Victim-Centered Victim Offender/Impact Dialogues can offer a safe and powerful pathway to a greater sense of justice and healing for some Survivors. Because we see them as later follow-ons to Victim Impact Statements, we call them Victim Impact Dialogues. As with Victim Impact Statements, the Dialogues should always be steered by the Survivors themselves, and this is how Victim-Centered Dialogue Facilitators should be directing the all-important work of Preparation. As a Corrections-Based (post-conviction) Victims Service, these Dialogues have been facilitated in crimes of severe violence and violation (murder, attempted murder, sexual assault & exploitation, manslaughter, aggravated assault, domestic & intimate partner assault, and other traumatizing crimes) for three decades in the U.S.

The Survivors who have chosen to initiate requests for Preparation and Dialogue have found effective ways to express and release a measure of their grief and anger and pain, and to get answers to questions only the Offenders can provide. At the same time, many properly prepared and engaged Offenders have gained a greater understanding of the impacts of what they have done, and especially what it means to finally be directly and personally accountable to the Survivors for the choices they made to cause such devastation and destruction. In some cases, Offenders’ very ways of thinking may even begin to change through Victim-Centered Dialogue Preparation and interaction. But only when the Preparation work is rigorously Victim-Centered and Offender Accountability rooted.

These Dialogues are not mere “conversations.” They are deeply complex interactions that follow a thorough, sensitive, trauma-informed and offender-discerning Preparation process, one of the most important keys to successful Dialogue outcomes. Facilitators  serve as “guides” or “coaches” for Survivors and Offenders throughout the Preparation process, and the training and experience of these Facilitators makes all the difference.

The JUST Alternatives approach to Dialogue facilitation and training is rigorously Victim-Centered and Offender Accountability oriented, as distinct from practices where “mediation,” “reconciliation,” or “forgiveness” might be advanced as ideal objectives. Violent crime and violation are not mere “misunderstandings” to be reconciled, and Victim-Centered Dialogue facilitation demands that the needs of Victims/Survivors remain paramount, and requires that the Preparation and Dialogue process always remain firmly anchored in addressing the needs of Victims/Survivors.

On the other hand, the work of Dialogue Preparation requires willing cooperation – and some trust – from Offenders.  Without that requisite measure of trust from the Offender, a successful Dialogue outcome may be much less certain. But without the requisite level of discernment in Facilitators, Offenders may find it all too easy to subtly and “sympathetically” evade and deflect responsibility for the traumatizing choices they made. The Victim-Centered Dialogue Facilitator must simultaneously be capable of applying authentic sensitivity to earnest Offenders who genuinely seek to be accountable while also understanding the complex nature of criminal thinking and other criminogenic needs.

Properly facilitating the Victim-Centered VOD Preparation process takes  conversation, exploration, and reflection as each Survivor and each Offender prepares to give voice to what needs to be expressed, a process in which months will elapse. The need for time in the Preparation is especially true for Offenders, who may tend to be “detached” from their feelings, and who are usually unable to fully grasp the impacts of their crimes, or the real meaning of personal responsibility and accountability – especially at  the beginning of Preparation. But Preparation and Dialogue can also carry risks, especially for emotionally re-victimizing Victims/Survivors, if they are not managed with understanding and care. This is why there is an absolute need for proper training, which is the very point and purpose of the JUST Alternatives Dialogue Facilitator Trainings. When the work of Preparation is properly and thoroughly facilitated, the Dialogue itself usually flows in a safe and often emotionally powerful manner for the Survivor and the Offender.

More laboratory than classroom, our Experiential Trainings provide an affective understanding, through a variety of crime types, Survivors, and Offenders, of the deeply complex and sensitive work of facilitating Victim-Centered Dialogues in Crimes of Severe Violence. Offered only to Corrections professionals on the Victim Services and the Custody/Community Supervision sides, these Trainings always enhance understandings of the Victim/Survivor experience and the Offender experience, even for veterans in their fields. Former participants will attest that the JUST Alternatives Facilitator Trainings add new perspective to not only the principles of Facilitating Victim-Centered Dialogues, but even to their current day-to-day jobs. Participants leave these Trainings with a much deeper sense of the purpose and need for a rigorously Victim-Centered and Offender Accountability Rooted Perspective and Practice.

For further information, or to discuss these and other ideas, please contact us.