The Impact of Restitution on Recidivism of Juvenile Offenders: An Experiment in Clayton County, Georgia

Abstract

Juvenile courts have increasingly been interested in using restitution as a sanction for juvenile offenders, but until recently very little information has been available on the effects of restitution. To assess the impact of restitution on recidivism rates of juveniles, a series of experiments was undertaken as part of a national evaluation of the Juvenile Restitution Initiative, which was funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). This study reports on the results from one of those experiments. The findings from the Clayton County, Georgia, experiment indicate that youths required to make restitution to their victims either through community service or monetary payments generally had lower recidivism rates than those given more traditional juvenile court dispositions. Furthermore, the results clearly suggest that restitution works quite well on its own and does not need to be combined with mental health counseling. In contrast with many other types of delinquency programs, the restitution intervention not only had a positive impact when contrasted with traditional dispositions, but actually slowed the delinquency rate of the group. The overall offense rate of the restitution-only group, for example, dropped from approximately one offense per youth, per year, to .74 offenses, per youth for a one-year time period.