The Practice of Victim Offender Mediation: A Look at the Evidence

Victim offender mediation (VOM) is the oldest, most widely practiced, and most extensively studied form of restorative justice (Bazemore and Umbreit 1995; van Ness and Heetderks Strong 2002; Zehr 2002). VOM is a process that provides interested victims and offenders an opportunity to meet in a safe and structured setting with a trained mediator in order to hold offenders directly accountable for their behavior while also providing assistance and compensation to the victim (Umbreit 2001).