Victim-Offender Reconciliation Programs

Victim-offender reconciliation programs (VORPs) constitute one of several types of victim-offender interventions employed within the larger philosophical and applied approach to crime and conflict called “restorative justice.” The specific attributes of restorative justice interventions and programs vary. However, as pioneer in the field of restorative justice Howard Zehr has argued, most restorative justice interventions (including VORPs) share at least four assumptions:

• Crime can be better understood as harms and violations of relationships than as a breaking of the law.
• The focus of justice systems should be primarily on identifying the needs of victims and the obligations of offenders to make things right.
• Victims (and not the state) should be the central party defining the harms caused to them, and victims should be provided an opportunity to define and address these harms directly to offenders, when requested and when possible.
• When offenders are amenable and able, they should be provided an opportunity to make amends and to repair harms caused to victims and to be accepted back into their communities upon restoration of harms caused.

Following these assumptions, restorative justice interventions seek to bring offenders and victims together to meet in order to achieve these goals. In the case of VORPs, such meetings generally employ the use of volunteers or professionals trained in conflict resolution and mediation. Some VORPs are conducted without any prior contact between the mediator and the victim or offender, but this is perhaps less common today than it once was, in that the mediator often has an initial meeting with one or both parties to explain the VORP process and to address concerns or questions from either party.

VORPs usually begin with the mediator or volunteer explaining the purpose of the meeting and the processes and guidelines that each party is expected to follow. Although these processes and guidelines vary, there has been an extensive development of “best practice” research on the use of VORPs and victim-offender mediations (VOMs) since the 1980s. Following this research and the experience of practitioners, VORPs are generally designed to move through a process of explanation, clarification and discussion, and (when possible) agreement. Each party is provided an opportunity to speak without interruption on the event or harm as that party sees it. For victims, this frequently entails a description of the effects of the harms caused to them, as well as other concerns immediate to their well-being or sense of mind. For offenders, this frequently includes an explanation of why they did what they did, reassurances to the victim, and even justifications for the offense.

Clarification and discussion involve both the opportunity to ask questions of either party and dialogue regarding motives and intent (on the part [Page 443]of the offender) and further explanation or elucidation of harms and concerns (on the part of the victim). Offenders often make apologies for their actions, either in the explanation or the clarification phase, but VORPs are also structured in a way that ideally moves the offender past mere apology into a conversation with the victim about concrete ways he or she can make amends. Agreements, however, are not the only goals of VORPs, and they are seen as desirable only when offenders and victims reach them willingly. Once an agreement has been reached, it is usually entered into a contract with conditions that may include the possibility of further charges if the agreement is not completed by the offender or, alternatively, no charges or the dropping of charges when the agreement is completed.

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