Restorative justice for rapists and abusers in Scotland

[WouldBeGood]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/3e1e3e38-e059-11ec-baab-53d14c642149?shareToken=6e6a50b341b28413747cc7b5050664d9

This is what the SNP thinks is ok.

I'm so angry. What has happened to my country?

This is actually already in place in England. For offences including murder. As it states in the article

The scheme is voluntary and relies on consent from both parties. Meetings can occur face to face or virtually.

Sometimes a victim doesn't always get to have their say in court, particularly if someone pleads guilty. Sometimes a victim just wants to look the offender in the eyes and ask them why.

Can you explain why you think this is a bad idea?

It’s a bad idea because of the power imbalance between abusers and their victims

An opportunity for further abuse

I can see a lot of pitfalls.
Thriving Survivors (charity who will be involved I think) themselves state the following:

Cases involving sexual harm raise unique concerns:
Power dynamic
Stigma and shame
Relational context
Long shadow of trauma
Offenders may be highly manipulative, coercive control can be difficult to identify

And I think a cross party parliamentary working group in England and Wales raised similar issues, suggesting it wasn't appropriate in some circumstances such as domestic abuse with coercive control. Whoever is facilitating would need to be highly trained to be aware of those issues and also with an excellent understanding of trauma/how it can manifest.

Personally as someone who has been raped, I can't think of anything worse. However in the early years, I think I could have been sucked in by the idea of this. Time though has taught me that for men like the man who raped me, hearing how he fucked my life up in a myriad little ways would be a delightful little dessert.

For theft maybe, not for rape. It's already about holding power over the other person, I can't see this situation going well.
Unless they mean a Handmaids' style final-retribution-against-Fred.

Terrible idea. Already not working for survivors of rape in New York. The absolute last thing a rape victim needs is to help a rapist feel better about themselves. I see this as yet another way to violate the boundaries of survivors. (Many of whom have serious issues with setting and maintaining healthy boundaries and would easily be swayed to participate in this against their best interests.)

This principle is also in use in my kids' school with the end result being that none of the kids (mine and their friends) who got bullied reported their experiences to the school. Because they abhor the idea that after suffering through the bullying, they are then expected to meet their bullies in front of guidance and listen to their excuses.

I didn't want to believe it until one of mine went through it that this is a gift to bullies to continue and extend the abuse, but the lies told by my kid's bully, the manipulation, the gullible guidance teacher made it even worse.

After that I fully understand the kids refusal to report their bullies. And the whole thing ended in violence where my kid could have been seriously hurt. At which point I got to explain to the school that their "restorative justice" approach was preventing kids from reporting bullies. Not that they cared.

I think it's right that victims have the choice.

Will it just be a choice though? Or will it be viewed as the "right" option and you're steered toward it? Given the nature of the offence won't it give the rapist a chance to enjoy seeing the distress they caused? Unlike a mugging or burglary where the person did it primarily to get money, rather than deliberately to cause suffering. Who picks up the pieces if it goes wrong? Will it be used to get early release from jail?
This kind of approach is used a lot in schools and for some things it absolutely does not work.