“He went from being a monster to a person:” Using narrative analysis to explore how victim-offender dialogue (VOD) participants transform through the VOD process

Abstract

Restorative justice practices such as victim-offender dialogue (VOD) have gained traction in the past few decades as routes towards healing amidst high incarceration and recidivism rates and growing public dissatisfaction with punitive carceral structures. However, little work has sought to understand the nuanced experiences of those who engage in VOD processes, in their own words. In this manuscript, we use narrative analytic methods to explore how a dyad involved in VOD process—the individual who engaged in a crime, and a mother and daughter impacted by this crime—transformed over the course of the process (before, 2 weeks after, and 6 months after the dialogue). We found that, for the participating dyad, engaging in the VOD process cracked open the humanity of the other through the vehicles of religion and forgiveness. Our findings echo—and expand—prior work on “forgiveness” in RJ processes, and suggest the need for future research which explores the nuanced role of religion in VOD. Finally, we advocate for the expansion of facilitated dialogue processes as a process with the potential to catalyze individual and community healing.