Source: (2002) Te Ara Whakatika: Newsletter of the court-referred restorative justice project. August/September. Issue 11. Downloaded 11 June 2004.
Jason Mackie, an Auckland District Court police prosecutor, was able to attend a restorative justice conference and compare the process to a traditional court session.Mackie noted that at the conference, the victim seemed to gain power, while in the court, the victim often lost power. The offender was forgiven in the conference, a foreign concept within the traditional courtroom. Mackie was surprised at the two-hour length of the conference, considering a court usually has 20 sentences per day, but understands that the length is needed to ensure that proper reconciliation is established between the victim and the offender.
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