NCJ Number
103706
Date Published
1985
Length
14 pages
Annotation
Due to the inadequacies of the traditional criminal justice system, victims and offenders in Australia are using mediation and private corporate justice to manage responses to criminal offenses without involving the criminal justice system.
Abstract
The criminal justice system has typically focused on establishing a defendant's guilt and meting out punishment to those convicted. Neither the victim nor offender has a significant part in managing the consequences of the offense. This has led many victims and offenders to use alternative dispute settlement mechanisms to address criminal offenses. One principal mechanism has been mediation, which uses a neutral third party to facilitate a voluntary agreement between the offender and victim to resolve the conflict. This approach is typically used between individual victims and offenders who have an ongoing relationship and when the offense is relatively minor. Another alternative mechanism for addressing criminal offenses is private corporate justice, which involves negotiations between a victimized company and an offender, who has usually committed fraud or theft against the company. In such negotiations, the company is usually interested in maintaining secrecy for the offense to avoid damaging consequences to the company's reputation and economic stability. Private corporate justice does not usually involve a neutral third party. Due process safeguards for the offender are a central issue in such dispute processing. 27 references and a summary of a seminar discussion of the paper.