How it Works
What is the process for a dialogue?
Victims' Voices Heard is a victims' program and can only be requested by the victim. After you have contacted our office we will contact your offender to determine if he/she is willing to participate in the dialogue program. A trained facilitator will meet with you and your offender separately to determine if dialogue is suitable for both parties. Once it has been determined that dialogue is appropriate the victim and offender will meet, in a safe and secure place within the correctional institution where the offender is incarcerated.
The process has many potential benefits for the victim. It is an opportunity to express anger and pain directly to the person responsible for it, to learn new information about the crime that is needed, to see remorse in the offender, to feel more powerful and in control of one's life, and to experience a sense of having closed another chapter in the healing process.
All victims are different and may have different reasons for wanting to meet with their offenders.
- Victims may feel that they have not been given a voice through the justice system.
- Some victims feel making a "Victims Impact Statement" at sentencing is not enough.
- Victims may feel that offenders have robbed them of their power and facing offenders may empower them.
- Some victims feel the need to express their anger and pain to offenders, and some want to hear offenders take responsibility and express remorse for their crime.
- Whatever your reason, you have the right to express your feelings to the person who has caused you harm.
Dialogue is not a retrial of the criminal case. It is not a form of plea bargaining or sentence reduction. Offenders will not avoid the full consequences of their behavior, nor will it affect their parole or the length of their sentence. Moreover, only those offenders who express remorse and hold themselves accountable are eligible to participate.
Offenders cannot use the fact that they have met with their victims through the dialogue process for sentence reduction. Offenders are told that if they choose to participate in the Victims' Voices Heard Program they do so only because they want to do something to help their victims and they may not use the fact that they have met with their victims to gain early release.