Samenvatting

This article presents the backgrounds of a particular restorative practice in Flanders: the Restitution Fund. This fund is meant to give a symbolic instrument into the hands of persons in custody, to send a message to the victim: they will do volunteer work in society (mostly: charity work). Victim offender mediation starts up and at the end of the project the victim will receive an amount of money. Although this project is an excellent example of a restorative justice practice, there is still a long way to go to get it embedded in a longer term policy framework.