Restorative Justice

at post-sentencing level supporting and protecting victims

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The Victim-Offender Mediation and Reparation Program in Catalonia

(Translation of Abstract: M. Lourdes Fernandez Manzano - Spanish version)

Montserrat Martinez

 

The Victim-Offender Mediaton and Reparation Program began as a pilot project in 1998 with the goal of extending to the adult population the positive mediation experience that was being carried out with minors. Since then, the program has evolved and grown as part of a legal system that, although doesn’t explicitly regulate any practice of restorative justice itself, it provides several possibilities for recognizing legal purposes to repair the damage to victims by offenders, both in the pre-trial stage and in the post-sentencing stage.

Since then, the program has evolved and grown as part of a legal system that, while doesn’t explicitly regulate any practice of restorative justice itself, it provides several possibilities for recognizing legal purposes to repair the damage to victims by offenders, both in the pre-trial phase and in the post-sentencing phase.


The data reveals an increase in requests for victim-offender mediation (VOM) from year to year but also shows that in the post-sentencing level victims and offenders have significantly lower access to VOM than those whose cases are in a pre-sentencing phase.

In this context, the Justice Department, and particularly the Area of Reparation and Victim Support, has maintained a firm commitment to strengthen the program and to expand its scope. This, in addition to the extended experience and collaboration of professionals in prisons, led to the development of two referral protocols for two prisons: CPJoves and CP Ponent. Since being initiated, the amount of referred cases has permitted an initial assessment of the elements that can have a key impact on the viability of the VOM process in the post-sentencing stage.

A pilot project for cases in which offenders are serving a prison sentence has been elaborated as a consequence of the 2012/29/UE DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 25 October 2012, that establishes minimum standards for the rights, support and protection of victims of crime, replacing the Framework Decision 2001/220/JHA and Council, and in the framework of the "Restorative Justice at Post Sentencing Level, Supporting and Protecting Victims", co-financed by the European Union and led by the organization “Schleswig-Holstein German Association for Social Responsibility in Criminal Justice, and Victim-Offender Treatment”. This pioneering initiative in Spain collects reflections of mediators and involves rethinking some aspects of the practice of VOM in order to be able to provide more appropriate care for victims and offenders in a post-sentencing phase.

 

 

Montserrat Maria Martinez i Camps has a law degree from UAB. She has worked as a mediator of the Victim-Offender Mediation and Reparation Program in the Justice Department of Catalonia since 2000. She was the coordinator of this Program from 2007 to 2010. Montserrat Maria Martinez i Camps has also practiced as a lawyer and participates as a speaker at conferences and workshops both nationally and internationally. Moreover, she collaborates as a trainer in different masters and graduate programs in national universities.

 


With the financial support from the Criminal Justice Programme of the European Union. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibilty of "Schleswig-Holsteinischer Verband für soziale Strafrechtpflege; Straffälligen- und Opferhilfe e.V" and can in no way be taken to refect the views of the European Commission.