Victim/offender mediation: the independent model and Implications of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 for mediation

Source: (1998) Address by Martin Wright to the Official Launch of the Waltham Forest Victim/Offender Mediation Service, 21 September 1998

It is an honour for me to be invited to speak at the Official Launch of the Waltham Forest Victim/Offender Mediation Service. I suppose you have asked me because I have taken an interest in victim/offender mediation for a long time. In 1977 I wrote an article in the Howard Journal, commenting on the fact that there were various people concerned with the offender’s interests – probation officers, lawyers, voluntary organizations, and so on – but no one was there for the victim. I referred to the new idea of Victim Support, and the experiment in Canada in which victims and offenders could meet each other if they wanted to. It was not an influential article, but it showed that I was one of those who had noticed these new developments. Fortunately other people did not just write about it but did something, so that Victim Support has developed to what it is to-day, and victim/offender mediation has started on what we hope will be a similar upward path. You in Waltham Forest are among the first people in London to put these ideals into practice. I should like to say a few words about those ideals, before turning to the points you have asked me to address. (excerpt)