“Even when an encounter occurs, the term “mediation” is not a fitting description of what could happen. In a mediated conflict or dispute, parties are assumed to be on a level moral playing field, often with responsibilities that may need to be shared on all sides. While this sense of shared blame may be true in some criminal cases, in many cases it is not. Victims of rapes or even burglaries do not want to be known as “disputants.” In fact, they may well be struggling to overcome a tendency to blame themselves. At any rate, to participate in most restorative justice encounters, a wrongdoer must admit to some level of responsibility for the offense, and an important component of such programs is to name and acknowledge the wrongdoing. The neutral language of mediation may be misleading and even offensive in many cases. Although the term “mediation” was adopted early on in the restorative justice field, it is increasingly being replaced by terms such as “conferencing” or “dialogue” for the reasons outlined above. • Restorative justice is not primarily designed to”