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Mind Map 4 - Coggle Diagram
Mind Map 4
QUESTION 4:
What benefits does victim-offender mediation provide?
Understanding the offenders persepective
A chance for the victim be given closure
Getting the 'enterity' of the story
Ability to clear up any 'foggy' memories of the crime
A chance to 'face your fear'
Understand that your feelings towards the crime are valid
Understand and come to terms that you are a victim
Givs the offender a chance to see how their actions can effect someone so greatly
All participants felt similar when prompted with this question. They all felt there were some great benefits that could only be attained through victim-offender mediation. Some of these benefits are:
There could be complications of meeting, such as:
Triggering the victim and bringing up repressed memories
Making the victim feel uncomforable and unsafe
Giving the offender another chance to 'mess with' the victim
To conclude, the age, gender or social upbringing of the interviewees did not change the outcome of their answers, They all felt there could be benefits to the victim-offender mediation, however they all recognize there is always a chance it could gave a negative effect on both parties
If the offender was driven by anger, or desire to cause harm, seeing what they did could prompt them to do it again. it could give them a horrid sense of satisfaction
QUESTION 1:
Do you believe victims ever feel unsatisfied with restorative justice practices?
According to all the interviewee's, they believe victims can feel unsatisfied with restorative justice practices.
They feel this way because they want the offender to pay for the consequences of their actions. Victims could also feel unsatisfied if the offender did not receive a jail sentence that they feel is long enough in regards to the crime they committed.
An example of victims being unsatisfied was brought up by Antonella Savaglio. Marco Muzzo was a drunk driver who killed 4 people and is now on full parole without serving his whole sentence. The victims most definitely feel like he did not serve his whole sentence, thus being unsatisfied with. restorative justice practices.
The premise of restorative justice is to effectively reduce recidivism while trying to satisfy the victim that justice has been served.
QUESTION 2:
Can restorative justice be applied to all types of crimes?
All participants believed that restorative justice cannot be applied to all types of crimes. The reasoning they gave for this is the misguided belief that punishment and incarceration reduces recidivism. Therefore, the participants believed that in order for an individual to refrain from committing crimes, they must be punished for their previous offences.
Even when confronted with the fact that, statistically speaking, retributive justice actually has a higher recidivism rate than restorative justice and that incarceration can lead to increased aggression making an individual more likely to commit violent crimes (Gilligan, 2000), participants were still adamant that retributive justice was the way to go in order to reduce the rates of violent crime
The interviewees' answers to this question seems to counteract their progress in understanding the positive effect of restorative justice in the previous interviews. They were adamant in their beliefs that restorative justice is ineffective and that individuals must be punished in order to make progress. Their answers here, however, seem to directly contradict their answers in the next question (Question 3).
QUESTION 3: Is inflicting pain an ineffective way to attain justice? Why or why not?
All interviewees agreed that inflicting pain is an ineffective way to obtain justice. This is because inflicting pain can cause offenders to have repressed anger that they can project towards the society when their punishment is over. This highlights the fact that all interviewees agree with the saying in Gillian’s paper stating that “you can lock a dog in a closet for a month, but I don't want to be the one who's standing there when you let him out.” Thus, while inflicting pain can appear to be an effective way to punish criminals, there is a high chance that the resulting consequences will be more harmful to the society.
In the previous question (Question 2), participants said that they don't believe that restorative justice is effective in reducing recidivism rates and believed that punishment would be more effective. However, when confronted with the alternative; which is punishment and pain to the individual in order to get them to "learn," the participants still refused that option, contradicting themselves.