Daniela V Stefanescu

Unless Restorative Justice Daniela V Stefanescu

In countries not legally recognizing Victim - Offender Conferencing, the offender is simply confronted with the legal terms and statements, laws, by acts of prosecutor and barristers. This type of isolation and confrontation may lead to a behavior based upon the need of the offender to escape from punishment or to defray as less as possible. It furthermore, may lead to a mentality neighboring revenge, as the sentence "we gonna see after I get out" is very well known all over the world. Keeping apart the victim and the offender, never gives the chance, neither to the offender to start an awareness process through a Restorative Analysis right after the act, nor to the victim to understand "why?" and to get to be empowered by requesting his dignity rights, to hear an appeal of forgiveness and to be able to grant forgiveness, of course in the limits of the legal framework, if any! Not to mention the cases when the offender is benefiting of a well-organized and excellent defense, yet the prosecutor is deficient in stating his position ... than, at the end of the trial, the offender gets acquittal by the judge and exults over the victim. Then, the victim is deepening its suffering and weakness, but the evildoer gets encouraged. In such a case, the consciousness of both becomes distorted in relation to the real social and justice values, and the confidence of both (victim and offender) regarding the system is flawed in dissimilar ways. The victim and the offender do not need to know more of the reality. They partook in the reality of their case, and they know the facts to a greater degree than any expert who could interrogate them, better than any barrister who would present their case to the court, more than any prosecutor or judge, who will study the proofs and hear the witnesses. What they both need is the truth about and from behind the facts, and Victim-Offender-Community Conferencing is the only chance for them to find out.