“Policy developments and the concept of restorative justice through mediation. “

Source: (2000) In Victim-offender mediation in Europe: Making restorative justice work, ed. The European Forum for Victim-Offender Mediation and Restorative Justice, 83-97. With an introduction by Tony Peters. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press.

Kemeny notes two different perspectives giving rise to restorative justice perspectives: one is academically and sociologically based; and the other is religiously inspired. In Norway, restorative justice is rooted not in the church but in secular thought and practice stemming from Nils Christie’s notion of criminal offenses as “conflictsâ€? between victims and offenders. From this Kemeny, using a definition from the European Forum for Victim-Offender Mediation and Restorative Justice, refers to restorative justice as a process of reparation of the harm caused by crime – a process of conflict resolution. Using Norway as an example, the author asks whether the aims of restorative justice – conflict resolution offering healing for both the victim and the offender – can be realized or whether they will inevitably be compromised by the established criminal justice system. In Norway in the 1970s and 1980s experiments occurred in alternative conflict resolution – mediation and reconciliation – especially for lesser offenses and for juveniles. Though the results were decidedly ambiguous, in 1991 the Norwegian Parliament passed legislation establishing a mediation and reconciliation service