The Power of Forgiveness and its Craft in the Restorative Field

Abstract

The need of the people that decided to go through aa restorative process are multiple and diverse. Forgiveness becomes one of the possible pursuits, both of whom asks for it as of those who decide to provide it. The inquiry of this polysemic and complex act in a restorative process is the central topic of this article and for inquiring it it employs a qualitative methodology with the purpose of starting to highlight some of the possible meanings around the topic. The direct observation of the restorative interventions (mediations, circles, family conferences); the in depth interviews directed towards the actor behind these processes and to facilitators in charge of this actions and the analysis of a vast amount of documents produced by the teams responsible of these procedures allow the research to affirm that forgiveness, as a consequence of a restorative dialogue between a victim and someone who committed a crime is configured as one of the most important pillars of Restorative Justice, as well as a transfigurator of the pursuits of almost everyone involved in these spaces. Likewise, the construction of an adequate process for asking and receiving forgiveness becomes a sort of handcraft between the parties and pursuits as its primary objective the restoration of the stolen peace. Considering that forgiveness cannot modify nor repair the past, it does has an absolute inherence in the future, given that it allows working on the injury made by the offender not from vengeance but from attenuation of negative emotions and with this provide a key to the offender for opening the doors for a new vital scenario. This, the analysis of forgiveness as a bidirectional bond gains relevance for understanding the concept in its true essence and the role of restorative justice in the transformation of the future of people.