Samenvatting

There is a natural alliance between the ambitions of prison chaplaincy and those of restorative justice in the sense that in both approaches (coping with) responsibility and guilt by offenders are important issues and mechanisms at the same time. Both share a relational concept of crime, consider the evil deed as occasion to start a dialogue to examine responsibility, stress the importance of process and bi-lateral partiality with both the victim and the offender. Coping with guilt and making it productive requires that communication with the offender reaches the deeper and more intimate levels of giving meaning to the criminal offence committed, self, others, past and future. For this communication the context should be open and fundamentally loving in a Christian sense, leading the way to a liberation from guilt once it is thoroughly known and accepted. At that point guilt can be transformed into a constructive moral impetus in human relations.