Abstract
Crime victimisation is a significant life event that can lead to the development of post-traumatic symptomology. Compared with the general population, victims of crime are significantly more likely to present with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Restorative justice is an approach to criminal justice that considers the goal of the justice system to restore victims to their state pre-victimisation. The purpose of this review was to evaluate the effectiveness of restorative justice in reducing symptoms of post-traumatic stress that develop following victimisation. Relevant databases were searched to identify quantitative studies measuring post-traumatic symptoms in victims of crime who successfully completed either a restorative justice or customary justice intervention. A total of seven studies were identified examining one or more facet of post-traumatic symptomology. These studies provide modest support that restorative justice did produce a greater improvement on post-traumatic symptoms than customary justice procedures. However, this was only consistently evidenced for symptoms of avoidance and intrusion, whereas there were mixed findings with regard to the subscales of negative alterations in mood and cognition, and arousal and reactivity. Reasons for these inconsistencies are discussed and recommendation made for further empirical work on this subject.
Highlights
Restorative Justice (RJ) is an approach to criminal justice that considers crime an act of harm committed by a perpetrator against an individual or community
RJ has been promoted as an evidence-based intervention that has additional benefits for victims compared with customary adversarial justice
Reasons for exclusion were based on a lack of inferential statistical analysis, absence of comparative justice procedure, victimoffender conferences (VOCs) that were not guided by RJ theory, RJ that did not include VOCs, or a combination of these factors
Summary
Restorative Justice (RJ) is an approach to criminal justice that considers crime an act of harm committed by a perpetrator against an individual or community. This interpersonal transgression creates an obligation for the offender to repair the damage done by such an act and restore the stakeholders to their prior status (Zehr 1990). RJ has been promoted as an evidence-based intervention that has additional benefits for victims compared with customary adversarial justice
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