Restorative justice: reoffending, victim views and value for money Restorative Justice Consortium AG

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Restorative justice reoffending, victim views
and value for moneyRestorative Justice
Consortium AGM, London, 9 July 2008

• Joanna Shapland

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• Most restorative justice projects
  internationally
• have involved young offenders and minor offences
• mostly as diversion from criminal justice, or,
  sometimes, within criminal justice
• Our evaluation of three restorative justice
  schemes primarily involved
• adult offenders and often serious offences
• restorative justice within criminal justice -
  people experienced both - at a variety of
  different stages of the criminal justice process.

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There were two major aims for the schemes and the
evaluation

• whether restorative justice reduced reoffending
  (and whether it was value for money)
• to focus on the needs and rights of victims
• For that, it was important that people wanted to
  participate in restorative justice and that
  restorative justice was delivered well and
  consistently over the several years the schemes
  were running (2001-2004).
• All was after the offender had admitted guilt
  (guilty plea) and so prior to or after
  sentencing. Restorative justice does not take
  the place of a trial.

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• The schemes we evaluated
• (all offences with personal victims 840
  restorative justice events observed 285
  conferences, interviews with 180 offenders and
  259 victims experiencing restorative justice)
• Justice Research Consortium (JRC)
• conferencing with random assignment
• pre-sentence in London Crown Courts for adults,
  led by police facilitators
• pre-sentence for adults, final warnings for
  youths, some adult caution cases in Northumbria,
  led by police facilitators
• community sentences and prison pre-release in
  Thames Valley (all adults), led by probation
  officer, prison officer or community mediation
  facilitators
• CONNECT
• victim-offender indirect and direct mediation and
  conferencing (matched control groups)
• pre-sentence, or during sentence, for adults
• mostly in two magistrates court areas in London
• REMEDI
• victim-offender mediation throughout S Yorkshire
  (matched control groups)
• community sentences and prison for adults
• youth justice and diversion for young offenders

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• Conferencing (JRC) includes the offender, the
  victim, the offenders supporters and the
  victims supporters, together with a facilitator,
  but not normally professionals - NOT the same as
  family group conferencing
• The offender will explain how the offence
  happened
• The victim will say the effects of the offence on
  them, as will the victims supporters and the
  offenders supporters
• The conference will then turn to what could be
  done in the future to improve things
• Direct mediation is just the offender and the
  victim with a facilitator
• Indirect mediation (shuttle mediation) is where
  the facilitator
• passes information between the offender and
  victim, but there
• is no meeting.

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The process

• People did want to participate
  victims who were approached
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  wishing to participate
• CONNECT adult magistrates' court
  77
• JRC London Crown Court burglary
  56
• London Crown Court street crime
  55
• Northumbria adult court cases
  51
• Northumbria youth final warning cases
  75
• Thames Valley prison cases
  36
• REMEDI adult offender-initiated
  38
• youth YOT referrals
  83
• Restorative justice was delivered consistently by
  well trained facilitators/mediators
• Outcome agreements were made in over 98 of JRC
  conferences.
• Noone assaulted anyone else in the schemes we
  evaluated - though there was sometimes emotion.
• People said they felt safe and could express what
  they wanted to say.

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Reoffending 1

• A significant decrease in the frequency of
  reconviction over the following two years,
  looking over all the trials, schemes and groups.
  Offenders reoffending decelerated.
• Looking at the likelihood of reconviction over
  the following two years, overall results tended
  towards the positive direction, but were not
  statistically significant.
• Individual trials had relatively small sample
  sizes, and there would not be expected to be a
  large enough effect on reconviction for
  statistical significance. However, there was
  such a large impact on the JRC Northumbria court
  property trial that there was a reduced
  likelihood and severity of reoffending for the
  following two years against the control group -
  and significantly fewer reconvictions for the JRC
  Northumbria site as a whole.

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Reoffending 2

• No significant effects on severity of
  reconviction looking at all the trials together
• Cost of convictions (cost to potential future
  victims plus costs of criminal justice) combines
  frequency and severity. All JRC groups, summed
  together, showed a significantly lower cost of
  convictions versus the control groups.
• No significant results pointing towards any
  criminogenic effects. Restorative justice does
  not make people worse.

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For whom does rj reduce reoffending? (JRC results)

• There is no difference between types of offender
  or offence - age, gender, offence type,
  ethnicity showed no difference in terms of
  reconvictions for the restorative justice group
  compared to controls
• So no evidence currently exists to support
  targeting restorative justice
• However, as in previous evaluations, offender
  views about JRC conferences did relate to
  re-offending - for adult offenders
• the extent to which the conference had made them
  realise the harm done
• whether the offender wanted to meet the victim
• the extent to which the offender was observed to
  be actively involved in the conference
• how useful the offender felt the conference was.
• Are conferences helping offenders thinking about
  desisting
• (stopping committing crime) to do so?

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Victim and offender views 1

• These victims and offenders took part in
  restorative justice as well as criminal justice.
  They were positive about criminal justice, but
  even more positive about restorative justice.
• The overall tone was one of satisfaction 74 of
  JRC offenders and 78 of JRC victims would
  definitely/probably recommend restorative justice
  to others
• 80 of JRC offenders and 85 of JRC victims were
  very/quite satisfied with the conference - only
  10 of JRC offenders and 12 of JRC victims
  expressed any doubt about the outcome agreement
• Not everyone was entirely satisfied, but only 6
  offenders (of 152) and 6 victims (of 216) were
  dissatisfied overall with JRC conferencing -
  dissatisfaction revolved around disputes
• about the offence or difficulties in
  communication

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Victim and offender views 2

• What did participants want of rj? Victims wanted
  to find out how the offence occurred and work to
  prevent reoffending. Offenders wanted to
  apologise and explain - and prevent what might
  lead them to offend again.
• Conferences provided a sense of closure and, for
  many victims, lessened the negative effects of
  the offence
• Why are the views of victims and offenders so
  positive in relation to these restorative justice
  schemes?
• Restorative justice seemed to be providing, for
  victims and offenders
• communication
• addressing offending-related problems and
  behaviour in conferences - problem-solving for
  the future

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Value for money

• Victims positive views about restorative justice
  cant currently be expressed financially - we
  dont have financial measures for increased
  well-being for victims
• If rj is run in parallel with and in addition to
  criminal justice, it will necessarily incur extra
  costs - the cost of running restorative justice
• These costs may be mitigated over time by
  preventing further offending - decreases in
  reoffending.
• In our evaluation, for JRC conferencing - but not
  for mediation, these decreases were sufficient to
  make conferencing value for money against the
  cost of the scheme
• Cost
  for rj cases Money saved through
• over
  running period () decreases in
  offending ()
• JRC London 598,848
  8,261,028
• JRC Northumbria 275,411
  320,125
• JRC Thames Valley 222,463
  461,455

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So, is restorative justice of benefit?

• Victims are definitely positive about it - they
  say they and others are helped. Victims of more
  serious offences were particularly positive.
• If rj is run in parallel with and in addition to
  a streamlined criminal justice, it will
  necessarily incur some extra costs to the system
  at the time
• But, as weve seen, for JRC conferencing,
  decreases in reoffending were sufficient to make
  conferencing value for money against the cost of
  the scheme. Mediation did not have the same
  impact.
• I would argue that the current criminal justice
  system for adults is impoverished in terms of not
  providing enough opportunities to help offenders
  to desist (reduce/stop offending)
• so conferencing may provide a boost to
  offenders deciding to start changing their lives,
  through supporting that decision and mobilising
  potential resources to address offending-related
  behaviour

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Our fourth report on the evaluation of
restorative justice (reoffending and value for
money) is at http//www.justice.gov.uk/publicati
ons/restorative-justice.htm The third report
(victim and offender views) is at http//www.jus
tice.gov.uk/papers/pdfs/Restorative_Justice_Report
.pdf The second report (observations of
conferences and what the schemes did) is
at http//www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/r274.
pdf (summary) http//www.shef.ac.uk/content/1/c6/
07/76/55/Restorative20Justice20Report20-20fina
l20version.pdf (full report) The first report
(how the schemes were set up) is
at http//www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs04/rdsol
r3204.pdf