Minnesota Department of Corrections Victim Assistance, Restorative Justice and MnCoSA Unit.

30 day follow up for both victims and offenders using the same set of questions.

This brief is one in a series about the five key components of evidence-based policymaking as identified in Evidence-Based Policymaking: A Guide for Effective Government.

Minnesota Department of Corrections, Restorative Justice Unit.

These questions can be used with the offenders and victims immediately following the victim offender dialogue while still at the facility.

Restorative justice conferences including Victim Offender Mediation (VOM) are rapidly increasing. Due to a lack of participants’ accounts on their experiences, gaining knowledge on how restorative justice works from their perspective is critical, especially to further development of justice policy and practice. In this exploratory qualitative study we interviewed 37 participants in a VOM operating in a mid-sized Midwestern city in the United States. In this article, we examine some youths’ experiences in their VOM to deepen our understanding of how and why restorative discourses work.

The current findings suggest that to the extent that specific programs are confined to offering VOM relatively early at the pre-sentence stage (as a formal part of the criminal prosecution), this may pose an impediment for establishing mediated contact in (very) serious cases in which victims experience high levels of harm.

Mark S. Umbreit, Ph.D. Center for Restorative Justice & Peacemaking.

A short history and description of Victim Offender Dialogue.

This webpage provides an overview of Victim Offender Dialogue and links to a set of FAQs for survivors and offenders.

Evidence-based policymaking—the systematic use of findings from program evaluations and outcome analyses to guide government policy and funding decisions—is growing in popularity in state capitols, but information is limited about the extent to which states employ this approach. In a new report, the Pew-MacArthur Results First Initiative identifies five states—Washington, Utah, Minnesota, Connecticut, and Oregon—as leaders in this field. These states demonstrated the most frequent, advanced development of processes and tools for using evidence in policy and budget decisions.

Oregon Department of Corrections.
This webpage defines facilitated dialogue and describes the victim/survivor centered approach.

In a new report, the Pew-MacArthur Results First Initiative names Minnesota as one of five leading states in evidence-based policymaking.