutic work with people who have been violent can be done in a custodial setting where there is time to focus on the needs of all involved and affected by a violent crime. (author's abstract) Valiñas, Marta and Vanspauwen, Kris. The promise of restorative justice in the search for truth after a violent conflict. Experiences from South Africa and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Truth-telling and truth-seeking efforts have gained an increasingly central place in the process of dealing with a legacy of mass abuse in the aftermath of a violent conflict. Building a ‘common memory’ of the past has been the explicit aim of several truth-seeking mechanisms or processes such as truth commissions and trials. (excerpt) Sered, Danielle. Mature Justice: Developing Restorative Practices for Serious Young Offenders. At the Vera Institute of Justice, I am currently designing a Restorative Justice project that aims to target 16-19-year-olds in the adult Criminal system who are facing a range of offenses, including serious and violent ones. If and only if their ‘victims’ welcome the process, they and the offenders will be diverted into a Victim-Offender Mediation and/or Conferencing program with intensive preparatory and follow-up components. I’ll talk about those components and what they’ll look like as we go on. The project will be conducted in partnership with the courts and will include an intensive research and evaluation component. This project, particularly the inclusion of serious and violent offenses, is a leap for New York. But our house is very much on fire. (excerpt) Bamfield, Joshua. Paying for Crime Joshua Bamfield, a director of retail research in Nottingham, England, takes a look in this article at restitution for store thieves. Theft from stores is a significant social and economic problem. The numbers and variety of people involved in stealing from stores make it difficult for the police and the criminal justice system to deal with the offenders. One response by retailers is to use the civil law – based on the law of tort – to provide an additional sanction. 'Retail civil recovery' is the attempt to recover the cost of crime directly from the offender through some form of restitution. Bamfield discusses the nature and process of this civil recovery program as an example of relational justice. Saskatoon Community Mediation Services. Report on the Consultation on Restorative Justice and Violence against Women, February 8 and 9, 2001 In February 2001, Saskatoon Community Mediation Services facilitated a consultation on restorative justice and violence against women. Participants represented several broad categories of relevant organizations and interested individuals. The purpose of the consultation was to contribute to decision-making for the Province of Saskatchewan by providing dialogue about restorative justice processes and violent offenses against women, with particular attention to the question of safety in restorative justice processes for those women. The report summarizes speakers’ presentations, questions and responses, and small group sessions. Gustafson, Dave. "Facilitating communication between victims and offenders in cases of serious and violent crime." In Canada victim-offender reconciliation programs have achieved notable outcomes with less violent crimes. In 1989 a research project in British Columbia investigated a proposed model to apply such programs to violent crimes. In this article Gustafson reports on the findings of that research, which included information from both offenders and victims. Following the research, a pilot victim-offender mediation project was launched to address even the most violent crimes. Gustafson describes the program and its results. Weitekamp, Elmar G. M. Calculating the damage to be restored: Lessons from the national survey of crime severity Weitekamp surveys key points in the history of compensation in response to offenses: its prevalence in earlier societies; its eclipse in the modern era; the emergence of restorative justice in the 1970s and efforts to reintroduce restitution, victim-offender reconciliation and other restorative programs; difficulties and shortcomings in the implementation of such programs; and yet attempts to apply such programs to more problematic criminal offenses. Serious objections have been raised against this potential extension of restorative justice programs. One key argument is the difficulty in reckoning the amount of damage and consequently the amount of compensation with respect to serious, violent offenses. Therefore, the viability of applying restorative justice programs to serious, violent offenses is a crucial issue. Yet crime severity studies have not been discussed in this context. Hence, Weitekamp provides a detailed discussion of the development and results of crime severity studies, with particular reference to the Sellin-Wolfgang Index for scaling the severity of offenses. From this Weitekamp advances the idea that the National Survey of Crime Severity (United States) resulted in monetary rankings of the severity of crimes, and that these results could be used to establish restorative programs (such as restitution, and victim-offender mediation) for violent crimes. Minow, Martha. Between vengeance and forgiveness: Feminist responses to violent injustice. In the face of violent crime and injustice and hard questions about how to respond to such, Minow asks whether there is or should be a particular feminist perspective on these issues. On the one side are responses based on legal forms, particularly of an adversarial and a punitive character. On the other side are calls for alternative responses, often called restorative justice. Where do feminists stand in these tensions? To explore the issues, Minow discusses the following: punishment versus reconciliation; and the perspectives of feminists on both sides of the controversy. She relates two specific examples that illustrate the tensions, and she concludes her paper with suggestions to guide the choice between prosecutorial and reparative approaches to violent injustice. Kearney, Niall. Talking after severe crime. This article gives an outline of a new service in Scotland that draws on restorative justice principles to address some needs of those affected by severe crime. It is based on a presentation on victims and restorative justice given at the annual conference of the European Forum for Victim Offender Mediation and Restorative Justice in Budapest October 2004. Author's abstract. Griffiths, Mark. Working with serious violent crime using restorative justice conferencing In Victoria, Australia, restorative justice conferencing is used as a pre-sentence option in the Childrens Court for offenders who would otherwise receive correctional supervision. Since 1995 when the first pilots were introduced, a trend for more serious violent offences to be referred has occurred. This paper will look at some of the practice issues that workers face when preparing participants, facilitating a conference and following through with agreed plans after court for a conference involving resolution of a serious, violent offence such as armed robbery, affray and serious assault. The paper will explore from practice experience the capacity and limitations of restorative justice conferencing in humanizing the sentencing process, achieving reconciliation and reparation, and providing new sentencing solutions for the existing criminal justice system. The challenge to consolidate the existing Childrens Court program and expand into the adult court for the young adult offender population will be briefly outlined. Abstract courtesy of the Centre for Justice and Peace Development, Massey University, http://justpeace.massey.ac.nz. Wellikoff, Ilyssa. Victim-Offender Mediation and Violent Crimes: On the Way to Justice This Note will discuss the need for an alternative method within the criminal justice system, such as victim-offender mediation, and will discuss the benefits and implications of extending victim-offender mediation to serious and violent crimes. The first part of this Note will explain the premise and purpose of victim-offender mediation. The Note will detail victimoffender mediation's roots in restorative justice and the various types of victim-offender mediation programs currently in place. The second part of this Note will address the efficacy of victim-offender mediation programs, highlighting the program's overall benefits and shortcomings. The Note will then address the criminal judicial system's role in victim-offender mediation and discuss the consequences and ethical considerations of mediating serious and violent crimes. Ultimately, this Note will conclude that since victim-offender mediation has had great success in handling less serious crimes and has proven to be an effective part of the judicial system, violent crimes would also be appropriate for victim-offender mediation. The benefits attributed to mediating less violent and less serious crimes only further validate the importance of handling violent and serious crimes in victim-offender mediation. This Note does not propose that victim-offender mediation should act as a substitute for judicial criminal proceedings in serious and violent crimes. Rather, the principle should be to provide a separate forum for the victims, themselves, to assert their own claims against their offender. (excerpt) Next 2 items » [1] 2 Document Actions RSS feed Send this Print this	A long-time repeat offender describes the impact of meeting with his victims.