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Summary

Marshall, Tony F (1991). Restorative Justice on Trial in Britain In: H. Messmer and H.-U. Otto (eds.), Restorative Justice on Trial: Pitfalls and Potentials of Victim-Offender Mediation: International Research Perspectives. Dordrecht, NETH: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 15-28.

A Home Office study followed all cases referred to the major victim-offender mediation projects in England over two years. Despite many favorable outcomes, the main problematic for these projects was that of reconciliation to the "hostile environment" of traditional criminal justice. Existing agencies tended to "take over" the new schemes and try to adapt them to their own ends, whereas the greatest potential in such innovations lay in the new aims underlying them, related to reconciliation and a conflict resolution approach to crime policy. The greatest obstacles lay in the offender-orientation and punishment focus of the existing system.