RESTORATIVE JUSTICE AT POST- SENTENCING LEVEL IN EUROPE Funded by the European Union - JUST/2011/JPEN/AG/2970 Edited by Ricarda Lummer, Otmar Hagemann, and Sónia Reis Schleswig-Holstein Association for Social Responsibility in Criminal Justice; Victim and Offender Treatment in co-operation with Kiel University of Applied Sciences Faculty of Social Work and Health Contributions express the opinion of the author and not necessarily those of the editor or the publisher. The publisher is not liable for any copyright infringement done by the author. Articles and images are copyrighted. ii SCHRIFTENREIHE SOZIALE STRAFRECHTSPFLEGE BAND 3 Layout: Ricarda Lummer Print: hansadruck und Verlags-GmbH & Co KG, Kiel ISBN: 978-3-00-048375-2 © 2015: Authors and Schleswig-Holstein Association for Social Responsibility in Criminal Justice; Victim and Offender Treatment Ringstraße 76, 24103 Kiel Publication as part of the project: ‘Restorative Justice at post-sentencing level; supporting and protecting victims’ JUST/2011/JPEN/AG/2970 funded by the European Union. The Commission is not responsible for the content contained. iii Content Content Foreword ................................................................................................................... 1 Anke Spoorendonk Introduction ............................................................................................................... 3 Otmar Hagemann PART 1 – LITERATURE REVIEW Literature Review on RJ at post-sentencing level and victim support ................. 5 Otmar Hagemann, Friederike Reinhardt and Ricarda Lummer PART 2 – THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES Restorative Justice in Prison: The Offender Perspective...................................... 23 Martin Hagenmaier Victims Perspective: Victim Perspectives on Post-Sentencing Restorative Justice in cases of Serious Crimes ........................................................................ 35 Nadia Marie Wager and Angel Rhain Wager Prison System: what does the implementation of RJ mean within the current system? - The face behind the fence ....................................................... 46 Borbála Fellegi and Dóra Szegő PART 3 – PILOT PROJECT RESULTS Thames Valley – Geoff Emerson and Mary Hallam ............................................. 60 Schleswig-Holstein – Ricarda Lummer ................................................................. 74 Croatia – Mladen Knežević .................................................................................... 90 Portugal – Artur Santos ......................................................................................... 97 PART 4 – CASE STUDY Belgium: A Murder Case – Kristel Buntinx ........................................................ 106 PART 5 – CONCLUSION Overall Project Results and Recommendations ................................................ 109 Marc Cerón, Johannes Sandmann and Jo Tein BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................... 114 Anke Spoorendonk: Foreword FOREWORD ANKE SPOORENDONK – MINISTRY OF JUSTICE, CULTURE AND EUROPEAN AFFAIRS; FEDERAL STATE OF SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN, GERMANY The Schleswig-Holstein Association for Social Responsibility in Criminal Justice, Victim- and Offender Treatment was lead partner of the EU funded project “Restorative Justice at Post Sentencing level; Supporting and Protecting Victims” in the years 2013 and 2014. 21 government- and nongovernment organizations from Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Germany, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the UK took part in this project. In this way a relevant contribution to the implementation of the Victims’ Directive of the European Union (2012/29/EU) was achieved in all these countries. As members of the European Union we are all committed to strengthen the interests of victims in criminal procedures, therefore this is a very positive development. In Schleswig-Holstein victim-offender-mediation (VOM) has been practised suc- cessfully since 1993, mainly in the pre-sentencing stage of criminal procedures. Since 2012 the government has started to intensify the qualification of new mediators and at the same time the financial funding of VOM services as well as the number of staff in this field was increased. These measures have led to a significant increase of cases, especially in VOM in juvenile cases. The VOM approach, in comparison with court procedures, gives more room for the examination of the physical and psychological damages that victims are confronted with as well as for the development of coping strategies. The role of crime victims in court procedures is manly restricted to being a witness. This is completely different in VOM conferences. Here the offender learns about the consequences of his offence and empathy for the victim and the inflicted harm is created. At the same time this leads to a more sustainable prevention of reoffending compared with traditional ambulant sanctions in the frame of criminal court procedures. But above all crime victims can express and reduce their fears. We know that victims are very often left alone with their negative experiences and that they may even need psychological or medical treatment to address their traumas. Whole families are affected by this. International experience, as well as that of our mediators, shows that direct communication between victims and offenders, that is facilitated by professionals, can lead to a significant reduction of these negative consequences. I am convinced that mediative elements can be sensible additional components that foster the aim of reintegration also in our prison services. In addition to the services that address occupational resettlement, debt counselling, therapy and social counselling as well as the family oriented activities, prisoners shall have the chance to work off the ultimate causes of their offence and to compensate the harm that was done. Restorative Justice focuses on the victim’s perspective as the core of a criminal offence. Apart from material compensation Restorative Justice aims at the reconciliation of victims and offenders. At the same time 1 Restorative Justice at post-sentencing level in Europe social contexts as for example families, peer-groups and the society in general are integrated in the process. In this sense mediation in prison includes victim empathy training and other approaches that focus on the offence and that involve prisoners and their relatives. In the frame of the EU funded project such measures were successfully carried out in Kiel Adult Prison and in Schleswig Juvenile Prison. Face to face meetings of victims and offenders that are prepared in a professional and sensitive way as well as options of material compensation should additionally form integral parts of the correctional schemes in the future. The long lasting involvement of the Ministry of Justice and of the Schleswig- Holstein prison service in innovative international projects is part of the overall process. It is our aim to put the measures that were developed in the project “Restorative Justice at Post Sentencing level; Supporting and Protecting Victims” into sustainable practice in our prison services. They are beneficial, very concrete and they serve the interests of victims of criminal offences. The Schleswig-Holstein Juvenile Detention Act that has just been adopted by the parliament as well as the draft of a new Adult Prison Act therefore normalize an obligation of detention and prisons to offer prisoners and their victims Restorative Justice services. We are planning further such obligations in our Pre Trial Detention- and in the Juvenile Prison Acts. The Schleswig-Holstein government regards the enhancement of victim-offender-mediation and overriding Restorative Justice services as forward-looking in the context of a socially responsible criminal justice system. I would therefore like to thank all participants of the EU funded project and all authors of this book for their valuable contributions to the implementation of the EU Victims’ Directive and also to the further development of RJ here in Schleswig-Holstein. 2 Otmar Hagemann: Introduction INTRODUCTION OTMAR HAGEMANN This book - as probably nearly all endeavours of this kind - is a compromise. Because of limited resources we were not able to include all the material we produced within our project and I have to be brief and not repeating the project history and internal logic which is presented by Jo Tein et al. in the chapter on conclusions. The first part of this book after the words of welcome by the Schleswig-Holstein Minister of Justice contains a review of the most relevant literature for this project. It is neither an annotated bibliography nor a summarizing article, but something in between. The second part deals with theoretical perspectives. Martin Hagenmaier, the pastor of the Kiel prison, puts himself into the position of an inmate. From this life world experience he keeps an eye on coping with imprisonment but also with the fact of being responsible for the suffering of some victims. Hagenmaier links some theological convictions (basic knowledge, insights, wisdom) with RJ basics which lead us to reconsider classic texts of Foucault and Goffman. Nadia and Angel Rhain Wager take the opposite perspective by arguing explicitly from the victims’ side of view. They stress that most victims participating in RJ procedures experience less fear, anger, PTSD and vengefulness in comparison to those taking part in traditional criminal justice procedure. Many