“Mediation for reparation: The victim’s perspective.”

Source: (1998) In Support for crime victims in a comparative perspective, ed. Ezzat Fattah and Tony Peters, 229-251. A collection of essays dedicated to the memory of Prof. Frederic McClintock. With a preface by Ezzat Fattah and Tony Peters. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press.

In this essay Aertsen and Peters analyze a project involving mediation for reparation. According to the authors, mediation for reparation is a specific type of mediation reserved for more serious crimes; its key ingredient is the communication between offender and victim. This “mediation for reparationâ€? project started as an experiment in 1993 and became a regular practice of criminal justice in the judicial district of Leuven, Belgium, in 1996. Fundamental to the project and their analysis is a restorative justice approach to the problem of crime, an approach that aims to take seriously the role and needs of the victim in the criminal justice process. Emphasizing the victim’s perspective in mediation for reparation, Aertsen and Peters discuss a number of matters: the design of the mediation project; the mediation process itself (definition and procedures, selection of cases and proposal of mediation to the victim, contact between victim and offender, agreement between victim and offender, judicial process and sentencing, and follow-up); and results of mediation for reparation. To illustrate, the authors present a case study of mediation for reparation.