Crime and Mediation: Selection of Cases, the Significance and Meaning of Mediation to the Participants, and Reoffending (From Research Report Summaries 1999, P 58-61, 2000, Terttu Belgasem ed. -- See NCJ-187752)

• NCJ Number: 187757
• Author(s): Ida Mielityinen
• Date Published: 2000
• Length: 4 pages
• Sale Source: National Research Institute of Legal Policy
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: Finland
• Note: Publication no. 167, 1999

Annotation

This study examines the system for mediation in criminal and civil cases in Finland.

Abstract

The study focuses on three main questions: (1) selection for mediation, i.e., what cases are brought into mediation and why, examined on the basis of a questionnaire sent out to mediation offices and interviews with police and prosecutors; (2) the significance of mediation to the victims and offenders who participated, examined by following cases in mediation and interviewing victims and suspects; and (3) the effect of mediation on recidivism, examined by comparing offenders who participated with a matched group who did not participate. In general, prosecutors and police submitted cases to mediation on pragmatic grounds - to ease their own job - but for some there was a strong commitment to the ideology of mediation. Both offenders and victims believed that mediation as a procedure was more pleasant than what they imagined a trial would be. The study indicates that simple and easy measures usually fail to have a significant effect on recidivism and suggests the need for further research, research of a more sophisticated, preferably longitudinal, design to ascertain the effects of mediation on the probability of recidivism.