Department of Psychology of Conflict, Risk and Safety, University of Twente.
Law Hum Behav. 2017 Aug;41(4):385-397. doi: 10.1037/lhb0000242. Epub 2017 May 1.
Restorative justice policies and programs aimed at facilitating victim-offender mediation (VOM) are part of many criminal justice systems around the world. Given its voluntary nature and potential for positive outcomes, the appropriateness and feasibility of VOM after serious offenses is subject to debate in the literature. In light of this discussion, this study first aimed to unravel the prevalence of serious offenses in cases registered for VOM and examined whether crime seriousness predicts whether mediated contact is reached between victims and offenders. Second, it tested the hypothesis that victims of increasingly serious, harmful crimes are more willing to participate when more time has elapsed since the offense-in contrast to victims of less serious, harmful crimes. We analyzed 199 cases registered for VOM in the Netherlands and coded the perceived wrongfulness, harmfulness, and average duration of incarceration of an offense as 3 distinct indicators of crime seriousness in these cases. The findings revealed that cases registered for VOM (a) are, in terms of the incarceration duration, on average more serious than all offenses in the population, and (b) resulted in mediated contact (or not) independently of the 3 seriousness indicators. In addition, empirical support was found for the hypothesis that victims' willingness to participate in VOM increased over time after more harmful offenses, whereas it decreased when offenses inflicted less harm. These findings suggest that when VOM programs operate irrespectively of the time elapsed after crime, mediated contact between parties may be as likely after minor and serious offenses. (PsycINFO Database Record
旨在促进受害者与犯罪者调解（VOM）的恢复性司法政策和方案是世界上许多刑事司法系统的一部分。鉴于其自愿性质和潜在的积极成果，在严重犯罪后进行 VOM 的适当性和可行性在文献中存在争议。鉴于此讨论，本研究首先旨在揭示已登记用于 VOM 的严重犯罪案件的发生率，并检验犯罪的严重程度是否预示着受害者和犯罪者之间是否达成调解接触。其次，它测试了这样一个假设，即随着时间的推移，受害者对越来越严重、有害的犯罪的参与意愿会增加，而对不太严重、有害的犯罪的参与意愿会降低。我们分析了在荷兰登记的 199 起用于 VOM 的案件，并将感知到的错误、伤害和犯罪的平均监禁期编码为这些案件中犯罪严重程度的 3 个不同指标。研究结果表明，已登记用于 VOM 的案件（a）在监禁时间方面，平均比人群中的所有犯罪都严重，并且（b）与 3 个严重程度指标无关，独立导致调解接触（或不接触）。此外，还为以下假设提供了实证支持，即受害者在经历更严重的犯罪后，参与 VOM 的意愿会随着时间的推移而增加，而在犯罪造成的伤害较小时，这种意愿会降低。这些发现表明，当 VOM 计划独立于犯罪发生后的时间运作时，轻微犯罪和严重犯罪后双方之间达成调解接触的可能性是相同的。
