"Facing Violence" tells the stories of courageous victims and offenders who have participated in facilitated dialogue in the aftermath of violent crimes. The book reports findings by a University of Minnesota research team that such victim/offender dialogue programs, when carefully supervised by trained facilitators, have usually resulted in life-transforming emotional healing for both parties. The book distills results of interviews with victims, offenders and staff members in two pioneering victim/offender dialogue programs in Texas and Ohio.
What kinds of benefits result from such programs? One parent said: "My daughter's dead. But I know I'm better, I can sleep at night. I know it's a good feeling not to hate some monster."
An assault victim commented: "This anger was deep witghin me, and now there's a lightness of my whole soul. It was transforming."
And an offender convicted of assault explained: "I wanted to tell her how sorry I was... I always felt like I had the duty to at least try to make things right with her."
