Community Reconciliation Through Facilitated Dialogue & Restorative Justice

Source: (2001) New York: Andrus Family Fund BET (Board Exploration Triad) Working Paper: Group H. Downloaded 8 March 2005.

Central to the notion of community reconciliation through restorative justice is the process of
facilitated dialogue. This usually involves trained mediators or facilitators. The purpose of restorative
justice dialogue is to provide a safe place for the people most affected by a specific hate crime, hate
incident, or criminal act (victim, offender, family members of both, and other support persons or
community members) to have the opportunity to enter into a direct dialogue with each other in order to
talk about the full impact of the crime upon their lives, to address any lingering questions, and to
develop a plan for responding to the harm caused to the greatest extend possible. This type of
facilitated dialogue provides the opportunity for entirely new directions and changed perspectives in
the lives of the involved parties. Currently, there are very few examples of this in response to acts of
intolerance and hate.