Restorative justice and deterring crime

Abstract

The Canberra reintegrative shaming experiments indicate that offenders are more deterred from repeat offending after experiencing the restorative justice approach of diversionary conferencing than after court proceedings. Drink drivers predict more dire consequences especially with their families, if they are caught offending again after a conference than after court. Both young offenders and drink drivers are more likely than offenders sent to court to say they will obey the law in the future. <P> These preliminary findings of the evaluation by ANU researchers of the Canberra police conferencing program are especially important because some critics have called shaming conferences a "soft option". Interviews with the first 548 offenders in the study suggest that is not how the offenders see it, especially after experiencing over an hour under the spotlight of critical examination by family, friends, victims or community representatives sitting in a circle in a private room at a police station. Led by specially trained police officers, the conferences are emotionally intense discussions of what the offender did, whether the offender is sorry, and how the offender can repair the harm caused by the crime. For drink drivers, the average court case in the study takes 6 minutes, while the average conference takes 88 minutes. For young offenders, the average court case takes 13 minutes, while the average conference takes 71 minutes. <P> Whether these conferences are "hard" or "soft" is not nearly as important as whether they prevent repeat offending better than prosecution in court. That is the ultimate question of the long-term ANU evaluation of the program, requiring two years of follow-up monitoring of the offences committed by the offenders in the study. But the battle to prevent future crime is won or lost in the immediate aftermath of the court or conference, which is the time when ANU staff seek interviews from all the offenders. The first 111 young offenders and 437 drink drivers interviewed represent around three-quarters of all those eligible for interview. The young offenders were apprehended for a wide range of property and violent offences, from shoplifting to burglary to assault. <P> In order to draw conclusions about the comparative effects of court and conferences, the ANU evaluation used the most rigorous method available: the randomised clinical trial approach used in medicine, education and other fields. This approach virtually rules out other explanations for any differences between the two groups other than the treatment they received. Once a police officer has determined that a case would be suitable for either prosecution in court or diversion to a reintegrative shaming conference, the ANU research team advises the officer on which course to take. That advice is blind to the characteristics of the offender, and based solely on a mathematical formula that gives all eligible offenders an equal chance to go to court or conference. <P> The results of the interviews show what offenders dealt with in court think of their sentences, and how they view the prospects of future punishment and their own obedience to the law.