In-Prison Victim Offender Conferences in New Zealand

The programme involves facilitating safely-structured meetings, usually in prisons, between those who have suffered from a crime, and the actual perpetrators of that crime.  Jackie Katounas has been facilitating these meetings since 1999, initially for the Hawkes Bay Restorative Justice Trust, and since 2001 for Prison Fellowship New Zealand.  In the last twelve months, she dealt with 31 referrals, five of which led to victim-offender conferences.   While most of the conferences are initiated by offenders, in the last twelve months four were initiated by victims.  Other Restorative Justice Providers have facilitated in-prison victim offender conferences, but Prison Fellowship is the primary service provider at present.  

Our capacity to facilitate victim-offender conferences is limited.  There is no funding available for victim-offender conferences in prisons, and funding is met from applications to charitable trusts and private donors. 

The Objectives of Victim-Offender Conferences

The objectives of providing victim-offender conferences are:

a)     To provide a service which enables the Department of Corrections to comply with and implement principles relating to restorative justice as required in current legislation affecting prisoners.

b)    To provide facilitated meetings between offenders in prison and their victims in accordance with the government’s Principles of Best Practice for Restorative Justice Processes in Criminal Cases and the Statement of Restorative Justice Values and Processes.

c)     To provide a restorative justice process which has the flexibility to accommodate different cultural practices, and in particular to provide a process which is congruent with values and processes in Maori and Pacific Island cultures.

d)    To aid the victim of a crime to recover, heal, and find resolution from the effects of the crime suffered.

Full article on Victim / Offender Conferences