NCJ Number
208690
Date Published
November 2004
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This article presents a strategy to review the effectiveness of face-to-face restorative justice conferencing programs for personal crime victims.
Abstract
Restorative justice practices, while often thought of as a new approach to criminal justice, have actually been in existence in various forms for several thousand years. Restorative justice can take on a number of forms; the current protocol focuses solely on face-to-face restorative justice practices that involve restorative justice conferencing programs for personal crime victims. Eleven randomized controlled trials were identified that evaluated conferencing programs with a randomized design to probe their effectiveness in reducing offender recidivism. These evaluations have covered a wide range of offense types, including property crimes, minor crimes, and violent crimes. These 11 randomized controlled trials were extremely heterogeneous in terms of types of offenses and offenders; thus 7 databases searched for the terms “restorative justice” and “conferencing” from 1986 to the present. For each study uncovered, the following information will be reviewed: (1) the comparability of experimental and control groups; (2) violation of randomized procedures; and (3) case attrition from the original sample. Both quantitative and qualitative research and findings will be included. References