Book Review: Integrating Victims in Restorative Youth Justice

by Adam Crawford and Tom Burden. Bristol, England: Policy Press. 2005. ISBN 9781861347855.

This short study offers helpful insight into the first year of implementation, in one community, of a national restorative justice initiative in England. The title aptly hints at the real focus of the book, victim participation.

First, some background. In 1989 and 1999, new legislation introduced a form of restorative justice into British courts. The laws were intended to encourage first time youth offenders show genuine remorse and offer an apology “to their victims and [make] amends for the harm they have done.” 

They did this by establishing a Youth Offender Team (YOT) in each community made up of volunteer members, police, health officials, probation officers and school staff. Youths aged 10-17 were court adjudicated and then sent to the YOT on a mandated referral order. In other words, neither judges nor defendants nor their parents have any choice as to whether to use this approach after a guilty plea. 

This represented a shift from judicial sentencing to a community intervention with behaviour and reparative contracts involving stakeholders other than the state or government.

The authors, both Leeds criminology researchers, examine how the new legislation and its ‘restorative interventions’ were implemented in order to assess their success at “plac[ing] victim needs at the centre of the criminal justice system.”

They begin by outlining the legislation and then examine the first years' implementation in Leeds, one of the 156 YOT bodies that the new laws created. In 2004, the Leeds juvenile court judges adjudicated/sentenced 2036 young people. About 500 were sent to the six-member YOT on a “referral order.” This meant that the new body was immediately faced with a very large caseload, which the authors note can be attributed to the lack of voluntariness of the programme (page 8). 

The authors provide an impressive collection of charts, graphs and related data before concluding: “referral orders offer youth justice a means of engaging local communities in positive responses to crime, which seek less to stigmatize and exclude young people, both rather to give them a stake in addressing the causes of their offending”  (page 96.)

However, on the question of victim involvement, the results were less positive. Very few victims participated in the YOT meetings during the first year. The authors speculate on the reasons for this very low level of actual victim involvement and arrive at several conclusions.

First, many programs have faulty first-year implementation. This is especially to be expected when the change involves a new paradigm of response to youth offending. That engenders resistance on the part of system professionals accustomed to a different approach.

Second, interaction with victims was not well done. Very few victims were convinced of the benefit to them of the programme or properly motivated to participate.

Third, the needs of those who were interested were not adequately  accommodated so that they would  be able to participate. For example, working victims could not attend YOT meetings held during the day to accommodate the schedules of system professionals.

Non-UK readers, despite having different laws and practices, can still benefit from this study in how it will broaden their basic understanding of the challenges of restorative justice implementation. This short book is an easy read and a worthy addition to any bookshelf.

Eric Assur
June  2008