Restorative justice conferencing program evaluation

Restorative justice is an internationally recognised evidence-based response to criminal behaviour. It views a criminal offence as more than an act of breaking the law and examines:

  • the impact on society
  • the harm caused to the victim, family relationships and the community.

The restorative justice process requires effort and participation from the child, which differs from traditional justice responses.

A restorative justice conference is a meeting between a child who has committed a crime and the people most affected by that crime to discuss:

  • what happened
  • the effects of the offence
  • repairing the harm caused to the victim.

Evaluation

The Restorative Justice Project: 12-Month Program Evaluation (PDF, 2.5 MB) examines performance and early outcomes during the first 12 months of operation after the reintroduction of court referrals.

Key findings

  • Following the reintroduction of court referrals on 1 July 2016, there was a 151% increase in referrals to restorative justice conferencing — increasing from 839 referrals (police referrals) in 2015-16 to 2110 referrals in 2016-17 (police and court referrals).
  • Restorative justice conferencing is having a positive impact on reducing re-offending rates, with 59% of young people not reoffending within six months of their conference.
  • Restorative justice resulted in positive outcomes for victims and communities, including apologies, volunteer work for victims or communities and young people producing items for victims (e.g. sorry paintings or poems).
  • Over 70% of victims reported that the conference process helped them to ‘manage the effects of crime’.
  • One in five agreements involved young people undertaking counselling or educational programs.
  • Young people were highly compliant in completing their agreements (96% of finalised agreements in 2016-17).

The Restorative Justice Case studies report (PDF, 949 KB) provides in-depth examples of social, wellbeing and cultural outcomes achieved through restorative justice conferencing. The case studies also provide a practitioner account of the conferencing process and include reflections about key elements of best practice.