Victim-offender mediation with juvenile offenders in norway

Abstract

Contemporary Victim-Offender Mediation (VOM) in Norway started out with Nils Christie's seminal lecture, later published as a journal article, "Conflicts as property" (Christie, 1978). The core of his article revolves around crimes being redefined as conflicts between victims and offenders. These conflicts, he claimed, are stolen from their rightful owners by professionals like lawyers, psychologists etc., not to mention the state itself. Christie proposed to establish an alternative to the professional penal system where the parties in conflict (i.e. the victim and the offender themselves), take an active part in the process of finding a solution to their problem (i.e. the aftermath of the crime). The presentation of these ideas coincided with a general search in the late 1970s and 1980s for alternative ways of dealing with delinquency. Avantgarde bureaucrats and politicians alike, particularly the Minister of Justice at the time, eagerly took this opportunity. A report was made to Parliament focusing on criminal policy in general, and juvenile delinquency in particular. This report created the formal platform necessary to engage in alternative ways of dealing with conflict, which in practice mainly meant supporting VOM for juveniles. The Government established a five year project, "Alternatives to prison for juveniles" (1980-85), which was administered by the Ministry of Social Affairs. The aim of the project was to develop and test out new ways of handling juvenile delinquency if the age of criminal responsibility were to be raised from 14 to 15. Part of the project was a pilot in one municipality, testing out VOM as well as mediation in civil conflicts where juveniles were involved. The pilot project was organised under the child care service, in a small rural municipality. In 1983, after the pilot project had been completed and evaluated (Bay and Støle, 1983), the Ministry of Social Affairs invited the 435 municipalities in Norway to engage in project-based experimentation with VOM for juveniles. The government offered no extra monetary support to the municipalities, but in 1987 a National Mediation Service Centre was established to give guidance and practical support to the municipalities when establishing VOM, i.e. the mediation services. The Centre was first located in the Department of Criminology, Faculty of Law, at the University of Oslo, but was later moved to a College of Applied Social Sciences in Oslo. Throughout the 1980s 81 municipalities tried out VOM in an unsystematic and scattered way. Evaluation was undertaken later, in 1990, by the National Mediation Service Centre. The main findings were that few cases were referred for VOM. In 1988 the 81 mediation services received 266 cases, i.e. 3,6 cases per service (Nerga°rd, 1990). It was also clear that in the municipalities where there was a full-time or part-time coordinator for the mediation service, more cases were referred by the police and prosecution authorities than where the mediation service was handled by a social worker, on top of his/her ordinary work at the social welfare office, or by an employee in the child care service. As mentioned, the mediation services also offered the possibility of mediation in civil cases. The scope was twofold: 1) to empower the local community in handling different kinds of conflicts and petty crimes, 2) to prevent conflicts from resulting in criminal offences by dealing with the conflicts at an early stage. Civil cases are mainly referred by one of the parties in conflict. Neighbour conflicts and family conflicts are the most common kinds. This means that most of the civil cases can be defined as community mediation cases. In 2001 the number of civil cases formed 11% (14 5% in 2003) of the total caseload handled by the mediation services. VOM was, in the experimental phase, an option only for juveniles, i.e. for offenders between 14 and 18 years. (Until 1991 the age of criminal responsibility was 14, when it was raised to 15 years.) Mediation was introduced as an alternative response to a fine, a conditional sentence, or a decision not to bring criminal charges. VOM was, at this stage, solely a diversionary measure. In the pilot project the referral of criminal cases to mediation was regulated by guidelines contained in a letter (1980) from the Director General of Public Prosecution (DGPP). In 1983, when all municipalities were invited to establish a mediation service, a circular letter was drafted and distributed to public prosecutors. In 1988 the DGPP proposed to the Ministry of Justice that mediation services should be regulated by law. The Parliamentary Bill concerning mediation services was passed in 1991. Meanwhile in 1989 the DGPP had issued a new circular letter that improved and replaced the former one from 1983. In the 1989 circular, it was no longer a condition that the offender should be a firsttimer; neither was there an upper age limit of 18 any more. The 1989 circular letter has since then been replaced by a circular issued in 1993. In spite of the small number of cases handled by the mediation services, Parliament unanimously passed the bill for the legislation of the mediation services. This means that the mediation services became regulated by a separate Act. For more on legislation and regulations, see section 3. © 2005 Springer.