From a court orientation to a victim orientation: The paradigm shift in Israel’s Juvenile Probation Service

Abstract

During the course of the last decade, Israel’s Juvenile Probation Service (JPS) added Victim Offender Mediation (VOM), an important example of restorative justice, to its repertoire of diagnostic, therapeutic and caring practices for young offenders. The introduction of VOM represented a major shift from its traditional service orientation.

When first established by the British Mandate over Palestine in the 1930s, the primary beneficiaries of the probation services were His Majesty’s Courts and their British judges. Later, after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the JPS specialized in assessing and supervising young offenders. The introduction of VOM meant the acknowledgement by the JPS of the victims of its young clientele. This acknowledgement blurred the boundaries of the JPS’s traditional mission, operations and clientele. This paper describes how this new orientation in the work of the JPS came about. In doing so it draws on some of the findings of a qualitative research study, findings that serve to highlight some of the main issues that arose along the way.