Coordinator: Foresee Research Group (Hungary)
Partners:
Independant Academic Research Studies (UK), National Institute of Criminology (Hungary), INNOKUT researching ltd. (Hungary), Victim offender mediation service Bremen (Germany), University of applied sciences in public administration in Bremen (Germany), European forum for restorative justice (Belgium) .
Funding: With Financial Support from Criminal Justice Programme, European Commission—Directorate—General Justice, Freedom and Security
Summary: The main object of the project, as stated above is to explore the opportunities for implementing mediation and RJ practices into the prison settings. Further aim is to test if such practices can help supporting victims of crime, raising responsibility-taking in offenders, supporting the prison staff and inmates in peacefully resolving their internal conflicts and reintegrating offenders into society after release. Piloting RJ in the correctional settings also allows to test the potential of RJ in the most serious crimes that usually have a significant impact on both victims and offenders.
Methods:
- in-depth interview and focus group meetings with staff of prisons, juveniles and adult offenders, victims, criminal justice practitioners, policy makers and other stakeholders about their attitudes towards RJ (interviews conducted with victims depend on whether the researchers will manage to have legal access to victims’ data).
- action research
- awareness raising for correctional staff
- advanced RJ training about the use of RJ techniques in prisons for practitioners and mediators
- organising and evaluating pilot RJ meetings to resolve disputes between staff members, inmates, victims and community representatives.
For more information on this project visit the project’s site.
