“We’ve Got History Now”: Victim and Justice-Involved Youth Experiences During Mediation Sessions

Abstract

Victim-offense mediation (VOM) is the process by which victims of crime meet the involved youth, in the presence of trained mediators, to process and address the emotional and practical ramifications of the crime. We aimed to qualitatively understand the experiences of victims and justice-involved youth during mediation sessions. Participants were recruited from one American and one Canadian mediation center, We combined field observations, semi-structured interviews, and multiple case study analyses with reflexive thematic analysis to explore nine cases of VOM participants’ experiences of the process and its potential link with various desired outcomes immediately following VOM. We generated five themes: Attempting to Satisfy Mediation Needs, Apologies, The Gravitational Pull of Victims, Finding a Healing Connection, and Corrective Emotional Experience & Challenged Expectations. We discuss these themes, the importance of relational processes, the importance and potential burden of the compelling victim, corrective emotional experiences, and the potential role of the mediators.