Evaluation Tools

This section contains evaluation instruments that have been used for assessing the effectiveness of particular restorative processes.

Badlands or fairyland? How to misuse statistics and confuse the public

from Rethining Crime and Punishment's new newsletter Truth in Justice: If Truth in Justice were to have an annual award in 12 months time for the most inaccurate, misleading and appalling publication on crime and punishment, it is unlikely that anything would surpass Badlands: NZ - A Land Fit for Criminals by David Fraser and published by Ian Wishart. While we were reluctant to give it any more publicity, the book is a self-contained case study of what can happen when someone with a set ideological agenda sets out to prove their position through false logic and the misuse of statistics. It almost qualifies as a serious hazard to public safety. We asked three people to review the book. Each has approached it from a different perspective.

Drawing together research, policy and practice for restorative justice

from the article on the IARS website: The key aim of the project is to initiate an international debate that will assist the development of improved practices, better informed policy and more grounded research on restorative justice. The project will lead to a publication and the production of evidence based policy recommendations at a time when governments, the EU and international bodies such as the UN are seeking for effective, low cost, non-traditional crime reduction options that also serve the victim and the sense of justice and fairness in society. Another aim of the project is to bring together key names in the field of restorative justice who are working on research, practice and policy but have not been able to communicate with each other before. This will help information exchange and the production of more informed, grounded policy recommendations.

A challenge

from the entry on Restore: I’m listening this morning to the slew of financial statistics–housing starts, unemployment rate, bank closings, those without health care, bankruptcies, houses in foreclosure…. It seems to me that restorative justice needs to come up with an index of its own: one that marks the measure of social justice. Are we moving closer or further away from our goal of less reliance on prisons, improving social relationships in our communities, looking at how well or how poorly alternatives to incarceration are funded? What is the ratio between expenditures on prisons vs. what we spend on schools? What is the ratio of crime to poverty? Number of dispute resolution programs to police officers?

Community Group Conferencing Evaluation Forms

These evaluation forms, used in the Bethlehem Restorative Policing Experiment, include: Conference Observation Form, Facilitator Data Sheet, Post-Conference Offender Questionnaire, Post-Conference Victim Questionnaire, Post-Conference Offender's Parent Questionnaire, Post-Court Offender Questionnaire, Post-Court Victim Questionnaire, Post-Court Offender's Parent Questionnaire.

Center for Restorative Justice & Peacemaking. Post-Mediation Dialogue Interview Schedule. Offender.

This document was used to gather data in the evaluation of Texas and Ohio Victim Offender Mediation/Dialogue programmes in crimes of Severe Violence.

Center for Restorative Justice & Peacemaking. Post-Mediation/Dialogue Interview Schedule.

This questionnaire was developed by the Center for Restorative Justice and Peacemaking at the University of Minnesota to gather information about victim experiences in victim offender dialogue in crimes of severe violence.

Geary, William. "A Quick Look at In-house Evaluations."

The author remarks that one of the necessary challenges for any program is evaluation. Because of the importance of this practice, the author provides basic guidelines for an organization to conduct its own “in-houseâ€? evaluation of its programs.

Umbreit, Mark S and Fercello, Claudia. "Program Evaluation Kit: Family Group Conferencing."

This document provides an extensive set of forms and questions for surveying the perspectives and experiences of both the victim and offender before the conference, and then for evaluating the results of the conference and how participants feel after the conference.

Pelikan, Christa. Research Informing Practice and Practice Informing Research

The presentation revolves around qualitative research in the field of victim-offender mediation. She discusses the value of research for practitioners and describes how empirical research ought to interact with theoretical models. She mentions mistakes she has seen in interpreting research data and suggests that practitioners might benefit from the data found by researchers.

Oregon Southern Region Family Decision Meeting Facilitators Group. Southern Region Family Decision Making Meeting Evaluation.

This satisfaction questionnaire is used to obtain evaluation feedback from participants in family meetings in southern Oregon.

Umbreit, Mark S. Program Evaluation Kit: Victim Offender Mediation Programs

This Program Evaluation Kit is designed to be a self-administered system for routinely collecting client satisfaction as part of the ongoing operation of a victim offender mediation program. By “self-administered” we mean that this evaluation kit can be implemented by program staff and volunteers, without the need for a special program evaluation grant or connection with a researcher at a University or related institution. If used properly, the program evaluation system presented in this kit can be easily etigrated into the on-going operation of the program and can actually offer a good quality experience for previous participants in mediation, by asking for their feedback about how their case was handled. (excerpt)