Abstract
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. 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. 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. RJCs are a cost-effective means of reducing frequency of recidivism.
Highlights
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
Our meta-analysis found that, on average, RJCs cause a modest but highly costeffective reduction in the frequency of repeat offending by the consenting offenders randomly assigned to participate in such a conference
While we have reported the results of these tests elsewhere (Sherman and Strang 2012), we exclude them from the present review on the theoretical grounds that they do not share the fundamental bio-psychological conditions of an RJC with cases in which a harmed person faces an offender (Sherman and Strang 2011)
Summary
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
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