Restorative Justice Education from Intrajudicial Criminal Mediation Associated Factors

The restorative justice (RJ) paradigm requires coherence among legal, justice, and educational systems to promote a culture of restorative dialogue with victims of violence and to reintegrate aggressors into the community. The objective of this study, from an evolutionary social perspective, was to examine criminal mediation files in the archives of the Murcia Intrajudicial Criminal Mediation Service (UMIM), Spain, to see which variables are associated with which types of violence and understand the contents and adoption of agreements. In this study the sociodemographic, procedural, and interpersonal variables of 216 people who used criminal mediation were analysed. The results showed statistically significant differences concerning age, the procedural moment of referral, and the participants’ relationship. The main conclusions are that the youngest group had a more significant number of encounters with physical violence; most agreements occurred in the initial phase of a judicial procedure; and the majority of agreements had moral content regardless of the age of the parties involved. These factors are of interest to the establishment of judicial and educational restorative models.

Mediation service in special closed-type educational institutions (SCTEI)

The purpose of the research is to study the influence of the mediation service on the correction of SCTEI trainees, highlight their main differences with the psychological and pedagogical service, and conduct a comparative analysis of similar services abroad. Such fundamental methods of scientific knowledge as general methods (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, analogy), as well as special methods (comparative legal and formal legal), provided the methodological basis for this research. The work used the published data from the Pathways to Desistance studies; in relation to 1,354 juvenile offenders. The data from a survey of 100 minors held in SCTEI of the Siberian Federal District were used. The research results concluded that the creation at SCTEI of mediation services engaged in constructive conflict resolution and ensuring effective achievement of mutual understanding between the parties to the conflict determine the humanity of education, the priority of human life and health, the rights and freedoms of an individual. It was also found by the authors that it had had a positive effect on the creation of a culture of safe and trusting communication between students, their parents and the teaching staff of the institution, on the prevention of violent, aggressive approaches in interpersonal interaction, the prevention of manifestations of antisocial behaviour, professional and emotional burnout of employees. In addition, it was found that with the functioning of the mediation service, students at SCTEI would also get an idea of how to become a part of society. The novelty of the research is due to the author’s approach to the problem under study as well as the fact that during the research it was found that it is mediation that makes it possible to create a dual system model of self-control for students at SCTEI.

How is your client feeling? The power of mediation

This month, Jennie Jones from the Veterinary Client Mediation Service discusses how mediation can help to resolve client complaints

La percepción de los equipos de justicia restaurativa de Euskadi ante el protocolo del servicio de mediación intrajudicial de Euskadi (The perception of the restorative justice teams of the Basque intra-judicial mediation service on the operating protocol)

Este trabajo analiza la percepción de los equipos de justicia restaurativa de Euskadi en sede judicial ante el protocolo de funcionamiento del Servicio de Mediación Intrajudicial de Euskadi en el procedimiento de mediación penal. Mediante un estudio cualitativo y grupal por territorios (Araba, Gipuzkoa y Bizkaia), se abordan la definición, los sentimientos, los beneficios, las dificultades y riesgos y las nuevas propuestas que realizan las personas facilitadores de dicho servicio para la reforma de dicho protocolo. This paper analyzes the perception of the restorative justice teams in judicial settings in Basque Country about the operating protocol of the Intrajudicial Mediation Service of Basque Country in the penal mediation procedure. Through a qualitative and group study by territories (Araba, Gipuzkoa and Bizkaia), the definition, the feelings, the benefits, the difficulties and risks about the operating protocol are addressed. The research project also studies the new proposals made by the facilitators on the reform of the protocol.

School Mediation Service: Development of Conflict-Free Educational Space

The article shows the role of school mediation for the formation and development of legal educational space. The article describes the basic requirements for the creation and functioning of the school mediation service in an educational organization, such as: training of teachers, students and their parents (legal representatives); interaction of all participants in educational relations for the prevention and settlement of the confl ict situation. It is noted that the appearance of the fi rst school mediation services in educational institutions of the city of Smolensk become active in the framework of the regional innovation platform “Development of a common legal educational space in the educational innovation cluster”. It is shown that the rational understanding of the conditions for building a mediation system in an educational organization is provided by the method of SWOT analysis. The necessity of using mediation approaches for the formation of confl ict-free educational space in the region is emphasized.