Why Restorative Justice? - Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

THE NEED FOR CHANGE
But, as Susan Herman, Director of the National Victims
Center in Washington, has pointed out, mediation cannot be the
answer to all victims’ needs. Most crimes are not reported, and of
those that are, most are not solved. Offenders may not wish to take
part in mediation. And those that do may have such limited
resources that victims’ long-term medical, psychological or
financial needs are unlikely to be met. Some seriously damaged
victims will still need long-term support that can only come from
the state. Nevertheless, very real benefits are reported by victims
and offenders who have taken part in mediation.
Jason’s story
Jason, a persistent young burglar, had been in court many times from the
age of 15. Whatever the magistrate said went in one ear and out of the
other. For him, the risk of punishment was an occupational hazard – it
was certainly no deterrent. As a child, Jason had often been left on his
own with only a box of cornflakes to eat while his mother went to the pub.
His first thefts were of food from local shops. He then joined other youngsters
on the estate to become an active burglar.
Jason often returned to the scene of the crime again and again. He
had stolen from the house of a woman nearby more than 11 times, taking
cash, cameras and television sets – which she replaced each time. He also
stole goods of sentimental value, whose loss added to her distress.
Such burglaries are often justified by young offenders like Jason on
the grounds that things stolen will be replaced – and upgraded fraudulently,
they assume – through insurance. That view implicates the victims
in gaining from their own loss, a kind of rough compensation. Jason saw
such cheating as all part of the game. Until they have been burgled themselves,
young offenders often feel no empathy for the victims of the harm
they have done, for the deeply unsettling experience of being invaded by
strangers, nor for the pain of losing apparently worthless personal items.
Jason’s most frequent victim found her successful life as a single
mother, running a business from home, deeply affected by him. His burglaries
terrified her into transforming her pleasant open-plan home into a
fortress, adding more alarms and barriers each time. Jason saw these not
as a deterrent but as a challenge. She finally installed iron gates which he
told me were useless: he could break in from the back.
Although Jason had been caught often – and spent time inside – no
one had told him about his primary victim. Despite having touched each
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