Marilyn Peterson-Armour

Marilyn is an academic at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of 'At Personal Risk', one of the key texts about professional boundaries and someone who we recommend and quote from on our training courses.

Alongside her work on DIVO she has a strong interest in Restorative Justice and is researching a prison based programme. After the DIVO course, and over Margharitas, she talked to me about the scheme, and her thoughts on RJ and professional abuse.

It is a highly structured approach and is run by the Victim Services Unit of the Texas Attorney General's office, the biggest programme of its kind in the country. Texas employs a team of paid staff to undertake this work, whilst some states use volunteers with health or clergy backgrounds, or a mixture of the two.

Marilyn's view is that the experience of RJ has to be a deep one, as this will mean it is longer lasting.  The victim is given another chapter to the story, which so often ends with anger, or the end of an investigatory procedure of some kind.  Marilyn emphaises that the criminal, civil and regulatory systems are about rights and punishment and very much not about healing, with many victims getting to the end of the process and thinking 'why the hell don't I feel any better, this should have made a difference, but it didn't, and now I'm stuck with it', so in Marilyn's view "That's often the last chapter for them, and these processes just aren't the right medicine".

So the preparation process in the prison victim work is crucial, with each party preparing for about six months before they ever meet. There are also schemes for 'surrogate RJ' where victims and offenders, but not the victim and offender, are brought together. This is being used in domestic violence work where bringing both parties together hasn't worked, rather groups of victims and perpetrators are brought together "What happens is fascinating, the offenders are able to see what's happening to the women 'he's manipulating you, he's lying'. What the women say is 'you think she wants to get back with you? she wants nothing to do with you'". So the women leave the session feeling highly empowered, as they have been able to say what they think, use their knowledge and confront others who are similar to the person who abused them. And the offenders leave with a layer of self-delusion removed.  Running throughout these schemes is the notion and practice of accountability.

In the arena of professional exploitation using a 'surrogate RJ' approach may be a productive way to achieve a new chapter for survivors of professional abuse, and to assist offenders with rehabilitating.

An option also would be to make particiapting in a direct RJ process a requirement of any treatment or psycho-educational programme for offending profesionals. In this way it would be possible to embed healing for victims within programmes for rehabilitating professionals, both in the prgrammes themsleves, and as a consequence of them.