St Paul, MN:  Center for Restorative Justice and Peacemaking, University of Minnesota. 22 minutes.

This 22 minute introductory video explains the importance of restorative dialogue in empowering victims and offenders to respond to the impact of crime. Exploring different types of restorative processes – victim offender mediation, conferencing, circles – the film emphasizes the need to be flexible and sensitive in meeting the needs of victims and offenders. The video is divided into three segments that explain the types of dialogue processes, provide a step-by-step explanation of a dialogue process, and discuss victim sensitive guidelines.

The first segment describes the different approaches used in promoting dialogue between victims and offenders. This includes one-on-one meetings between victims and offenders with a trained mediator, a conference that also includes support people for each, and a circle which includes community members as well as support people. Short clips showing these different types of encounters help to illustrate the differences between these processes and the strengths of each. The idea behind offering multiple options is to be sensitive to the needs of victims as well as to show cultural sensitivity. For this reason, programmes may combine approaches.

Following the description of processes, the video moves to a description of the steps in what it calls humanistic mediation. Stressing the need to provide a safe place for victims and offenders to enter a dialogue about what happened in the incident and its impact on the victim and the community, Mark Umbreit describes five steps in creating such an atmosphere. These steps include:

• Separate pre-mediation sessions with each party involved
• Connecting with the parties while maintaining neutrality
• Creating a safe place where people can speak from the heart
• Dialogue between the parties where the facilitator stays in the background as much as possible
• Non-directive style where the facilitator is emotionally present in the conversation, able to step in if needed, but allows the parties impacted by the crime to speak to each other

The third segment explains the importance of being victim sensitive. Professionals and well-meaning volunteers may tend to make decisions about what is right for victims. However, the victims should be allowed to make their own choices about participation, where they feel comfortable in meeting, etc. The four guidelines covered are:

• Always keep victim safety in mind
• Allow victims to make choices
• Offer support to victims
• Prepare victims

Victim Offender Mediation and Conferencing: A Multi-method Approach is useful for introducing audiences to the idea of creating restorative dialogue and working to meet the needs of both victims and offenders. It is available for purchase ($20 US) from the Center for Restorative Justice & Peacemaking, University of Minnesota, 105 Peters Hall, 1404 Gortner Ave., St. Paul, MN. 55108-6160. Phone: 1-612-624-4923. Fax: 1-612-625-8224, rjp@che.umn.edu.


Lynette Parker
August 2006