She has conducted research on restorative justice for many years. During the late 1990s she spent four years studying restorative cautioning in the Thames Valley Police, for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. During this time she, and her colleague Dr Richard Young, observed 78 restorative conferences and cautions, and interviewed over 500 participants; facilitators, offenders, victims, and their respective supporters.

Carolyn also conducted a national evaluation of restorative justice schemes for juveniles for the Youth Justice Board of England and Wales and, in the early 2000s, a comparative study (funded by the Nuffield Foundation) of traditional and restorative measures for resolving complaints against the police by the public. Finally, with Dr Young and Dr Wilcox, she conducted a resanctioning study, funded by the Home Office, assessing the impact of restorative cautioning on offending.

Carolyn’s other research interests are victims and the death penalty. She has recently written the fourth edition of ‘The Death Penalty, with Professor Roger Hood. She teaches at both undergraduate and graduate level, and gives courses on: ‘Restorative Justice’; ‘The Death Penalty’; ‘Victims’; ‘Race, Gender and Criminal Justice’ and ‘Qualitative Research Methods’ on the Oxford University MSc in Criminology and Criminal Justice.

Important Idea

Sentencing is increasingly punitive, at least in part, because of the apparent lack of confidence in non-custodial penalties shared by sentencers and the general public. Better use needs to be made of the available alternatives to custody, including fines, which have become unpopular amongst magistrates. But a more thorough and imaginative use of restorative justice is also a viable alternative to imprisonment, particularly, although not exclusively, for the majority of juveniles and for adults who are currently sentenced to less than two years, sentences which represent an inefficient use of custodial resources.

However, restorative justice in the UK has fast become the most over-evaluated and under-practiced area of criminal justice. It is fair to say that there are currently many more books and articles written on the subject than there are restorative practices in the community. Despite a great deal of legislative activity and academic scrutiny, there remains little restorative activity on the ground and what restorative measures exist are focused primarily on young offenders or on first time adult offenders charged with relatively minor offences.It remains, in other words, on the periphery of criminal justice and, as such, unable effectively to tackle the current penal crisis.

It is high time this balance shifted: academics could ‘down tools’ if they wish, but practitioners and the British government need to get on board, to produce effective and viable, adequately funded interventions, rather than just aspirations.

--Carolyn Hoyle

Leading Edge

Currently Carolyn Hoyle is a Commissioner for the Howard League Commission for English Prisons. This independent Commission will look at the driving forces influencing change and practice including legislation, politics and the media.  It will consider the principles, purpose and limits of a penal system and how it should sit alongside other social policy strategies. Final report will be published in 2009. 

Within the commission Dr Hoyle is Chair of the Restorative Justice working group and will make a case for restorative justice as a meaningful alternative response to crime and as a basis for prison programs, without widening the net of those who will be drawn into the penal system.
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Contact Carolyn Hoyle Carolyn.Hoyle@crim.ox.ac.uk

Bibliography

April 2008