COUNTYWIDE : Program for Victims Can Be Expanded

A program that brings victims of crimes face to face with their offenders will be able to expand the number of cases it can carry with new county funding.

The Victim Offender Reconciliation Program, as it is called, recently received $64,500 from the county, according to Mike Niemeyer, program director.

“Up until now, we’ve been funded 100% by the St. Vincent De Paul Society,” Niemeyer said. “We’ve been handling about 30 cases a year; this new funding will let us handle 10 times that.”

The program began three years ago, and since then, more than 90 cases have been successfully mediated, Niemeyer added.

For most victims, contact with an offender ends when a crime is committed.

But with this program, juvenile offenders meet their victims and must try to explain what happened and negotiate some sort of restitution.

Offenders are referred to the program by police officers, probation officers and judges, Niemeyer said.

The youthful offenders and their parents report to the St. Vincent De Paul Center, a private, Catholic organization in Orange.

A volunteer mediator talks with the victim and the offender separately and explains the program.

If both agree, a meeting is arranged.

For John Madala, pastor of the Newhope Assembly of God Church and school in Santa Ana, the program was a way to heal the entire congregation.

A year ago this month, the school was broken into and vandalized.

Fire extinguishers were sprayed throughout the rooms and drawers were dumped, scattering paper.

Small office machines were stolen, and eight windows were broken.

It was the first time the school had been vandalized since it was built four years ago, Madala said.

Damage was estimated at $440.

Last month, two youths who broke into the school were identified.

One had moved out of state and could not be located.

But the other, a 15-year-old boy from the neighborhood, was arrested and referred to the mediation program by the court.

After meeting with Madala, it was agreed that the boy would pay $220 in damages and work 60 hours at the church, assisting the janitor.

Madala said the arrangement enables the teen-age offender to understand the struggle of keeping a church school running.

“I think it shows goodwill to the kids in the neighborhood and tells them that we are interested in them and willing to work to help them stay out of trouble and make better decisions in the future,” Madala said.

The boy’s mother, who asked not to be identified because she works at a school in the area, said that the program also has had a profound effect upon her son.

“He got caught for something he did a year ago when he was running around with the wrong crowd,” she said. “This showed him that you eventually have to pay for your actions.”

Niemeyer said that the new funding will, in additon, be used to train volunteers who speak Spanish and Vietnamese.

“Eventually, we hope to have enough volunteers to mediate with all the different ethnic communities in the county,” he said.