At a time when fear of crime is at an all-time high and demands for harsher punishment of criminals are rampant, how could anyone seriously advocate “victim-offender reconciliation”?
As Christians, who among us does not admire Christ’s teachings about forgiving our enemies and turning the other cheek? And yet, with the complexities of modern life, the feeling that more and more crime and violence surround us, does the gospel model of forgiveness and reconciliation really have any practical meaning? Some might think so—at least on a personal basis as experienced by members of Reba Place Fellowship in Evanston, Illinois. The more cynical among us might advise that becoming reconciled with the criminal who violated you is both dangerous and inappropriate. To the cynic, it would be inconsistent with the Christian concept of justice and accountability.
Yet, the fact remains that the type of reconciliation described by Dave Jackson and practiced by Fern and Marv Nisly with Victor, the offender, is not simply an isolated example of personally living out Christ’s message of reconciliation and peace. On the contrary, there is significant public interest being focused upon Victim Offender Reconciliation Programs (VORP). They offer practical benefits as an alternative to jail for certain property-related offenses, and they are being promoted in the United States primarily through the joint efforts of PACT (Prisoner and Community Together) and the Mennonite Central Committee. In recent months, victims and offenders in the PACT/MCC program have appeared on several national television programs, including NBC’S “Today.” VORP also has been increasingly highlighted in national and regional newspapers and magazines.
VORP began in 1975 in Elkhart, Indiana, and the PACT/MCC model is now being replicated in several counties of southern Indiana and in Lima, Ohio. Other communities have expressed their interest in these programs.
In virtually all of these efforts, local congregations and individual Christians have been active in developing the programs. Serving as both staff and volunteer mediators, these Christians have the opportunity of seeking to live out Christ’s fundamental teachings of reconciliation within one of the harshest and most violent institutions in modern society. As an alternative to costly and often debilitating incarceration, VORP provides a wide range of benefits to the victim, to the offender, and to the larger community.
The victim is given the rare opportunity of confronting the person who violated him. This face-to-face meeting in the presence of a trained community facilitator allows the victim to express intense feelings of frustration, hurt, and even anger. Many of his questions can be answered: Why me? How did you get into my house? Were you stalking me long? Why did you have to destroy my kid’s toys? Was there something I could have done to prevent you from coming in?
Beyond such important emotional benefits, the victim can work out acceptable restitution and repayment by the offender. In short, the traumatic experience of being a victim can be dealt with in a more whole sense, and brought to a close.
The offender is held personally accountable by the VORP process. He or she is in the equally rare situation of having to learn the human dimension of his or her criminal act. Though only property may have been stolen, the individuals who were victimized are still fearful and hurt. Face-to-face confrontation with the person the offender violated is not an easy experience for most of them. VORP also allows the less serious offender to avoid the destructiveness and violence of a prison experience. And finally, the offender is given the opportunity to share his own humanity, even to express sorrow and ask forgiveness.
The community at large also benefits from VORP. With prisons throughout our nation dangerously overcrowded, and the cost of building more prison cells skyrocketing, finding realistic and appropriate alternatives to incarceration of those guilty of moderately serious offences makes good sense. Taxpayers save an enormous amount of money with programs like VORP, which cost only a fraction of the price of prison incarceration. Perhaps even more important, a VORP program in a community strengthens the teaching of nonviolent techniques to resolve conflict. Nobody connected with the VORP process—whether victim, offender, or mediator—can leave the experience without being moved by the enormous power that can occur in Christian reconciliation.
Victim-offender reconciliation may seem to be too radical a departure from the traditional democratic criminal justice system for some. But in truth, VORP represents a return to some of the most fundamental Judeo-Christian values upon which our faith is built. Focusing upon personal accountability in response to community conflict, as well as emphasizing restitution, has a long history within Western civilization. Modern criminal law and its many legal abstractions—including defining more serious crimes as against “the state” and deemphasizing the role of the victim—is a relatively young historical development. As such, the victim-offender reconciliation process can play a prophetic role in calling us to reaffirm some fundamental truths of our Christian heritage and its application in modern life.
Mr. Umbreit is executive director of PACT (Prisoner and Community Together) with headquarters in Michigan City, Indiana. He is a lay leader in First United Methodist Church of Valparaiso, Indiana.
