If you are a victim of crime caused by a young offender, you should contact the Police on 101.
For information, help and support contact the organisation Victim Support:
Victim Liaison Officer
East Sussex Youth Offending Team (YOT) has an experienced Victim Liaison Officer who is trained in victim awareness and restorative justice. The officer is able to offer victims of youth crime the opportunity to take part in restorative justice. The officer can also answer victims' questions about the youth justice process and the work of the YOT.
What is Restorative Justice?
When a young person commits an offence they have caused harm to an individual and the community as well as breaking the law. Restorative justice is a process to recognise and repair the harm that has been caused. It is based upon three principles: responsibility, restoration and reintegration.
Responsibility – The young person takes responsibility for their behaviour and acknowledges the harm they have caused. This encourages more responsible behaviour in the future and lets the victim feel that the hurt they have suffered has been recognised and understood.
Restoration or Reparation – The young person does something to make amends for the harm they have caused. This encourages the young person to say sorry and try to make up for their offending behaviour in a positive, constructive way. Reparation should make the victim feel that they have been 'paid back' for the hurt they have suffered. Reparation usually involves one of the following actions:
- letter of apology
- victim-offender mediation
- indirect reparation (unpaid work for the community)
- direct reparation (unpaid work for the victim).
Reintegration – By taking responsibility and trying to put things right, the young person can be helped to put the incident behind them and move on to behave in a more responsible and socially aware way. Through having their hurt recognised and 'paid back' in some way, the victim can also be helped to move on and put the crime behind them.
What is victim-offender mediation?
One way in which a young person might make amends for their offending behaviour is by meeting with their victim, a process known as victim-offender mediation.
A trained facilitator will bring together the offender and victim to discuss what happened. The young person and their victim are given an opportunity to talk about the events surrounding the crime and how it has affected their lives. Sometimes a plan is agreed to address the harm caused by the crime.
Often both parties are able to gain a greater sense of closure simply through the process of talking with one another.
Youth Offender Panel
If a young person with a very limited offending history pleads guilty to an offence and is sentenced at Court they are usually given a Referral Order. Referral Orders vary in length, from 3 months to 12 months, depending upon the seriousness of the offence.
Once a referral order is made, the young person is required to attend a Youth Offender Panel (YOP). This includes two trained volunteers from the community and a member of the Youth Offending Team. The young person will meet with the YOP and a programme of targeted activities will be drawn up for the young person to complete. These activities are recorded in the form of a Referral Order Contract.
Referral Order Contracts are designed to address the issues that are linked to a young person's offending behaviour. The activities set out in the contract should help the young person to repair some of the harm that they caused.
The victim will normally be invited to have an input into the YOP meeting. They can attend in person and if they want to they can bring someone with them to provide moral support.
If the victim does not want to attend the meeting, they can send someone to represent them, or they can ask for their views be put forward by the member of the Youth Offending Team.
East Sussex County Council