Hans Joachim Schneider

3.5 Restorative Justice

Restorative justice as a process ideal means a process where all the stakeholders affected by a crime have an opportunity to come together to discuss the consequences of the crime and what should be done to right the wrong and meet the needs of those . affected. Of course such an ideal is secured to greater and lesser degrees. Mediation between just a victim and just an offender can reasonably be described as a restoraprocess, but it does exclude other stakeholders such ~s the family of the offender. : Herice, by this process definition, one on one victim-offender mediation is not as restorative as a cconference or a circle to which victims and offenders are encouraged to , bring their families a nd other supporters. In a restorative justice conference both victims and offenders are asked to bring along the people who they most trust and reto support them during the conference. The offender first describes in his own words what happened. Then the victim and others who sit in a circle describe the COll,eqw,m;e, of the crime, how they have been hurt by it. Then an agreement is reached what should be done to right the wrong. Usually this will be signed by the victim the offender.