Assignment
In recent years, there has been a rise in the application of restorative justice, also in the Netherlands. In restorative justice the primary involved parties of an offense together restore the damage done. These are the victim, the offender, and the community (Hansen & Umbreit, 2018). The focus is not on punishing the offender, but restoring harm and relationships. Different programs exist, such as victim-offender mediation and family group conferencing. Most of these programs are dialogue driven. The victim and the offender have a conversation in presence of a trained mediator, and together come to an agreement.
So far it has been examined what the public perception of restorative justice is in the Netherlands. In order to examine this properly, a thorough review of the literature is necessary. In this internship you will conduct a literature review on 1) what is currently known about the public perception of restorative justice, 2) what research designs have been used to examine this and 3) identify gaps in research, that might help examine this in the Dutch context. But you will have a lot of freedom in this internship to set-up research and your own contribution to this study is valued and highly appreciated. The end product of this internship will be a state-of-the-art overview on the literature of the public perception of restorative justice and advice how future research could examine this in the Dutch context. This literature review could be a great starting point for a master thesis.
KEYWORDS
Restorative justice; public perception; crime and punishment; community involvement
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ORGANIZATION
The section Psychology of Conflict, Risk and Safety at the University of Twente has a distinctive and unique profile in the areas of risk perception and risk communication, conflict and crisis management and the antecedents of risky, antisocial and criminal behavior. It currently includes 16 research staff members and 8 PhD students. We work from both a psychology and an engineering perspective and cooperate with other scientific disciplines, based on the “high tech, human touch” profile of the University of Twente.
AVAILABILITY
Usually anytime. This internship is open for 1 student.
INTERESTED?
Please contact the PCRS internship coordinator Miriam Oostinga (m.s.d.oostinga@utwente.nl).
LITERATURE
- Gromet, D. M., & Darley, J. M. (2006). Restoration and retribution: How including retributive components affects the acceptability of restorative justice procedures. Social Justice Research, 19, 395-432.
- Hansen, T., & Umbreit, M. (2018). State of knowledge: Four decades of victim-offender mediation research and practice: the evidence. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 36(2), 99–113. https://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21234