Talking as restorative justice : a conversation analysis of victim-offender meetings

The purpose of this research was to examine the restorative justice meeting as a form ofinstitutional talk, identifying significant asymmetries in the talk, and acknowledging how thiscontributed to achieving restoration. This study used audio-recordings of five restorativejustice meetings organised as victim-offender mediation sessions and including adultoffenders. The recordings were transcribed and examined using the method of conversationanalysis. Findings revealed that restorative justice meetings were framed by institutional talk.They were organised using specialised turn-taking procedures and pre-allocated roles.Facilitators asked questions and victims and offenders answered them. The answers givenwere assessed by facilitators for adequacy and accounts were persuasively re-narrated whenthey did not align with the objectives of the meeting. Asymmetry was demonstrated when thetalk of offenders was heavily scrutinised and challenged by facilitators. The talk of victimswas supported, they were asked open questions and given the opportunity to provideextended answers, allowing them to express themselves. A question was asked in thereparation phase that offenders interpreted as an invitation to apologise. Through thequestion-answer framework, some apologies were directed at victims and included ademonstration of remorse and received a response. Other apologies were directed atfacilitators with no demonstration of remorse, resulting in no response from victims. Theseapologies were less effective because no response meant the apologies could not be accepted.These findings were further confirmed by the counterexample of Meeting Three where,because a victim did not attend, the meeting was less formally organised and resulted inrestoration not being achieved. Overall, institutional talk, asymmetrical relationships betweenfacilitators, victims and offenders and the attendance of the victim contributed to theachievement of the main objective of restorative justice for this scheme which was offenderrestoration.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral (Level 8)

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Langford, R

Language dc:language

en

Identifier

oai:salford-repository.worktribe.com:1337496

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:salford-repository.worktribe.com:1337496