NCJ Number
185827
Date Published
June 2000
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This document evaluates restorative justice conferences as an innovative response to juvenile crime.
Abstract
Restorative justice conferences, sometimes referred to as family group conferences, have become quite common in Australia and New Zealand and are increasingly used throughout the world. This report describes Stage One results of the Indianapolis Restorative Justice Experiment, initiated in September 1997 in an attempt to use Australian-style restorative justice conferences in response to juvenile offending. Four hundred fifty-eight youthful offenders participated in the experiment (232 in the Restorative Justice group, 226 "controls"). All were age 14 or younger, non-violent first-time offenders with no other pending charges and had admitted responsibility for their offense. This study employs both process and outcome measures, including observations of conferences conducted by trained researchers using an observational checklist, interviews with offenders, their parents or guardians, and victims, and checks of court records to determine whether youths had been rearrested for subsequent offenses. Experiment results suggest that restorative justice conferences better address the needs of many victims of youth offending. Such conferences hold promise as an early intervention with young, first-time juvenile offenders. Notes, tables, figures, references