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Summary

van Laarhoven, Elly (2002). At That Moment We Saw the True Face of the Child: Youth Justice Conferences in a Juvenile Prison Paper presented at 'Building a Global Alliance for Restorative Practices and Family Empowerment'. The Fourth International Conference on Conferencing, Circles and other Restorative Practices. 28-30 August 2003 Veldhoven, Netherlands NH Koningshof Hotel.

Youth justice conferences in prisons not only offer benefits to victims, offenders, and their families and social network, but also have a positive impact on the prison atmosphere. Prison staff reported positive results. They suddenly saw offenders in the context of their crime and relational network and discovered a vulnerable side of offenders who expressed feelings of guilt, shame and remorse. Conferences also gave parents an active role in the reconciliation process. The sheer offer of a youth justice conference seemed to give opportunities to speak more freely about morality with the offenders. This happened in individual talks with youth, but also among the offender in peer contacts. Author's abstract