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

The operational stages of the Calabria Region CMA

1. Preliminary stage

Under articles 9, 27 and 28 of Presidential Decree no. 448/88 the JPI, the JCH (through the YWO) and the State's Attorney are the judicial authorities entitled to establish which cases shall be referred to CMA. A similar decision can be also made out of court by the YWO. The above authorities shall submit the relevant case files which are preliminarily analyzed by CMA to eventually arrange an action plan. Thereupon the parties, i.e. offender(s) and victim(s), are sent for.

Invitation

It is a letter, signed by the CMA coordinator, giving date and hour to invite to mediation the parent of the juveniles as parties concerned, drafted in obedience to the current law on safe personal data (i.e. omitting the names of concerned counterparts and typology of offence which originated the court proceedings). As attachment a brochure is submitted informing of mediation, the Centre phone number and location with a small map.

Phone contact

Phone contact with the parties concerned is sought a few days after the letter has been forwarded with the aim of making sure that that the invitation was duly received, providing further clarification, relaxing tension as well as facing any obstacles to mediation connected with logistics, health and work problems, any other practical reasons or hand-off attitudes related to the traumatic event.

The consent can be sought during this first contact, also to shorten the procedure.

2. Introductory stage

Personal meeting

At the fixed date of meeting the consent of the parties concerned shall be sought separately on different days or if possible on the same day, yet at different times. In this framework particularly significant is the figure of the defence counsel trusted by the party. In this stage defence counsels are also invited, according to the parties' own will.

Feasibility assessment

On the basis of the parties' declarations and on the advice of their own counsels, the feasibility of a joint meeting is assessed to attempt mediation, whether it is convenient on the same day or at another date.

3. Mediation stage

The mediation task is coped with in the manner the CMA members regard as most appropriate and complying with the existing conflicting situations.

Admission

The parties are admitted into the mediation room, first without companions, and instructed on the session rules to be followed both by the mediation team under their code of conduct and by the parties themselves. The team takes up a role of supervisor responsible for the rules through respectful, fair, impartial communication and promotes moral or symbolic restitution agreements. A veritable restitution can be attempted if, and only if, the item is peacefully dealt with by either party, otherwise the matter is referred to other conditions under the specification that, regardless of the outcome of the ongoing criminal proceedings, as well as of the mediation process, a civil action for restitution can always be instituted by the victim.

The team favours a peaceful mood, through the parties' mutual respect, impartial and uncommitted, carries on its action towards mutual comprehension, paraphrasing the contents of statements, helping painful feelings come back to mind as were caused by the offence and its consequences and by doing so promoting its understanding in the other party, while hopes and expectations emerge in the people concerned.

Leave

If mediation turned out positively, information is provided, if possible, on discontinuing the action filed by the victim. The team validates any previous restitution agreement and informs the parties they shall be heard for follow-up.

Remand

When the team recognizes that other persons or groups of persons (relatives, friends, etc.) are actually involved in a major conflict, where the offence is merely an aspect, not even the most significant, it establishes they should be a party to the mediation process. The previous steps, i.e. invitations and consent seeking, are retraced to prepare the new parties to a joint meeting.

Direct mediation

When a joint meeting is not feasible (owing to logistics, health and/or old age of people concerned), yet the consent of the victim is already expressed, and specifically the conflict seems to be lived through, indirect mediation takes place through a mediator who, shuttling back and forth between the victim and the offender, informs of mutual wills or requests as well as of requisites for a smooth settlement of interpersonal relationships.

4. Informing the Prosecuting Authority

The outcome of mediation

At the same time the outcome is shortly reported to the referral source by mentioning no fact or declaration whatsoever emerged during the sessions (top secrecy is guaranteed throughout), yet only the personal path of the parties whereby they proved overcoming the conflict, as well as any restitution which may have been agreed upon.

An anamnestic file is written with the case outcome, short of any reference to the parties involved, for mere purposes of yearly statistics of mediation activities. Positive are meant the cases which helped get through the conflict, even when the action is not discontinued because the offence is indictable; in these cases the mediation activity is of great significance from the pedagogical viewpoint and, in some specific instances, to eventually apply less afflictive penal measures against the indicted juvenile. The practitioners, magistrates, lawyers, youth services, are also interested in long-term follow-up of mediation activities; for this purpose a research on recidivism rates is under way.

The causes of unsuccessful mediation can be ascribed to:

a) number of problems affecting individuals and/or their families, sometimes severe pathologies (alcoholism, drug addiction, psychic disorders etc.); these may compromise a fruitful action of CMA that would timely inform the competent Welfare Offices thereof;

b) familiar conflicts with separated parents for which familiar mediation was clearly more appropriate;

c) ongoing mutual complaints also with repeated offences;

d) more or less latent long-standing unrest among larger groups involved, due to family or neighbourhood links, etc.;

e) further subjects having leading roles in the conflict.

"Unfeasible" were cases where the parties did not show up when they were invited or got into contact with, despite written invitations or phone contact as provided in the procedure, to seek consent. Unfeasibility accounts also for cases of major criminal suspicions (criminal and/or mafia activities, paedophilia) where it turned out that reconciliation would be against the interests of the indicted juvenile.