Review by Martin Wright

After a slow start British academics are beginning to recognize the distinguishing features of restorative justice, especially when, like Crawford and Newburn, they have been engaged in evaluation of pilot projects.  Legislators, unfortunately, do not always see beyond the idea of reparation, and perhaps mediation as an afterthought;  their instinct is to control rather than to persuade and enable.  The authors outline youth justice in England and Wales, the Audit Commission’s withering report on it in 1996, and the shortcomings of criminal justice in general.  Then they describe the development of restorative justice, beginning with what is oddly called Nils Christie’s ‘carrion call’ (perhaps the clarion should be sounded to wake up the proof-reading department!).  In 1997 the New Labour government produced a White Paper (policy statement) which summarized restorative justice inadequately as ‘restoration, reintegration and responsibility’:  only the first of these affects victims, and then only as passive recipients of apology or amends, not as participants in a dialogue.  Other, more restorative systems are usefully summarized, from conferencing in New Zealand to community peace committees in South Africa – the latter adding a new dimension of ‘peacebuilding’, attempting to address structural conditions that expose people to pressures to commit crimes.  It is encouraging to find that some youth offending panels are trying to address this (p. 152). 

The ‘referral orders’ introduced in 1999 are of mixed parentage:  the Scottish hearing system, New Zealand’s family group conferences, with the involvement of trained volunteers and the newly formed interdisciplinary youth offending teams.  The authors place them in the context of other developments such as sentencing circles in Canada and the Zwelethemba peace committees of South Africa, and Paul McCold’s Venn diagram of degrees of ‘restorativeness’ (which however doesn’t include dialogue or informality of process among the essentials).   

They assess referral orders against various yardsticks such as ‘voluntariness’, impartiality and human rights issues.  They conclude (p. 48) that fair proportionality is impossible in practice, as your reviewer has long maintained (Wright 1999).  They rightly point out that the short meeting may not be enough;  further intervention may be needed before social exclusion can be addressed; and that if victims are offered restorative justice only if ‘their’ offender meets certain criteria, they may experience R J as a lottery.

Many magistrates, clerks and YOT staff were surveyed, and expressed mainly positive views, although with response rates between 36 and 51 per cent one cannot be sure what the non-repliers think. 

It is surprising that referral orders have turned out relatively well, as the government decided to ‘roll them out’ (in the odd jargon) without waiting for the evaluation of the pilots (p. 63).  Implementation is reviewed, including communication difficulties with voluntary organizations.  The operation of youth offending panels and the fulfilment of contracts are reported, and there is a chapter on the service to victims (poor compared to other countries).   

This book is a useful guide to the early days of this new measure, although there since have been improvements (partly as a result of the research).  There are several suggestions for improvement, but these are embedded in the text;  they would have merited grater prominence.  All in all, the authors assess referral orders as a ‘mixed success’ (p. 242).

REFERENCE

Wright, M (1999)  Restoring respect for justice.  Winchester:  Waterside Press.