Oftalmología: Publicaciones sobre el Segmento Posterior del Ojo

The configurations of local implementation teams in both Projects A and B were alike, including a District Prosecutors Office and a contracted non-governmental organisation (NGO) that was responsible for implementing the restorative justice process. The NGOs recruited facilitators to run the restorative justice conferences. Facilitators were further endorsed by the District Prosecutors Offices. Each of the NGOs also assigned to one of their employees the role of case manager as well as liaison person between the District Prosecutors Office and the facilitators.

The restorative procedure in Projects A and B were similar. It started at the stage of criminal investigation with case referral by individual prosecutors45 who were affiliated with the Section for the Protection of Women and Children in the District Prosecutors Office. After referral, cases were processed by the case manager for initial contact and evaluation. Next, facilitators did their preparatory work and convened a meeting46. The cases had to be returned to the District Prosecutors Offices by the case managers or facilitators, in the event that the case was withdrawn or finalised. A recommendation report on case withdrawal or meeting agreement was required for

45 _{In Project B, a case was only referred to the restorative justice process when the prosecutor got the}

consent from both the victim and the offender. But in Project A, a number of cases, not all of the cases, were referred to the restorative justice process prior to the prosecutors obtaining the victims’ or the offenders’ consent. This was because some of the prosecutors considered that the enquiry made by the judicial authority would impose inevitable pressures on the victim or the offender who would usually agree but with concealed reluctance. Thus, in some cases in Project A, the voluntary participation of the victim or the offender was first sought by the case manager or the facilitators.

46 _{In Project A, the case manager sometimes referred a case immediately to the facilitators without}

contacting the victim or the offender first. Under such circumstances, all the restorative justice procedures were undertaken by the facilitators with the case manager being the assistant.

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submission to the District Prosecutors Offices, where the probation officers collated all the paperwork of the referred cases and the prosecutors reviewed the recommendation report to make final decisions on the nature of charges. In the main this involved the treatment or conditions imposed on offenders. The procedures are shown in Figure 5.2. It is worth noting that the two local implementation teams collaborated with the Centre for Prevention of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (CPDVSA) in each administrative region for the assessment of case suitability. Either through informal discussions and consultations or through establishing a formal cooperation mechanism, both District Prosecutors Offices worked with the CPDVSAs.

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Figure 5.2 An overview of RJ procedures and tasks in Projects A and B

The implemented RJ procedures and tasks

Suitable, able and willing to participate in RJ (15+10=25) Cases referred by the prosecutors Initial contact

with victims and offenders

Preparation meetings

with either victims or offenders, who sometimes were accompanied by their families

Formal meetings

with both parties and their families

Agreement

Follow-up Return the case to

the prosecutor with

a recommendation report

Not suitable, unable or unwilling to participate in RJ (4+16=20) Requested from victims or offenders (only in Project A) (19+26=45) (14+2=16) (5+24=29) Numbers of cases (Project A+ Project B) Final recommendation report submitted to the prosecutors

Suitable, able and willing to participate in RJ (14+2=16) Not suitable, unable

or unwilling to participate in RJ (1+8=9)

(14+2=16)

Collaboration between the District Prosecutors Offices, the NGOs, and the CPDVSAs

Case managers (sometimes facilitators in Project A): *To introduce RJ

*To conduct an initial evaluation of the suitability and

voluntariness of victims and offenders in terms of participation in RJ

Case managers:

*To provide assistance for victims and offenders who were assessed as needed (in Project A) *To see if the agreement

has been carried out or to assess whether or how the RJ practices benefited victims and offenders on behalf of the organisations and the District Prosecutors Offices

Facilitators:

*To implement some skills and principles to achieve the goals of RJ

Facilitators (accompanied or assisted by case

managers):

*To conduct secondary and ongoing evaluations of suitability and

voluntariness of victims and offenders in terms of participation in RJ *To implement skills and

principles to achieve the goals of RJ

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Under such procedures, these two jurisdictions respectively handled around twenty cases in their first 10-month experimental period. Not all were followed through using a restorative justice process. The referred cases were confined to criminal cases deriving from domestic conflicts or violence. Most of the cases were conflicts or violence between married couples and a few of the cases emerged among blood relatives or in-laws. Table 5.1 shows the numbers associated with case referral, case withdrawal, and case finalisation. The cases were withdrawn in the beginning or dropped after entering into the restorative justice preparatory stage mainly because the victims or the offenders were unwilling to participate in the restorative justice process anymore. In a few cases the case manager or the facilitators lodged notification of withdrawal because they considered the case was not appropriate for restorative justice processes. The case withdrawal rates and dropped rates were high in Project B, in comparison with Project A. Accordingly, more cases were finalised with agreement in Project A.

Table 5.1 Number of the cases relating domestic violence/conflicts in the RJ process

Project Total of referred cases

Case

withdrawal

Cases processed in the RJ process

Total Cases dropped Cases finalised with agreement Project A 19 (15) 4 (4) 15 (11) 1 (0) 14 (11)

Project B 26 (17) 16 (14) 10 (3) 8 (1) 2 (2)

Note: The numbers in the brackets indicate the numbers of the cases occurring between married couples.