Victim Offender Dialogue FAQs for OFFENDERS

Why should I participate in the VOD preparation and dialogue process?

First of all, you should only do this if you feel truly willing to participate. It’s not going to change anything about your sentence, and it’s not, on its own, going to change anything about your classification. What it can change is your understanding – of what, exactly, you did to the victims and survivors, and how deeply that has affected them. You might prefer to avoid knowing any of this, but virtually every offender who participates in the Victim-Centered VOD process finds it powerful and transforming. The most important way is that these offenders finally feel as if they have faced the one true “authority” in their case: Not the Prosecutor, not the Judge, not the Prison, but the victim/survivor. And many offenders feel, for the very first time, that they may now begin to do something to try to make some meaning from what they have done. If you don’t have any interest in doing something – anything – to try and make some sort of “amends” for the loss and devastation you caused, you probably should not participate.

What I did was so horrible and so permanent, there is nothing I can say or do that will change anything. No matter how sorry I am for what I did, these words are meaningless.

These words don’t have to be meaningless at all – as long as the victim/survivor(s) believes you understand clearly what you’re sorry for. But think about it: most offenders convicted of a violent crime know that they did something horrible – for example, a murder. They might even recall the detailed and gruesome facts of the case. What they do not know about are the many terrible ways the murder affected the loved ones of the victim – those who were left deeply grieving in the aftermath. What offenders usually don’t know is how many lives were devastated by the murder, and how hard it is for those wounded loved ones to move on from the horror of it all. Because of this, most victims/survivors want to tell the offender in their case about these impacts and effects. They need him or her to understand what he did. It is absolutely true that neither you nor anyone else can change what happened. Nor can the survivors forget what happened, and neither can you – though everyone may try hard. But what you can change is what you do – how you act and behave, how you treat others, what you teach, how you make a difference in the world – even the world of the prison – from this day forward. This is what it means to be accountable to the victims/survivors: to own what you did, and to do whatever else you can to make the death of their loved one something more than a total and complete waste of an innocent life taken. But it takes a lot of courage – to face the victim/survivor(s), to hear and receive the painful effects of what you did – effects they continue to live with every day – and to step into the world of personal accountability. Not every offender has the courage to do this. But those who do are often transformed by the experience. In fact, most offenders find that listening to, and talking with the victim/survivor is exactly what they have wanted all along.

The last time I saw the victims in my case was in the courtroom, and they said some things in there that made me look like a monster. I don’t need anyone coming in here and telling me what a piece of scum I am.

We understand. But keep in mind that, when survivors are allowed to make a victim impact statement at the sentencing, it is generally the very first time they have ever been allowed to speak up and speak out about the profound pain of what the offender took from them. They had a right to their grief and anger then, and they have a right to it now. This was probably the first time for them to begin to feel that the justice system was working. Typically, they have been waiting for this moment for a year or more, and sometimes two or three years. They had a very few minutes to give voice to some of the many powerful emotions they had felt since the time of the crime. In their eyes, this was the one and only time they would ever get to tell you what they really felt. And most of them can’t even find words for what they really feel. To most survivors, most offenders are monsters. They have no way of knowing anything about the offenders, except what the prosecutors and the defense attorneys are saying – and that often tells them only what the offenders did, not who they are. The VOD process allows survivors to go beyond those razor-sharp words, into the realm of their fullest feelings. And because, usually, many years have passed since the sentencing, the survivors’ anger and grief has taken a different shape, and they usually have different things to express, now. If all they wanted to do was tell you what a piece of scum you are, there would be little need for VOD. The truth is, they want to say much more, and they’ve moved way beyond the need to call you names. That’s not what VOD is for.

Doesn’t restorative justice have to do with forgiveness and reconciliation?

This is Victim-Centered VOD, which we consider loosely connected to some, but not all, restorative justice practices. Victim-Centered VOD is designed to provide victims/survivors with a chance to be fully and directly heard by the offenders, and to provide the offenders with the help they need to be able to listen with a greater degree of sensitivity and understanding. It is intended to provide survivors an opportunity to have more choices and more control of what they say and how they say it. On the other hand, there are victims/survivors who do fully and sincerely wish to forgive the offenders, and if this is the case, facilitators will help them to do that. But Victim-Centered VOD facilitators never initiate or impose any sort of expectations about forgiveness or reconciliation. Survivors must always be allowed and enabled to simply say what they need to say to the offender, in a way that the offender can fully listen and hear them. Sometimes, victims/survivors who never intended to forgive the offenders in their case do find themselves feeling something like forgiveness. But most of the time it never comes up. The most important thing is for the victims/survivors to feel heard and understood.

I feel like the victim in my case put me here. I think she owes me an apology!

If that’s how you feel, then VOD is not for you. VOD is only possible when the offender takes full responsibility for his or her role in the crime. Except in tragic mistakes in identification, or miscarriages of justice, victims don’t put offenders in prison. Offenders put themselves there.

I was in a drunk-driving accident, and the person driving the other car was killed. I’m convicted of vehicular homicide, but I’m not a rapist or a murderer. Do people do VOD in cases like this?

Yes. It’s true that almost no one drinks with the deliberate intention of getting behind the wheel and killing someone, but the fact is that the choice to drink and drive can often be a lethal one, resulting in the senseless loss, or the partial or complete disabling, of a thoroughly innocent and undeserving person. This is why victims/survivors in cases like these hate the word “accident.” It may have been “unintentional” homicide, but drinking and driving is a choice, not an accident. The person driving the other car was killed because of the choices you made. Survivors rarely see this as an “accident,” and what they need from offenders in situations like this is to know that the offenders understand the utterly devastating consequences of the choices they made. So, in these cases, the job of the VOD facilitator is to help prepare the offender to receive this understanding from the survivor. And, if possible, to help the offender find ways to express accountability to the survivor – whatever that may mean for the survivor and the offender.

I’m doing time for rape. I’m sorry for what I did to her, but I don’t see how talking about it can do any good at all. What is there to say to a victim?

It could be that there is absolutely nothing for you to say. She may wish to meet and talk with you because of what she needs to say. There are many reasons certain sexual assault survivors decide to pursue VOD with the offenders in their cases. Many times, it has to do with their particular ways of healing themselves from the terrible devastation of sexual assault. And even though devastation may be the closest word to describe what she has lived with in the aftermath of the assault, the word doesn’t begin to capture it. This is one of the places where the power of VOD can be the greatest – where survivors find the strength to face the offenders and tell them about the terrible effects. Most rapists have no idea of the damage and devastation they cause and create. For many offenders – because they have done the invading and violating, rather than being the victims of the violation, rape can seem to them like “no big deal.” So when a survivor is able to tell the offender about the depth of the devastation, it is actually, often, the first time he has ever listened to a survivor describe the ordeal and its impacts and effects. Sexual violence is a tragedy and a scourge, and any way we can help survivors of such violence and violation feel heard, we are helping survivors everywhere. If we can simultaneously help offenders understand even a tiny bit of what the survivor is saying, we are making a small but powerful difference.

I hear the VOD preparation can take months and months. Why so long? I’m ready to do it.

You may be. But most offenders are not used to talking about the deep and complex feelings that come with committing crimes of severe violence and violation. Many offenders wonder if they even have feelings, because they’re so accustomed to keeping them away, and acting on their impulses. But understanding the impacts and effects of victimizing others can sometimes be as complicated as understanding the effects of being victimized, and the preparation process provides the chance to do this carefully. In most cases, offenders want to recall and talk about these sometimes overwhelming and devastating feelings as much as victims/survivors want to talk about their feelings, as a way of dealing with them. But it’s a delicate and deeply personal process, and it can’t be rushed. Each person must be able to take enough time to find words for the many feelings, so that enough can be expressed during this one-time-only meeting. If the preparation process works well, offenders usually feel that they have been held to account by the real authority, after the VOD, and that feels good to them. VOD preparation is not therapy, and facilitators are not therapists, but the process of talking about what happened is a somewhat therapeutic experience, because powerful feelings are expressed in authentic ways. Some offenders have counselors in their facility with whom they can talk if they wish to during the preparation process, but they often do not. In any case, it’s very important to allow the VOD preparation process to take the time it needs, which is usually many months.

Does participating in the VOD process get me any Good Time, or affect my classification?

No. There is no change in your good time, classification, or release date in return for participating in the VOD preparation and dialogue process. It is not a legal proceeding, but a very personal process. When the VOD process works well, it always increases an offender’s understanding of the impacts of his or her past actions and behaviors, and this tends to affect his or her thinking and attitudes. And because thinking and attitude affect behavior, offenders who participate in VOD sometimes find themselves behaving differently. Sooner or later, consistently improved behaviors affect an offender’s classification status. But there’s no “formal” benefit to you for participating in the VOD preparation and dialogue process.

What happens after the VOD?

Typically, offenders come away from the VOD with a completely new understanding of the devastating impacts of what they have done, an understanding that would have been impossible to fully grasp and absorb at the time of the trial and/or sentencing. (This is one of the reasons VOD is much more effective when it’s initiated several years after sentencing, rather than sooner.) Survivors often feel they have finally been able to “leave some of the pain and grief at the prison, with the offender, where it belongs.” Ironically, many offenders truly appreciate this, as painful as it might seem, because they finally feel they have been held to account by the “true” authority, and done the “right thing,” at last. And because they have been held to more personal account and also seen as a “human being” by the survivor, they begin to feel that maybe they can do some good, now, and make some kind of “meaning” from the pain and devastation they caused. Most offenders feel that they understand much more about how they came to do what they did, and some of them choose to try and help other offenders think about their own behaviors. But it’s not easy in prison, and they may have to work twice as hard to maintain their new goals. The choice is theirs alone.