Victims’ Reflections on the Protective and Proactive Approaches to the Offer of Restorative Justice: The Importance of Information

Abstract

Independent studies reveal that when done properly, restorative justice (RJ) practices outperform criminal justice proceedings in meeting victims’ concerns for insight, voice, and fairness and, as a result, can have therapeutic value. However, only a small number of cases are referred to RJ, and victim-initiated RJ remains exceptional. Not every victim is interested in RJ, but many victims are unaware of it and hence miss out on its potential benefits. Introducing RJ to victims of crime should be done responsibly, and, therefore, it is important to understand whether and how victims want to be informed about RJ. We interviewed 34 victims of serious crime in Belgium and Canada and asked them what they had thought about being invited to participate in RJ. We categorized their experiences into what we labelled a “protective” and a “proactive” approach. A protective approach is characterized by an individualized offer and lack of systematic information about RJ, while a proactive approach favours a systematic offer and informed choice. Our findings indicate that victims of violent crime prefer to be proactively informed about their restorative options as long as the offer respects certain conditions. These include a guarantee of voluntary participation and RJ that is a complementary approach to criminal justice proceedings.

Understanding victim participation in restorative practices: Looking for justice for oneself as well as for others

“…Therefore, action is required to increase awareness and help victims find their way to RJ (Laxminarayan, 2014). Victims want to know about RJ (Shapland et al, 2011; Wemmers and Canuto, 2002) – they would prefer to decline the invitation to participate in RJ rather than not know about their restorative options (Van Camp and Wemmers, 2016).…”

Advocating for the Use of Restorative Justice Practices: Examining the Overlap between Restorative Justice and Behavior Analysis

“…For those who recidivated, participants in the RJ group reported less-frequent recidivism. In briefly referencing qualitative outcomes, victims of violent crimes report that they prefer to be informed about restorative processes, assuming that their participation is voluntary and the process is done in conjunction with the criminal justice system (Van Camp & Wemmers, 2016). It is imperative to mention the heterogeneity in intensity, degree, and context of the harmful behavior and that implementing methods should be considered on a case-by-case basis using behavior-analytic principles and RJ processes (i.e., see above for a discussion of processes and potential adaptations) relevant for the specific contexts (i.e., see the sections below discussing overlap between RJ and behavior-analytic principles).…”

From ‘what works’ to ‘how it works’ in research on restorative justice conferencing: the concept of readiness

“…The final dimension of readiness is knowledge. In this regard, preparation plays important and different roles by promoting a level of participants' understanding of aims (Shapland, Robinson & Sorsby, 2011;Wallis, 2014) and their realistic expectations about possible outcomes (Suzuki & Wood, 2017b;Van Camp & Wemmers, 2016). Participants' understanding may be important because they have to understand the purposes of the restorative justice process in order to achieve restorative goals (Bazemore & O'Brien, 2002).…”