JUVENILE OFFENDERS MEET THEIR VICTIMS

The process of allowing certain victims of crime to confront their juvenile offender in the presence of a trained mediator to both talkabout the event andnegotiate aplan for compensating the victim is developing in a growing number of communities throughout the United States. This article reports on the impact of the victim offender mediation program in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is based on interviews with 206 victims and juvenile offenders in Albuquerque, as well as interviews with court officials andprogram stas This program represenisa strong court and community partnership. victims and offenders whoparticipated in mediation indicated high levels of satisfaction with both the processand outcomes of mediation. Wctims who were involved in mediation, particularly, were considerably more likely to indicate satisfaction with the manner in which the juvenile justice system handled their case than were those victims who were referred to mediation but did nut participate or similar victims who were never even referred to the mediation program. Offenders who negotiated their restitution obligation with the victim were far more likely to actually complete restitution, when compared to offenders whose restitution was ordered by the court with no mediation program involvement.     

Consequences of restitution

A group of 419 adult property offenders granted probation and ordered to repay their victims for the direct monetary losses or property damage incurred as a result of their crime were matched on 28 variables to a group of 179 offenders who were not ordered to pay restitution to their victims. Compared to those not ordered to repay their victims, the offenders ordered to pay restitution had a more difficult probation experience, having more revocations filed against them and showing a greater frequency of reporting, physical health, and money problems. No difference in arrest rate or time on probation was discovered. Those offenders ordered to pay restitution but who did not pay in full had the greatest problems of all, showing the highest revocation filing and actual revocation rate, rate of convictions, and time served. Payment characteristics were described for offenders who paid all, part, or none of their restitution debt by probation's end. It was suggested that closer probation officer scrutiny of offenders ordered to pay restitution may have accounted for the more difficult experience of the restitution group and that cost of administration of restitution programs may not be worth the benefits.This research was funded in part by grant No. 76-ED-99-0027 from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration. Special thanks are given the directors of Denver District Court Probation, without whose permission to enter the probation archives, and without whose day-to-day cooperation, this study would have been impossible.     

Procedural Justice for Victims and Offenders?: Exploring Restorative Justice Processes in Australia and the US

Sociolegal research indicates that when citizens perceive that legal processes and procedures are fair, both positive and negative legal outcomes will be viewed as acceptable. However, little is known about perceptions of fairness in informal contexts such as in restorative justice (RJ) practices and with victims (and offenders) who participate in these programs. Drawing on interviews with key actors engaged in post-conviction RJ programs for serious crimes in Australia and the USA, this paper asks, do post-conviction therapeutic RJ programs for violent crimes enhance procedural justice for victims and offenders? The data reveal that RJ is compatible with procedural justice for both victims and offenders. Specifically, RJ aids in correcting the harms created by the formal criminal justice system and, thus, satisfies and even greatly enhances procedural justice goals for both victims and offenders.     

Young Offenders Speak About Meeting Their Victims: Implications for Future Programs

Victim–offender mediation (VOM) programs have gained considerable popularity in juvenile courts, yet little is known about how these programs actually influence offenders. This paper explores young offenders’ subjective experiences of voluntary participation in a county‐run VOM program in Minnesota. The authors conducted in‐depth, qualitative interviews with seven young offenders (aged 15–24), and four sets of their parents, who had recently participated in a VOM session with their crime victim(s). Data analysis revealed varying motivations for the offenders’ participation in the sessions, a range of emotional consequences, and some potential for enduring behavior change. Based on these findings, the authors propose guidelines for future practice and research with young people involved in mediation, conferencing, and restorative justice programs.     

Patterns of victim marginalization in victim-offender mediation: some lessons learned

This article discusses issues that restorative justice programs may face during implementation and lessons learned from an exploratory study. We examined various perspectives of multiple participants who experienced a Victim-Offender Mediation (VOM) program in a mid-sized Midwestern city in the U.S. The primary data source comprised 34 interviews with 37 participants including adult crime victims, juvenile offenders and their parents, mediators, and representatives from referring agencies. Observations complemented the interview data. Findings revealed patterns of victim marginalization during the processes used: victims were not prepared appropriately; were at times pressured by mediators to behave in certain ways; and, occasionally felt intimidated by offenders and/or their families. We discuss some factors that may have influenced the emergence of these patterns. This study revealed gaps between the guiding principles of restorative justice theory and field practices, particularly sensitivity toward victims to meet their needs. We suggest that restorative justice programs should consider using a monitoring system to ensure that the processes used remain consistent with the values and principles of restorative justice.     

A glimpse into the role of personal values within the restorative justice process: a qualitative study with restorative justice facilitators

Restorative justice is a process whereby offenders and their victims communicate to address the harm caused by the crime. Currently, there is little research looking at what characterises victims and offenders who are willing to participate in this process, who benefits, and what changes occur after participating. Personal values may be important in understanding such questions because they can influence human behaviour, appraisals of behaviour, and can change following life experiences. Hence, the aim of this study was to investigate the role that the values within Schwartz’s value theory may have in answering these questions. This was accomplished through a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 12 restorative justice facilitators. Consistently, the motivations they observed for both victims and offenders participating in restorative justice included themes of prosocial values. Additionally, prosocial values were among those highlighted as being important for the realisation of the benefits of restorative justice. There was also some preliminary evidence that this process may change what values are important for both victims and offenders. Overall, these findings have implications for restorative justice providers; a greater understanding of motivations, who will benefit, and how restorative justice can be presented to appeal to a wide audience.     

Reluctant Participants in Restorative Justice? Youthful Offenders and Their Parents

This paper examines offender and parental involvement in the Vermont Juvenile Restorative Panels Program. In this program, juvenile offenders on probation appear before citizen‐run boards to negotiate the terms of their probation, which may include apologies, community service, restitution, and competency development tasks. Victims and parents of the offender also participate. This study reports findings from a qualitative analysis of 22 cases, including observations of panel meetings and interviews with program coordinators, offenders, parents, and victims. We find that offenders vary in level of participation as well as in their willingness to take responsibility. Parents do not understand the program well, worry about their child’s likelihood of compliance, but generally support the goals of the program. The implications of these findings for restorative practices with juveniles are explored in the concluding section.     

Evaluating Restorative Justice Programs in Taiwan

This paper aims to evaluate four restorative justice programs in Taiwan: (1) a mediation system; (2) deferred prosecution and conditional suspended sentence; (3) a youth justice system; and (4) the Taiwan Restorative Justice Initiative. In this paper, models proposed in Marshall (Restorative justice: An overview. London: Home Office, 1999) and Braithwaite (British Journal of Criminology 42:563–577, 2002b) are used as criteria to evaluate the four programs. Based on governmental documents, official statistics, and the findings of previous empirical studies, this paper will examine whose needs and power is focused and what types of value are highlighted in those four programs. This paper finds that current restorative justice programs in Taiwan place greater emphasis on offenders than on other parties such as victims and communities. In addition, maximizing and emergent standards that Braithwaite identifies are implemented more in Taiwan’s restorative justice programs than constraining standards. This paper suggests that restorative justice practices in Taiwan need to be more concerned with victims’ needs and interests, and to strengthen constraining types of restorative justice values.     

Apology in victim–offender mediation

Victim–offender mediation practices bring conflicting parties together so they can engage in a two-way dialogue and ultimately negotiate a mutually agreeable resolution. The fact that apology may be a motivator for participating in the mediation process and that it is often a common outcome of mediation suggests that research on mediation ought to more carefully explore the nature of the apologies that are offered. The present study provides a qualitative exploration of the prevalence and nature of the apologies offered by offenders to their victims during face-to-face mediations. Fifty-nine mediation agreements recorded by the longest running mediation scheme in the UK were analysed. It was found that 50.8% of agreements contained mention of the perpetrator saying ‘I’m sorry’ or offering a partial apology (i.e. acknowledging harm and/or promising forbearance). Full apologies were absent in the mediation agreements. Agreements did not make explicit mention of the offender admitting responsibility or expressing remorse or regret. Finally, although the mediation agreements did not make any explicit mention of offenders offering reparation, they did record efforts at providing solutions to the conflict.     

Where Do They Belong? Giving Victims a Place in the Criminal Justice Process

Historically, victims once had an active participatory role in the criminal justice process and were responsible for not only initiating but also for prosecuting offenders. In common law countries, victims were gradually sidelined and by the 20th century, their role was reduced to that of a witness to a crime against the state. The exclusion of victims from the criminal justice process is a major source of dissatisfaction for victims as many of them want to participate in the criminal justice process. This has fuelled initiatives with restorative justice that claim to more fully include victims than conventional criminal justice. This paper examines three different approaches found in the literature on how to let victims participate. One view is that victims should leave the criminal justice system and that criminal justice should be replaced by alternative, restorative justice schemes in which victims are granted full recognition and respect for their dignity. A second approach is to integrate restorative practices such as victim-offender mediation in the criminal justice process. The third approach is to integrate victim participation and respect (so-called restorative values) in the criminal justice system. These three approaches are discussed and compared with one another. The paper closes with recommendations for criminal law reform.     

Participants' Attitudes in the Utah Juvenile Victim‐Offender Mediation Program

This paper describes an archival evaluation of the Juvenile Court Victim‐Offender Mediation Program (VOMP) of the Utah State Courts in Salt Lake City. From 1997 to 2000, 147 victims and 330 offenders reported their attitudes towards their experiences in VOMP. Although victims were more satisfied than offenders for some outcomes, all participants reported exceptionally high satisfaction. These promising results are consistent with other published studies on the effectiveness of VOMP and other forms of restorative justice in demonstrating the promise of mediation in criminal justice.     

The Role of Victim-Related Factors in Victim Restitution: A Multi-Method Analysis of Restitution in Pennsylvania

Mandatory statutes do not always produce change, but a 1995 Pennsylvania statutory change making restitution mandatory dramatically increased the proportion of cases in which restitution was imposed. There are three possible reasons for this generally successful implementation: (a) judges agreed with the victim-centered goals of the statute, (b) there were mechanisms in place to implement the goals of assisting victims, and (c) there was a context supportive of victims that made it easier to follow the law. Two studies investigated these possible explanations. First, a statewide survey of trial court judges suggested that they agreed with the statute's goals of compensating victims. Second, hierarchical logistic models of 55,119 statewide restitution-eligible decisions indicated that a victim-related contextual factor, the nature and location of the victim/witness assistance office, was significantly related to the imposition of restitution, although a more general contextual factor relating to funding for victim programs had only small effects.     

Effectiveness of the Restorative Justice Process on Crime Victims and Adult Offenders in Thailand

In this paper, the researchers draw on research findings of the restorative justice process for adult offenders in Thailand run by probation officers during the pre-investigation stage. The evaluation study was conducted in 2009, aiming to analyze the effect of restorative justice on victims and offenders. The researchers investigate various key aspects, such as rates of satisfaction and perception of fairness, changing attitudes of victims and offenders, response to the victim’s needs, offender’s accountability, and reoffending rate. Factors associated with these aspects were also analyzed. A quasi-experimental research design was applied and the research findings showed that victims and offenders participating in the restorative justice process were significantly more satisfied with almost all evaluated outcomes than those who did not. However, the study did not find any significant difference in the re-offending rate between offenders in the experimental and comparison groups. Finally, the study found that two factors, i.e. victim’s income and victim–offender relationship, significantly related to the victim’s satisfaction. Victims who had low income were more likely to be satisfied with the outcome than those who had high income and victims who previously knew the offender were more likely to be satisfied with the process than those who did not.     

A comparison of programmatic and ‘ad hoc’ restitution in juvenile courts

“Programmatic” and “ad hoc” approaches to restitution can be distinguished by the fact that the former usually involves a full-fledged restitution program with counselors or case workers who are responsible for liaison with victims, documentation of victim losses, development of restitution recommendations as part of the pre-sentence investigation, and implementation and monitoring of the restitution requirements. In an “ad hoc” approach, restitution is ordered on a relatively infrequent basis and, when ordered, it tends to be viewed as a relatively minor part of the probationary requirements, with little or no assistance given to either victims or offenders.

The findings in this study show, first, that a programmatic, as compared to an ad hoc, approach to restitution in Dane County, Wisconsin clearly increased the likelihood that juveniles would repay victims and increased the amount of restitution. The second finding is that juveniles who completed their restitution requirements were less likely to reoffend than were youths who did not complete their restitution. A multiple regression analysis indicated that this effect was probably independent of other factors.*** Funding for this research was provided by Grant Nos. 77-NI-99-0005, 79-JN-AX-0009, and 82-JS-AX-0025 from the Office of Justice Administration and Research, National Institute of Juvenile Justice, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. to the Institute of Policy Analysis, Eugene, Oregon. Points of view or opinions stated in this document are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the Department of Justice.      

REASSESSING RACE DISPARITIES IN MARYLAND CAPITAL CASES*

A generation of research studies that were conducted in multiple states and covered different time periods has found evidence that individuals who kill white victims encounter a greater risk of facing the death penalty than killers of black victims. More recently, research has also examined the likelihood of death penalty processing for black defendants who kill white victims in comparison with other defendant–victim race groups. In particular, a study in Maryland conducted by Paternoster et al. (2003) found evidence that offenders in black defendant–white victim cases were more likely to be death noticed by prosecutors and to receive a death sentence than other offenders. A recent analysis by Berk, Li, and Hickman (2005) raised questions about some of these findings. In this article, we conduct new analyses and conclude that black defendants who kill white victims face a greater risk of adverse treatment than other types of defendants.     

Offer and Acceptance of Apology in Victim-Offender Mediation

Past research on restorative justice (RJ) has highlighted the importance of apology for both victims and offenders and the prevalence of apology during the RJ process. The present study moves this work further by examining the nature of the apologies that are offered during victim-offender mediation, as well as the individual-, case-, and mediation-level factors that can affect the offer and acceptance of apology. In addition, we measure the implications that the offer and acceptance of apology can have on satisfaction with the mediation outcome. We conducted a content analysis of 57 records of mediations occurring between 2008 and 2010 at a UK mediation centre. Perpetrators said “I’m sorry” in over one-third of cases, and full apologies were offered in nearly one-fifth of cases. Apologies were accepted in over 90% of cases, although forgiveness was much less common. The offer of apology was most closely associated with the type of incident/offence, and number of previous mediations in a case. There was also some support for the relationship between the offer of apology and victim age, perpetrator gender, formal sanction, and the number of participants attending the mediation meeting. None of the factors studied were associated with the acceptance of apology. The offer of apology was associated with satisfaction with the mediation outcome, and in all of the cases where the apology was accepted, the victim was satisfied with the mediation outcome. The findings thus shed light on the role that apology can play in the effectiveness of RJ.     

Child molestation and psychopathy: a taxometric analysis

ABSTRACT

Prior taxometric research on child molesters and general sex offenders has produced inconsistent and contradictory results. There are theoretical, practical, and policy reasons, however, to assume that a psychopathy taxon may exist in sex offenders and that a taxometric study might shed light on this issue. The mean above minus below a cut (MAMBAC), maximum covariance (MAXCOV), and latent-mode factor analysis (L-Mode) taxometric procedures were employed in three overlapping samples: 188 sex offenders with non-relative child victims, 555 sex offenders with non-relative child or adolescent victims or child incest victims, and a mixed sample of 1404 sex offenders. The taxometric analyses revealed evidence of continuous latent structure in all three samples. These results suggest that psychopathy in sex offenders, child molesters in particular, is organised quantitatively (continuous) rather than qualitatively (categorical).     

Mediation Verses Arrest Approaches to Domestic Assault: Policy Implications for Addressing Domestic Abuse Among Under-Educated and Jobless Offenders

Mediation as a response to domestic abuse would seem a promising direction in curbing domestic battering among offenders with a low stake in conformity. This study compares the effects of mediation verses arrest on two general types of domestic abusers; one category with a high school education or above and is presently employed, while the other category comprising individuals with less than a high school education and are currently unemployed. Pooled data from three of the original group of six Minneapolis Domestic Violence Project cities are used in this study. The findings show unemployed Blacks with less than a high school education who were mediated were significantly less likely to have re-offended within six months than unemployed non-Blacks similarly mediated with less than a high school education. Also, unemployed Blacks with less than a high school education not mediated were significantly more likely to re-offend than unemployed non-Blacks with less than a high school education and not mediated. Finally, among those in the sample unemployed with less than a high school education and mediated were significantly less likely to re-offend compared to those not mediated. The findings are consistent with seeing mediation as a viable police strategy in curbing domestic abuse among jobless and undereducated offenders.     

Administering a victim impact curriculum to inmates: a multi-site replication

While restorative justice has been the topic of much research, a specific type of program included in restorative justice, Impact of Crime (IOC) on Victims programs, has not been widely studied or assessed for effectiveness. This study examines IOC on Victims Curriculum Development Programs. Offenders from programs in California, Ohio, Tennessee, and Virginia were participants in this research. A four-state evaluation methodology was developed in order to assess the effectiveness of these programs in educating offenders about victims’ right and victim facts, as well as increasing their sensitivity to victims’ difficulties. The findings in this evaluation lend support to previous studies, indicating efficacy for IOC programs. Suggestions for future research are briefly discussed.