Deepening restorative practice in your organization.

Source: (2006) Restorative Justice Online

Many people have different ideas as to what a restorative programme should be like. There are those who give priority to repairing harm through some form of reparation, while others put the victim/offender dialogue in first place. Some regard it not as a V/O exercise but as V/O/C, in other words the community (or perhaps one should say ‘members of the community’) should play a part, and there are different ways in which it can do so: as volunteer mediators, as an NGO providing a mediation service, as participants in a group conference, as supporters for victims or offenders. It has been suggested that restorative justice should not stop at resolving an individual incident, but could have a role to play in community-building, especially in places where there is not much community spirit. In other words, a rather novel thought: one aim of the justice system should be not merely to persuade and enable the offender to change, but to help the community to see where it could change, in the hope that this will be noticed and acted upon. (excerpt)