What is Restorative Justice?

According to restorative justice pioneer Howard Zehr, when a crime or offense is committed, the offender incurs an obligation to restore the victim -- and by extension, the community -- to the state of welfare that existed before the offense.

This principle of balance gives equal weight to holding offenders accountable to victims, ensuring community safety and providing positive, productive development for offenders so they can pursue legitimate endeavors after their cases have reached a conclusion.

Values and Principles

Like any principle-based practice, there are a number of values that guide restorative justice. According to Zehr, these include:

• Focusing on the harm done to and the needs of the victim, community and offender
• Addressing the obligations to all parties that result from the offense
• Using inclusive, collaborative processes
• Involving those with a legitimate stake in the situation (victims, offenders, community members, society)
• Seeking to right any wrongs

Zehr also maps out the following principles to apply in working with young offenders:

• Responsibility. 
  Victims, family members of youth offenders and the community help youths take responsibility for their offenses.
• Diversion. 
  Youth offenses are often impulsive, reactive, experimental and/or transient. Diversion is meant to accommodate youths’ age and brain development by referring their cases to accountability and care programs, such as restorative justice or counseling, rather than incarcerating them.
• Proportionality. 
  Restorative justice processes aim to be fair to all persons involved. Consequences of each offense need to be proportionate and connected to the offense.
• Equality. 
  Offenses are unique and impact victims differently. However, similar offenses should receive similar, non-prejudicial responses tailored to the particular offense.
• Timeframes. 
  Consequences need to be measurable and time-bound to ensure successful performance of each resolution in an amount of time that is fair to the victim(s), the community and the youth.
• Clarity. 
  A clear and specific restorative plan will give victims, youth and communities a sense of justice.

Goals

Offender Accountability

• Better understanding of the harm done and those affected
• Being accountable to the victim
• Being accountable to the community
• Taking responsibility to repair the harm

Victim Opportunities

• Choice in how to proceed
• Opportunity to talk about what happened
• Voice in how to right the wrongs
• Way to feel some power, safety, reassurance
• Chance to have questions answered

Community Accountability

• Attending to the victim’s needs
• Participating in a resolution
• Providing opportunities for offender’s community service/restitution
• Identifying and addressing underlying community conditions

Community Protection/Safety

• Providing a timely response
• Reassertion of community expectations
• Individual, parental and community responsibilities stressed
• Potential reduction in recidivism
• Building relationships and providing opportunities for empathy among all participants

Competency Development for Multiple Parties

• Direct community involvement that creates community competency and builds relationships
• Offender agreeing to processes aimed at developing his or her competencies
• Parental, community and individual responsibility reasserted

Restorative Justice vs. Criminal Justice

When an offense occurs, relationships are broken and those causing the harm incur the responsibility to make things right to the victim and others affected by the offense. Restorative justice and criminal justice both attempt to achieve this goal, but in very different ways. The questions they ask highlight the basic approaches that set them apart:

What Does Research on Restorative Justice Tell Us?

Based on quantitative and qualitative research carried out in different parts of the United States and other countries such as Canada, New Zealand and England, American Humane feels that upholding restorative justice principles results in:

• Reducing the likelihood that youths will reoffend
• Reconnecting youths to their families and communities
• Rebuilding youths’ sense of self
• Restoring victims to the state of welfare that existed before the offense
• Reuniting families
• Restoring a sense of safety and welfare in the community
• Relieving the criminal justice system from unnecessary costs

Experiments of various kinds support positive outcomes for restorative justice processes that revolve around stakeholders’ satisfaction with the process outcomes.

Victim Satisfaction

• According to a study conducted by Umbriet, Coates and Vos in 2004, victims who participate in conferences with offenders report higher levels of satisfaction than victims who do not.
• In Evje and Cushman’s 2000 evaluation of restorative justice programs in California, general satisfaction of all participants uniformly scored above 90 percent.
• Umbreit, Coates and Vos found in 2004 that over 80 percent of participants -- victims and offenders -- were satisfied with the restorative dialogue experience.

Offender Satisfaction

• Braithwaite found in four 1999 studies that offenders’ satisfaction and perceptions of fairness were higher if the offender had participated in a restorative practice.

Restitution

• Umbreit, Coates and Vos discovered in 2004 that agreement was reached in 90 percent of victim-offender dialogues, and between 80 and 90 percent of those agreements were fulfilled.
• Evje and Cushman reported in 2000 that in six victim-offender dialogue programs evaluated in California, completion rates for restitution and community service were higher than in programs where a face-to-face meeting did not take place.

Recidivism

Current literature varies in its report of recidivism outcomes.

• Four studies on restorative justice programs, Umbreit (1994), Niemeyer and Schichor (1996), Nugent and Paddock (1996), and Wiinamaki (1997), produced on average a 90-percent reduction in recidivism as compared to the control group.
• In combining the results of multiple studies in 2004, Nugent, Williams and Umbreit focused on reoffending in 15 experimental studies on 19 victim-offender dialogue programs, involving 9,307 juveniles; their results suggested that juvenile offenders who participate in these programs may be 30 percent less likely to recidivate.
• In Evje and Cushman’s 2000 study, five of six counties had reduced recidivism using a restorative justice model; one county reported a 10-percent reduction in recidivism as compared to a group that did not participate in a dialogue with the victim.

Research has shown that the fewer times a youth comes in contact with the justice system, the greater the chances he or she will not reoffend. The more the system diverts cases to family involvement and community-based solutions, the more caring and effective the justice system becomes