Tools in Network: an E-Net Approach to Sharing Mediation Competences.

Essence and function of restorative justice

G. Mannozzi has pointed out six specific steps as the main objectives of reparative justice:
"1) Recognizing the victim: the offended party must be able to feel they are right and regain control over their own lives and emotions, gradually leaving behind all feelings of revenge, resentment and mistrust towards the authority which should have protected them.
2) Repairing the offence in its "global" dimension: apart from the strictly economical component of the damage, in order to repair the damage it is necessary to consider also the emotional dimension of the offence, which could cause collective uncertainty inducing the citizens to change their behavioural habits. In order to do this, it is necessary to take into account the principle of proportionality and to be careful not to fall into forms of disguised retribution. In fact, the active behaviour expected of the author is not imposed with an afflictive function, but with a reconciling and reparative one.
3) Making the offender self-responsible: every attempt to promote concrete reparative activities must imply the offender's agreement, especially if we consider that the reparation follows a course that should lead the offender to re-elaborate the conflict and the reasons behind it, to recognize his/her own responsibility and to feel the need for reparation.
4) Involvement of the community in the reparation process: the community should be able to play a twofold part: not only - reductively - that of usufructuary of the reparation policies; but mainly that of social actor in the "peace-making" process arising from the offender's reparative action.
5) Strengthening moral standards: concrete behavioural instructions for the members of the community should be found in the communicative and community management of the conflict and in the actual reparative activities. These should follow the principle which general positive prevention theories are based on: that of contributing to the strengthening of collective moral standards.
6) Limitation of social alarm: it is necessary to point out that it is possible to reach this goal only if the management of certain events is given back to the community, when these events have a relevant impact on the safety perceived by its members".

The positive effects of penal mediation programmes are found not only in the short term, in the immediate satisfaction of the parties involved; but also in the long term, as they can have a positive effect in terms of crime control. In fact, reparative justice implies a series of intervention strategies which seem to influence the so-called 'neutralization techniques' that are typical of deviant behaviours, as described by Sykes and Matza's theory. The latter analyses the phenomenon of deviance as a 'criminal behaviour' rather than as the product of causal variables of a genetic, environmental or psychological kind. According to the authors, deviant behaviours are due to five neutralization techniques: 1) denial of own responsibility (the deviant is convinced to be forced to commit the crime by external factors); 2) minimization of the damage caused (the deviant diminishes the immoral component of the offence, assuming that actions can be illegal without necessarily being immoral); 3) denial of the victim (the offender tends to deny the role of victim for some categories of individuals that in his/her opinion deserve being offended, such as immigrants, homosexuals or wealthy people); 4) condemnation of those who condemn (magistrates and police are hypocritical and corrupt); 5) claim to superior ideals that justify this conduct (not betraying a friend who has problems with the police is more important than the juridical duty of reporting an offence). If we carefully consider the behavioural strategies as outlined by these two experts, it is clear that the fundamental guidelines of reparative justice perfectly influence at least the first three neutralization techniques.