Victim-Offender Encounters in Restorative Justice Practices: Emotional Representations versus Genuine Affects

Restorative justice is an alternative practice in justice whereby offenders and victims voluntarily encounter, empathise and finally reconcile with each other in the presence of family and relatives, and other mediators. However, studies of restorative justice reveal the problem of offenders’ sincerity and genuineness in terms of their remorse and guilt in such encounters. Based on a psychosocial criminological perspective, this paper offers a conceptual distinction between emotion and affect, and further argues that emotion refers to symbolic bodily–linguistic signifiers being adaptable and consciously manipulable according to social contexts, whilst affect indicates an energy or intensities experienced unconsciously and not being symbolised. Setting out various case studies and pieces of evidence, the paper suggests that under the pressure of negative affects such as anxiety and fear of a possible failure of restorative justice conferences, offenders tend to display positive symbolic-emotional representations in a way that would convince victims and other mediators of their guilt and shame. The latter usually leads to the expected–idealised result of the victim-offender encounter. A psychosocial criminological perspective should always be taken into consideration while restorative justice practices are claimed to be successful and implemented in a specific social and judicial setting