What do you think of restorative justice?

Some really great posts on this thread.

The other part of the reason why this whole idea is wrong - as well as all the stuff already brilliantly expressed - is that it reduces the crime to a private matter between individuals (or rather demonstrates the tendency that society has to see rape as a minor social infraction rather than a proper crime). With crimes, it doesn't matter how the victim feels about them - the person burgled might feel sorry that they are so wealthy and the burglar so poor and desperate - but nonetheless the justice system kicks in, the burglar is tried, convicted and punished by institutions that stand for society and which are acting to show that you cannot violate society without being punished. This is saying that rape is not wrong in that way, is not an absolute violation of society's norms, or not completely; but rather an unfortunate hiccup between individuals that is as likely to be a misunderstanding as anything else.

Also the discussion has pretty much gone beyond what omg first posted.

...but Omg20 didn't actually express an opinion on rape, he just asked a question :s
im not a mum and im on mumsnet, should i leave now?
just because you're a woman doesn't mean you'd have a clue how you'd feel if you were raped

ooh yes engelbert, now thta is what I call empowering.

I somehow can't see all those wankers who tell women that lapdancing is empowering, embracing that idea...

I agree with the views already expressed, Beachcomber's in particular.

Why on earth shouldn't men like this have to face female anger? That's the very thing they need to experience.

Forgiving, i.e. releasing the attacker from any anger one might feel is not necessary for recovery. It is likely to be harmful to the woman and to encourage a greater sense of moral impunity in the man.

Releasing yourself from the negative emotions an attack creates, including guilt and shame, on the other hand, is very important to recovery, at least in my experience. I've done that with the man who abused me as a child and the man who raped me as an adult. Joy of joys, I can't even bring their faces to mind any more.

Even so, the only way I'd agree to be in a room with either of them is if I got to take an AK47 with me. I owe them nothing. Their burdens are not my concern. Their remorse, if they ever feel it, is irrelevant to me.

That story makes me feel very uncomfortable for all the reasons people have already expressed.

The Restorative Justice Council's website seems to be mainly a sales pitch for their concept - 'see, it works! See, it saves money!'. But very little detail - they say 85% of victims are 'satisfied' but don't break that down by what type of crime or what 'satisfied' means exactly or what the other 15% say.

If you try to find out more, you are confronted with a thing that says you have to sign up in order to download any real information.

Maybe it does work for some people in some circumstances but making a rape victim their poster girl doesn't seem appropriate, somehow. Especially when the rapist got life. That's unusual, so it must have been a very unusual case. (For instance, a friend of a my sister's was gang-raped - extreme violence, serious injuries - yet the longest sentence was around 10 years. And the friend is a nurse, so you'd think even the dimmest most misogynistic judge would see her as a 'good' victim deserving of sympathy and justice.)

you are on excellent form tonight HerBex, not rambly at all

I think this push for forgiveness is bound up with the notion of closure isn't it - you can't attain this goal of closure without forgiveness.

It's a kind of bureacratic neatness. And life isn't so neat.

Controversial thing to say, but it's what we are told is a male way of thinking - compartmentalise, put it in this box, deal with it, put it away, don't let it leak out, move on.

And IRL you don't put something away - it becomes part of you, it changes you, influences you, yes you move on from it, but it's never neatly done and over and finished with is it? Every now and then it comes out of that non-existent compartment and touches something else in your life and makes you reflect on it in light of whatever the something else is, or makes you reflect on that something else in the light of it, IYSWIM.

I am in a rambly mood tonight.

Slightly longer account by Jo

How do they know the perpetrator will care? Not just find it funny or exciting?

I'm a bit confused about it all TBH!

I wonder if the fact that the rapist changed his plea to guilty made a difference for her. Had he plead not guilty and it went to court (supposing he was found guilty), I would imagine that it would be harder to go through the process.

I agree, HerBeX, about the forgiveness thing. There is a big push in talking therapies, self help books, Oprah type shows, 12 Step groups et al. It's like the desire to see someone held accountable for their wrongdoings is unnatural somehow. Though I can see how forgiveness can be a release in lots of ways. Ties me in knots.

Beachcomber, I would love there to be a way of doing something similar for rapists but don't see how it is possible without risking a situation where the rapists get off on that kind of power over their victim.

Sorry that reads wrong! He didn't rape me in a pub, that's where I had a go at him. Fat lot of good it did me.

Forgiveness? Bollocks. Women who have been attacked need to experience their own genuine emotions in their own time. Thinking about it people often come onto this topic and accuse people of being "angry" as if it is an insult. Too bloody right this stuff makes me angry, for me and my daughters and my friends and all of the women around the world who are putting up with all this shit. Anger is the only appropriate response.

I don't think there is an equivalent though beachcomber.

The drunk drivers didn't set out to kill people.

The rapists raped on purpose. They meant it.

So there's no equivalent is there. Show then shattered lives and terrible consequences and they won't care, chances are they might be pleased. Show them women who have picked themselves up and got on with their lives and what does that achieve.

I confronted the man who raped me in a pub, when I saw him. I cornered him by the bogs and tried to tell him off, ask him why he did it. He laughed in my face. That was a success then

This article is looking at that most rare of things, a rapist with a conscience. And on that basis alone it's bollocks. The vast majority of them don't give a fuck.