Restorative practice in criminal justice
Research Summary
Recent studies include a 2015 Campbell Systematic Review of the effectiveness of restorative justice conferences (RJCs)[1] and a 2017 meta-analysis of the effectiveness of restorative justice programmes in juvenile justice.[2] The New Zealand Ministry of Justice has also published an analysis comparing reoffending rates for 4,000+ offenders taking part in RJCs with a matched group of offenders who went through the Police diversion or court process.[3]
Studies find ‘strong and consistent evidence’ that RJ can benefit victims. E.g., the Campbell Systematic Review found that victims taking part in face‐to‐face RJCs express higher levels of satisfaction with the handling of their cases; are more likely to receive an apology from offenders and rate this as sincere, be less inclined to want to seek revenge, and suffer less from post-traumatic stress symptoms than victims assigned to standard criminal justice.
The Campbell Review concludes that restorative justice conferences (RJCs) cause a modest but statistically significant reduction in repeat offending and that RJCs ‘are a cost-effective means of reducing frequency of recidivism’, generating savings between 3.7 and 8.1 times the cost of intervention. The meta-analysis of restorative justice principles in juvenile justice found a ‘moderate reduction in future delinquent behavior relative to more traditional juvenile court processing’ with promising results noted from ‘victim-offender conferencing, family group conferencing, arbitration/ mediation programs, and circle sentencing programs.’ The New Zealand study similarly found statistically significant reductions in reoffending among participants in RJCs over all four measures used, with impacts diminishing after the first 12 months.
Researchers caution that the results from studies vary widely, with more robust studies tending to show smaller results. Evidence of effectiveness also varies between programmes, target groups and contexts: the evidence is strongest for restorative justice conferences, with some signs that they are most effective when they supplement court justice, involve young offenders and are used in response to violent crime.
Award-winning criminologist John Braithwaite warns against seeing restorative justice as a ‘one shot strategy’ and evaluating it as such.[4] He points out that much depends on the choices made by – and available to - conference participants in deciding how harms should be addressed. Attention also needs to focus on factors such as increasing take up and on high quality implementation (what Braithwaite calls ‘clinical method improvement’) with a rapid learning loop.