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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Victim impact statements
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
What does you ETA actually mean, or are there a couple of words lost in the ether?
It means that practically speaking, I think that there are aspects of restorative justice that could run alongside the conventional system, whereas I get the impression you and Jon in the Nati seem to think it's an either/or deal. quote:
Mediation, AIUI in the legal sphere, is a form of alternative dispute resolution in which a mediator works to help parties reach their own resolution of a dispute. Such a method has no real place in the standard criminal justice system as a victim, either direct or indirect, is not a party.
Firstly, as explained above, if the victim of a crime is anything in France, they are a "civil party" to the criminal case.
On your main point, again, why is there not room for a prosecution of an offence on a criminal justice level AND resolution of a conflict/offence on an RJ level?
The problem I see is that application of conventional criminal justice alone (punishment, protection of society, rehabilitation) does not fully achieve its stated ends and in fact often works against them, in part because it ignores the relational factor.
(In fact, ironically given your references to "shock jocks", just about the only place it superficially succeeds is in the popular imagination, in which justice may be "seen to be done").
To return to my specific example, I think an encounter between the murderer and the victim's family would, for the offender, significantly increase the chances of their imprisonment being meaningful and constructive for them, and lower their chances of reoffending. What's not to like?
quote:
Closure is a word that is used a lot, but seems to me to be just a buzz-word, one used to sound good without actually meaning anything. What did you mean by it?
That is almost worth another thread in its own right, but to turn biblical for a moment, the immediate example that springs to mind is Joseph's encounter at the end of Genesis with his brothers after Jacob has died.
This involves a meeting, a discussion - that can be relatively dispassionate given that some time has passed - in which the wrong done can be put on the table and its effects assessed, in such a way that a page is turned and people can go on with their lives without constantly referring back to the incident - and perhaps feeling less tied to the opposing party. It marks the end of a process, so most of the hard work of recovery has probably gone on beforehand, and has something of a symbolic power for all involved. quote:
Off to open the wine and then have dinner.
And I'm off to have lunch. That's the best I could do amid hunger pangs.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
Your case would have a woman forced to confront her rapist, and I imagine that even with a video link, that is more than daunting.
You may have more of a point in the French/European system than in the common law world, where the victim (however defined) almost never* is not a party to a prosecution.
Otherwise, I don't think there's much to add to what I said before. RJ has worked in the very limited ways I've documented for very specific reasons. I can't see it having a similar result outside those spheres and there is certainly no evidence I know of to lead to any other conclusion. Alternative dispute resolution does work in civil cases and for very good reasons - and it involves the parties to the dispute.
*The sort of exception I have in mind is the prosecution by a local council of breaches of its ordinances.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
Saysay, your reference to action taken by police to enforce domestic violence orders sounds odd to my ears. The usual complaint here is that the police do not do enough to enforce those orders. Perhaps the clue to your comment is in the mandatory penalty - yet another example of the mistake in having a mandatory penalty.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Your case would have a woman forced to confront her rapist
![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif) I have said more times than I can count on this thread that I do not see confrontations occurring in all cases, and that my scenario was based on a real life murder case (so any confrontation would be with the indirect victims).
Nowhere have I suggested that all victims of rape would be forced to confront their aggressor.
(In fact one of the aspects of RJ I'm currently the least convinced about is its application to sex offences through "circles of accountability" (NB these do not involve any contact with victims) because of the profile of many of the offenders).
Your response also tends to prove my point that you insist on seeing this as an either/or issue, and I have no idea why.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jon in the Nati:
I stand duly corrected on how things work in Delaware; some research reveals that apparently things are run similarly in New Jersey as well. Nonetheless, in the vast majority of states, the local prosecutor is a county office, elected in a county election with no involvement by government of the state. Similarly, judges at the trial court level are elected by counties, again with no involvement from the state. Every prosecutor's office is run independently from the others, with decisions as to what charges to bring and when being the exclusive purview of the elected county prosecutor.
That seems to be about as local as it gets. What else would you prefer to see?
Clearly I've just been living in the wrong states for far too long.
But, since you asked, I'd like to see an end to this war of northern aggression and the Californication of the US. I'm tired of them dangling carrots in the form of federal funds in order to homogenize the country and eliminate regional variations, all the while making certain problems worse.
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Saysay, your reference to action taken by police to enforce domestic violence orders sounds odd to my ears. The usual complaint here is that the police do not do enough to enforce those orders. Perhaps the clue to your comment is in the mandatory penalty - yet another example of the mistake in having a mandatory penalty.
Please bear in mind that I spent a long time in the state where VAWA originated. Which, you know, good idea but horrible implementation.
In these parts, a lot of people won't call the cops for more or less anything because the cops are too unpredictable; nobody knows if they'll even show up, or if they do show up, what's going to happen, or whether or not someone's going to end up dead. On the other hand, people who don't have a lot of experience dealing with the police because they went to private schools and live in gated communities have a tendency to call them for anything.
So, in order to deal with the fact that abusees sometimes didn't want to file charges against their abusers (even when there was a visible sign of abuse), Delaware instituted a mandatory arrest policy, so that when the police were called on a domestic call, they had to arrest someone. When it started, the default assumption was that it was the man who was the abuser. Then for a while it was whoever didn't call the police (ie, if you were having a fight and it got bad enough that you thought you needed to call the police, then the person who didn't call the police was arrested). It ended with the police arresting both people in any number of cases. Which, you know, winds up getting ridiculous when someone is having a fight and the neighbors hear it through the walls and call the police and both people wind up in prison, lose their jobs, and face huge fines and mandatory re-education classes that also cost a lot because they called each other motherfuckers but the neighbors were worried that something else was going on (and/or because they think that name-calling is a form of emotional abuse).
I know that's not the case everywhere, but I have no idea how widespread it is.
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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
Eutychus, I don't see it as either/or - I simply don't see that RJ has a role to play in the criminal justice system as it operates here, with the minor exceptions I have noted. RJ proceeds on the basis that the victim, however defined, is a party to the proceedings, whereas the only parties here are the State and the accused/prisoner. France may be different.
BTW, I did not say that you personally advocated the confrontation, but that that was an inevitable consequence of the implementation of RJ. And a further example from today's online Sydney Morning Herald - a woman complaining that the system let her down, when what the system did was allow what seems to have been highly relevant evidence to be adduced that she would have kept hidden. IOW, what "the system" should provide is simply what any individual considers it should provide to them - and without regard to wider principle.
Saysay, domestic violence legislation and advocacy for battered wives has a much longer history here than 1994. A very common complaint over the years has been that the police do not enforce anti-violence orders, with disastrous consequences. That is why your comment about too swift an intervention by police sounds odd to me.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Saysay, domestic violence legislation and advocacy for battered wives has a much longer history here than 1994. A very common complaint over the years has been that the police do not enforce anti-violence orders, with disastrous consequences. That is why your comment about too swift an intervention by police sounds odd to me.
It has a much longer history here, just at the state or county level rather than the federal level.
[ 07. August 2014, 21:30: Message edited by: saysay ]
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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
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