RT Article
T1 Are Restorative Justice Conferences Effective in Reducing Repeat Offending? Findings from a Campbell Systematic Review
JF Journal of quantitative criminology
VO 31
IS 1
SP 1
OP 24
A1 Sherman, Lawrence W. 1949-
A2 Strang, Heather
A2 Mayo-Wilson, Evan
A2 Woods, Daniel J.
A2 Ariel, Barak
LA English
YR 2015
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1764278399
AB Objectives This paper synthesizes the effects on repeat offending reported in ten eligible randomized trials of face-to-face restorative justice conferences (RJCs) between crime victims, their accused or convicted offenders, and their respective kin and communities. Methods After an exhaustive search strategy that examined 519 studies that could have been eligible for our rigorous inclusion criteria, we found ten that did. Included studies measured recidivism by 2 years of convictions after random assignment of 1,880 accused or convicted offenders who had consented to meet their consenting victims prior to random assignment, based on “intention-to-treat” analysis. Results Our meta-analysis found that, on average, RJCs cause a modest but highly cost-effective reduction in the frequency of repeat offending by the consenting offenders randomly assigned to participate in such a conference. A cost-effectiveness estimate for the seven United Kingdom experiments found a ratio of 3.7–8.1 times more benefit in cost of crimes prevented than the cost of delivering RJCs. Conclusion RJCs are a cost-effective means of reducing frequency of recidivism.
K1 Recidivism
K1 Meta-analysis
K1 systematic review
K1 Conferencing
K1 Restorative Justice
DO 10.1007/s10940-014-9222-9