Mediation in Juvenile Justice Settings.

Source: (1993) Journal for Juvenile Justice and Detention Services. 8(1): 51-55.

This article describes how mediation has been used in parent/juvenile conflicts, victim-offender restitution agreements, conflict resolution in juvenile corrections facilities, school-based conflicts, and conflicts between rival juvenile gangs. Parent/child mediation offers juvenile court judges and probation officers a family-centered, problem solving approach for dealing with status offenders. Victim-offender mediation is designed to produce agreements that reflect the offender’s accountability and responsibility for the victim’s loss and suffering by making amends. Mediation in juvenile corrections facilities is intended to resolve conflicts through a problemsolving strategy rather than through punitive disciplinary strategies. School mediation programs help develop new norms for social interaction in the school environment. Students accustomed to resolving conflict through intimidation and violence are trained to resolve conflicts through negotiation and compromise that provides benefits for all parties involved. A relatively new application of mediation in the school setting is the resolution of gang-related disputes. Conflicts between gangs and the school administration and between rival gangs played out in the school setting have been resolved through mediation. Efforts of the New Mexico Center for Dispute Resolution in the aforementioned areas are profiled. Abstract courtesy of National Criminal Justice Reference Service, www.ncjrs.org