Handbook on Restorative justice programmes

HANDBOOK ON RESTORATIVE JUSTICE PROGRAMMES
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See Galaay’s practical guide on “Evaluating Restorative Community Justice Programs”, 1998.

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앫 The lack of adequate controls and comparability of the referral cri-
teria, the competence and training of facilitators, the legislative and
policy framework within which individual restorative programmes
operate, and the various benchmarks that are used to assess outcomes.
앫 The variability in the indicators that are used to measure programme
success.
앫 Variations in the time period used to assess recidivism among
offenders who participate in restorative programmes.
앫 The specific measures that are used by programme evaluations to
assess crime victim and offender “satisfaction”, the levels of “fear”
among crime victims, and the expectations that offenders and vic-
tims had of the restorative process. There are, for example, a vari-
ety of indicators that can be used to assess victim satisfaction,
including satisfaction with: (a) the way their case was handled;
(b) the outcome of the case; (c) with the facilitator; (e) the fairness
of the process; and, (f) the interactions with the offender.
앫 The manner in which any assessments of crime victim and offender
experience with the restorative process are conducted.
앫 Controlling for the wide variety of contexts, i.e. urban/rural; highly
troubled/highly integrated communities, in which restorative
processes operate.
앫 Controlling for the diversity in the types of training that programme
staff and facilitators receive.
앫 Controlling for the variety of legislative and policy frameworks within
which restorative processes operate.
앫 Quantifying processes that are highly subjective, personal and
interactive.
앫 Developing measures to assess the extent to which restorative processes
enhance community, family and system capacities.
앫 Developing measures to assess victim empowerment, offender remorse
and rehabilitation.
앫 Operationalizing concepts such as “community capacity”, “family
capacity”, “system capacity”, victim “empowerment” and “commu-
nity engagement”.
앫 Developing measures to asses the cost effectiveness of restorative
justice initiatives, particularly vis-à-vis the conventional criminal jus-
tice system.
As well, the majority of evaluations conducted to date have focused on the
experiences of crime victims and offenders. Less attention has been given
to the views of politicians and senior law enforcement and criminal justice
personnel. Their decisions, actions or inaction can have a significant
impact on the development and implementation, and ultimate success, of
restorative justice processes. Similarly, there has been little if any focus on
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