Talking as restorative justice : a conversation analysis of victim-offender meetings

Langford, R

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to examine the restorative justice meeting as a form of
institutional talk, identifying significant asymmetries in the talk, and acknowledging how this
contributed to achieving restoration. This study used audio-recordings of five restorative
justice meetings organised as victim-offender mediation sessions and including adult
offenders. The recordings were transcribed and examined using the method of conversation
analysis. Findings revealed that restorative justice meetings were framed by institutional talk.
They were organised using specialised turn-taking procedures and pre-allocated roles.
Facilitators asked questions and victims and offenders answered them. The answers given
were assessed by facilitators for adequacy and accounts were persuasively re-narrated when
they did not align with the objectives of the meeting. Asymmetry was demonstrated when the
talk of offenders was heavily scrutinised and challenged by facilitators. The talk of victims
was supported, they were asked open questions and given the opportunity to provide
extended answers, allowing them to express themselves. A question was asked in the
reparation phase that offenders interpreted as an invitation to apologise. Through the
question-answer framework, some apologies were directed at victims and included a
demonstration of remorse and received a response. Other apologies were directed at
facilitators with no demonstration of remorse, resulting in no response from victims. These
apologies were less effective because no response meant the apologies could not be accepted.
These findings were further confirmed by the counterexample of Meeting Three where,
because a victim did not attend, the meeting was less formally organised and resulted in
restoration not being achieved. Overall, institutional talk, asymmetrical relationships between
facilitators, victims and offenders and the attendance of the victim contributed to the
achievement of the main objective of restorative justice for this scheme which was offender
restoration.

Citation

Langford, R. Talking as restorative justice : a conversation analysis of victim-offender meetings. (Thesis). University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Oct 5, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 5, 2021
• Award Date: Mar 11, 2021