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Abstract: 

For criminal justice administrators who are managing a range of competing priorities with limited resources, making space for restorative approaches can be challenging. The challenge can be particularly daunting for correctional authorities in many jurisdictions, for whom restorative justice approaches are often considered outside their mandates and accountability structures. Prisons and community corrections are frequently viewed by the public as being almost exclusively instruments of punishment and rehabilitation. According to this view, their job is to focus on offenders: keeping them safely away from the community and making sure that when they do return, it is as law-abiding citizens. Growing public attention and interest in victims’ rights, however, underscores a conspicuous blind spot in our current formulations, pointing to the unaddressed harms of crime. For this reason, corrections officials are now increasingly exploring the feasibility of implementing and supporting restorative justice, particularly victim-offender mediation.

Keywords: victim-offender mediation

Affiliations:  1: Correctional Service Canada.