Samenvatting

In this article we describe the mediation practice that exists at the prosecution office in Maastricht/Limburg and which was established in 1999. First, we summarize the main results of our earlier study on the relation between mediation and recidivism/reoffending rates on the basis of the Maastricht mediation model. In the remaining part of this article, we focus on answering the question whether the main results of our earlier study differ when we distinguish between adult (23 years and older) and juvenile (under 23 years) offenders. In order to answer this question several extra analyses have been carried out. The main conclusion of this article is that offenders with whom is mediated, reoffend significantly less than offenders who got a regular criminal sanction – regardless of whether the offenders are older or younger than 23 years.