Hennessey Hayes has been conducting research on restorative justice interventions in Australia for the past decade.  His primary research interests have centred on learning how restorative justice interventions prevent crime. 

He has been involved in several major projects that examine the effects of one form of restorative justice (conferencing) on further offending.  These include a one-year follow-up study of young offenders in the South Australian Juvenile Justice (SAJJ) project, a five-year follow-up of several hundred young offenders conferenced in Queensland, and a reanalysis of data gathered for the Bethlehem Restorative Policing Experiment. 

Results from these projects show that, while offender characteristics remain highly predictive of young offenders' future behaviour, there are features of conferences that work to promote desistence from crime (e.g., when agreements are achieved through consensus and when offenders are remorseful and offer sincere apologies).

More recently Hennessey conducted an international review of the restorative justice and re-offending research literature.  The outcomes suggest that the highly variable nature of restorative practices around the world has led to a great deal of variation in research findings.  However, on average restorative justice interventions yield reductions in crime.

Important Idea

One aim of restorative justice practices is to provide a way for offenders, victims and their supporters to repair harms, restore relationships and recover from the negative impact of crime.  There now is a substantial amount of empirical evidence to suggest that participants in restorative encounters regard these interventions as fair and they are largely satisfied with outcomes.

However, there is less evidence to suggest that such encounters are, in fact, restorative (e.g., offenders offer apologies, these apologies are accepted and victims offer forgiveness).  A challenge for restorative practitioners is in finding the effective balance between encouraging young offenders to be accountable for their behaviour and minimising mitigating discourses. 

Managing restorative conferences is challenging for even the most experienced practitioners.  However, the sociology of apology helps us to understand why reconciliation is not achieved in some restorative encounters and shows us possible ways of improving the practice of restorative conferencing to allow “for the resumption of normal social relations (Tavuchis 1991:121).

(Adapted from Hayes 2006 “Apologies and accounts in youth justice conferencing”, Contemporary Justice Review, 9(4): 369-385)

Leading Edge

1. learning how young offenders know and understand their restorative encounters
2. drawing on the sociology of apology and ethnographic data from young offenders regarding their conference experiences to develop an ethical framework for restorative justice practice in Australia.