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

Operative systems

If we consider its explicative systems, restorative justice is characterized by a multiplicity of models and programmes, which can be diversified depending on the type and entity of the conflict created by the offence. An attempt to reorder and classify the main mechanisms of reparative justice has been carried out by the International Scientific and Professional Advisory Council (ISPAC) during the preparatory work for the Tenth International Congress of the United Nations on Crime Prevention and offenders' treatment, which ended with the formulation of the famous Declaration of Vienna.

1) Victim-offender Mediation (VOM): by this name we mean an informal trial where offender and victim think and talk about the criminal event and the negative consequences that it has provoked, with the guidance of a mediator. Thus, they should achieve the common elaboration of a reparative programme.

2) Apology (formal apologies): with this expression we mean all verbal or written communication expressed by the author of the offence to the offended person, containing an admission of responsibility and formal apologies for such behaviour.

3) Community/Family Group Conferencing: this is a model of wider mediation, involving not only the offender and the victim but also their families and some representatives of the local community. They decide together how to manage the solution of the conflict, which is finally left to the guidance of a mediator.

4) Community/Neighbourhood Victim Impact Statements (VIS): this system is basically a declaration made by the victim or the community offended by the criminal event, stating the negative consequences arising from the crime (of a psychological, economical and physical nature). This declaration is addressed to the legal authority, in order to provide directions for a concrete determination of the punishment.

5) Community Restorative Board: this is a specific organism composed of a small group of citizens belonging to the local community, which get together for this very purpose. Their duty is to listen to the offender concerning his/her behaviour and the damaging event he/she has provoked, and to offer a choice of several possible reparations to be carried out within a certain time limit. Once the offender has carried out the reparation programme or project, the community board communicates its results to the legal authority.

6) Community sentencing /peacemaking circles: these are a kind of trial open to public participation, which must be performed only in cases of great gravity. In these cases the parties, their families and the members of the community involved in the criminal episode actively take part in the trial. This system gives the possibility to all the participant subjects to express their opinions, thoughts and needs. The trial ends with the drawing up of a reparation programme which can satisfy all parties involved.

7) Community Service: this expression indicates the work activity carried out by the offender for the benefit of the community.

8) Compensation Programs: this term refers to those public support programmes provided directly by the State in aid of the victims, including not only economical but also medical, social and psychological support.

9) Diversion: this is a very common expression indicating every deviation from the normal course of the criminal proceedings, before the sentence of charge.

10) Financial Restitution to Victims: this is the procedure through which the legal authority, also taking into account the victim impact statement (VIS, point n. 4), quantifies the damage the victims have suffered economically, and arranges for the money to be given to the offended persons.

11) Personal service to victim: generally this measure is used for the reparation of petty crimes committed by minors. It involves a work activity to be carried out directly for the benefit of the offended person.

12) Victim/Community Impact Panel: it is a kind of reparative justice with peculiar characteristics. Basically, a small group of victims (four or five at the most) meets a similarly small group of offenders, who are not however those who have offended them directly. The meeting is mainly for the victims' benefit. Its purpose is to make them talk about their sufferings and the negative consequences of the victimization experience, without aiming at a dialogical exchange between the parties. However, the main objective of the meeting does not exclude the possibility of increasing the offenders' understanding of their own responsibility and of the harmful profiles of criminal actions.