Victim offender mediation: A field study of the transformative theory of mediation

Proponents of victim offender mediation encourage victim offender mediators to use a transformative approach and to employ tactics that improve mutual understanding, clarify the decision making process of the participants, and facilitate transformation. These tactics are described in the current study as contextual (Kressel & Pruitt, 1985). The current study applied a non-experimental design to investigate the association between different types of mediator tactics and mediation outcomes in an effort to examine if victim offender mediators should utilize an exclusively transformative approach.;Immediate outcomes included the successful negotiation of a restitution agreement by the mediator, while long-term outcomes included the successful fulfillment of the restitution agreement for one year by the juvenile offender and desistance from criminal behavior for a period of one year.;Survey data were collected from 80 mediators on the tactics used in victim offender mediations with 40 juveniles. The results of the current study suggest that the basic tenets of the transformative mediation theory should be viewed with greater skepticism; that the ability of reflexive tactics to facilitate the development of workable agreements with which juveniles are able to comply should not be underestimated; and that, contrary to inferences one might draw from the theory of transformative mediation, the results of the current study revealed a strong association between certain substantive tactics and desistance from criminal behavior.