B Impact On Victims: Youth Restorative Justice Conference

B Impact on Victims

1 Current Involvement and Impacts

Not only do family members have the opportunity of joining a youth restorative justice conference, but the victims of the offences also have the opportunity and are required to take part in the conferencing process. The YJA mentions the requirements and options victims have when it comes to participating in a youth restorative justice conference. Victims are entitled to attend a conference and they can bring either a legal representative, a member of their family or another adult for support. For the victims to understand completely their ability to participate in a conference and how conferencing works, the convenor of the restorative justice conference will contact the victim and provide

The impacts and benefits youth restorative justice has on victims are that it allows for the victims to talk to the youth offender and tell their story, ask questions of the offender, and understand the offence committed against them and the offender's story. This allows the victim to have a say about not only the crime but also the outcome and what the young person should do to make up for the harm. From this, the victim can begin to move on from the crime and regain their confidence and sense of safety while they are out and in the community. Not only does restorative justice conferencing impact the victims, but the victims also have an impact on the youth offenders. By having the victims participate in a youth conference and tell their stories to the young offenders, the young people would start to understand the consequences and impacts that their actions had and begin to feel empathy towards the victim and remorse for their actions. This is a large part of why youth restorative justice conferences happen and why they are beneficial for both the youth offender and the victim. These are just some of the benefits and impacts youth restorative justice has on the victims of the

As victims will still have the opportunity to participate in different ways, they still have a voice and a chance to share their stories with the offender and how the crime impacted them. As the youth restorative justice conference does require some form of victim participation for the conference to happen, there is a concern that having the victim take part in the process or talk about the crime, may re-traumatise the victim further. An example of this was seen in the first case where the victim was so traumatised by the events, that they could not talk about it. Along with the concern of re-traumatising the victim, there is also the concern that a victim may still hold strong feelings of upset or anger towards the offender. While there is a pre-conference interview that takes place to see if the victims can participate in the conference, and the victims can still have strong feelings towards the youth offender. This can also cause victims to become hesitant to participate in the restorative justice conferencing process. If conferencing were to be mandatory for youth offenders, then not only will there be an increase in the number of conferences, but also a possible increase in these negative impacts on the victims. However, as there are already options and procedures in place for victim participation, it can be