The August 2014 issue of the San Quentin News (www.SanQuentinNews.com) highlights a recent ABC News report that repeat offender numbers in Australia are down as much as 55 percent, thanks to restorative justice proceedings. Restorative justice entails mediated sessions between offenders and victims and/or friends and families of victims, to generate empathy and process the trauma of the crime.
The article also highlights Insight Prison Project's Victim Offender Education Group (VOEG) program inside San Quentin State Prison. The Victim Offender Education Group (VOEG) program supports incarcerated individuals in the process of understanding and developing insight into the underlying circumstances of their lives and the choices that led them to come to prison. The process utilizes a Restorative Justice philosophy to help individuals to address memories and feelings connected to traumatic and unresolved events in their lives in an effort to integrate these experiences into their lives and experience a renewed sense of wholeness, authenticity, emotional well being and positive behavior.
'Reports Show Restorative Justice Programs Prove Effective'