Abstract
This presentation to the Bolzano Congress in 2010 describes the value of Median Group Dialogue in work with offenders in prison and the community, and the success achieved.
Pat de Maré’s Median Group is the missing link between the disaffected individual and the depersonalized institution, which can bring about a transformation of humanizing the institution and socializing the individual. Institutional failure has resulted in a chasm between an increasingly sophisticated/divided society fuelled by the rapid advance of the technological revolution and the outmoded feudal controlling institution. When free to operate effectively the Median Group creates an atmosphere where the institution can become flexible and sensitive towards the needs and demands of individual members.
Having illustrated the application of Median Group Dialogue to the prison situation, this article proceeds to the difficulties encountered through the tendency of ossified institutions to reject change, and imagines another way forward starting in the community at large.
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