Source: (2002) Newsletter of the European Forum for Victim-Offender Mediation and Restorative Justice. 3(2):4-6.
According to Julien Knoepfler, Switzerland has not been a pioneer in the field of victim-offender mediation (VOM). Still, VOM is slowly but irreversibly being integrated into the Swiss criminal justice system. Knoepfler highlights three successive stages to demonstrate this process: (1) the past, when Switzerland was on the margin of two trends stimulating VOM in other countries (restorative justice, and European initiatives in favor of a “policy of proximityâ€? in the areas of justice, policing, and social health); (2) the present, when interest in mediation grew in Europe in the 1990s and Switzerland could no longer ignore it; and (3) the future, when mediation will continue to develop more comprehensively in Switzerland due to reforms in criminal codes and procedures.
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