Summary
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A Conditional Caution is a new way of dealing with certain criminal offences and involves an offender agreeing to comply with conditions to avoid being prosecuted. Restorative Justice can be used as part of the Conditional Cautioning process, either as a condition of the offender's caution, or as the means by which the victim and offender propose the conditions that could be attached to the Conditional Caution. Two of the Conditional Cautioning early implementation areas will be using RJ (West Mercia and Thames Valley). The evaluation of all the early implementation areas will allow us to compare the effectiveness of RJ conditional cautions and non-RJ conditional cautions, in terms of victim satisfaction, offender compliance with conditions, and re-offending rates. The experience of the early implementation areas will be used to refine the guidance before wider roll out. The RJ Operational Considerations have been developed to guide forces in the early implementation areas when using RJ and should only be used in the in the early implementation areas for Conditional Cautioning. They are part of a wider set of operational considerations for the early implementation areas (that includes information for all the organisations involved in the scheme) and should be read alongside Code of Practice for Conditional Cautioning and the Director's Guidance on Conditional Cautioning : Guidance to police officers and Crown Prosecutors issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions under Section 37A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.
Link: www.homeoffice.gov.uk/justice/victims/restorative/conditioning.htm
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