Source: (2000) Washington, DC: Prison Fellowship Ministries. Downloaded 10 August 2005.
Restoring Balance
Terry Marinaro lauds the way VORP personalized the offense for Corey by bringing him face-to-face with his victims and their pain. “He
learned empathy”-a quality she deems essential in conflict resolution. She also endorses the program’s success in giving power to
both victim and offender as they worked on a resolution. “We created it together,” she says, a joint accomplishment that gave both
sides a sense of satisfaction, balance, and justice. In the traditional juvenile justice system, she contrasts, victims usually feel
sidelined by the court, their needs ignored. And young offenders who feel fleeced of their power-and consequently their self-worthoften
angrily seek to avenge that indignity. (excerpt)
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