Mediation and conflict resolution are the most common means of conflict resolution used in the modern world currently. The behavior of individuals in various aspects of life keeps increasing in lack of discipline, violence and safety deterioration. Conflict concerns cut across all sectors of life from private to public institutions and people spend so much time trying to manage conflicting situations, which disrupt peaceful coordination of activities. There is always so much effort put in management of misconduct and criminal activities by law enforcers. Until recently, people waited until situations became serious to warrant arrests (Allen & Sawhney, 2010).
Many are the occasions when such an approach does not work and once things blow up, convictions are never the best alternatives. When early interventions fail, and victimization cannot work, people more than often resort to negotiation and mediation as a means of conflict management. Mediation is empowering to a conflict situation and it gives people the ability of realizing that they are capable of finding solutions to their problems without creating enmity with their counterparts (Baldry & Winkel, 2008).
It is advantageous to take up mediation as a means of conflict resolution to save people from emotional distress. This is a method used by law enforcers to help those under conflict in noticing the possibilities of negotiation the case in place and having little stress of the costs involved in the defense of lawsuits (Baldry & Winkel, 2008). It is a hard task getting conflicting parties to the mediation table, but as correctional officers confirm, it has a 75-percentage success for resolving conflicts. Law enforcement officers choose mediation because it is fast and cheap as contradicted by the emotionally exhausting and financially prohibitive court systems, civil backlogs and cluttered courts.
For expeditious simple conflict resolution, mediation takes top course as it handles situations in layman’s situation. The result may never be satisfying to all parties but the situation gets resolved in a manner that leaves both teams with no feeling of victimization. Mediation is only concerned with those involved in the case unlike arbitration and litigation, which has to have the input of a witness to conceal factors on most occasions. The involved parties have the discretion of the manner of resolving their conflict and the privacy involved provide a better understanding of the case and a platform for exercising personal control. The voluntarism of mediation helps in resolution of cases without any development of hard feelings, unlike when one has to get summoned to the courts (Allen & Sawhney, 2010).
Despite the proven advantages of mediation as a means for conflict resolution used by correctional and enforcement officers, there are some cases, which cannot be resolved entirely through mediation. These cases can only be resolved through court legal systems. Meditative processes fail on such occasions because of need of assurance from defined court ruling. There are occasions when mediation fails because one party may possess uneven powers on the bargaining process and the mediator fails to manage the process effectively. Mediation can also be manipulative in a manner that makes non-liability parties not to cooperate so that the case can get into the courts and just wane away. Another thing that makes a mediation process a flaw on some occasions is the incompetence of some mediators. This jeopardizes the capacities of meditative processes achievement of any reasonable conflict resolution grounds. There are also instances of high costs and prolonged arbitration periods because of the no-binding nature of the processes and that can be very frustrating (Baldry & Winkel, 2008).
On instances when a mediation process fails either because of the lack of corporation from the involved conflicting parties or the incompetence of the mediator, there always remains the need for making decisions. Failure of mediation can also fail because of its lack of formalities and rules. Failure of arbitration calls for various approaches (Bennett, 2002). There may be need for an evaluation of the process to identify any existing loopholes, which may have never been realized on the initial instance. Since the success of arbitration on most occasions may be for one side of the conflicting parties, failure of the arbitration process needs the assurance for the losing party that they are not being victimized.
When mediation does not provide the solution for a conflict resolution process, the mediator has little to do regarding the settlement and the process is called off. There is no much that the mediator can do but the parties involved have the discretion of making consent permitting the mediator to proceed with the process. However, the roles of the mediator may change and it may in turn become an arbitrator to ensure that those in conflict find a way of coexisting. Arbitration processes help in preventing involvement in court cases. It slows down the chances of filing court cases opening up the possibility of the conflicting parties looking at any remaining opportunities of having their cases resolved out of the courts (Bennett, 2002).
References
Allen, J. M., & Sawhney, R. (2010). Administration and management in criminal justice: A service quality approach. Los Angeles: Sage. Print.
Baldry, A. C., & Winkel, F. W. (2008). Intimate partner violence prevention and intervention: The risk assessment and management approach. New York: Nova Science Publishers. Print.
Bennett, S. C. (2002). Arbitration: Essential concepts. New York, N.Y: ALM Pub. Print.
