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Restorative Justice Consortium.. Community Penalties and Restorative Justice: Police Knowledge and Views

This document consists of a report on a small pilot research project by the Restorative Justice Consortium (RJC). The research explored police knowledge of and attitudes towards community penalties and restorative justice. The idea for the project stemmed from an awareness on the part of members of RJC that the public gained most of their knowledge of the criminal justice system from police officers in the wake of a crime. The question then arose as to what police officers knew and thought about community penalties and restorative justice. The research itself involved interviews and an information/training session with a group of police officers from the Cambridgeshire (England) Constabulary. The results of the interviews are collated and presented in this document. The interview questionnaires are also included.

Stewart, Anna Louise and Smith, Frances. Youth Justice Conferencing and Police Referrals: The Gatekeeping Role of Police in Queensland, Australia

Youth justice conferencing in Queensland, Australia is a process which brings together those people in the community which have been most affected by a criminal offense the offender, the victim, and their supporters, and was established after an amendment in 1996 to the Juvenile Justice Act of 1992. Youth justice conferencing relies on the discretionary referral of young offenders by the police. Since the introduction of conferencing, low rates of police referrals were identified as a critical issue in undermining the successful implementation of conferencing. This study explored Queensland police officers’ training, experience, understandings of youth justice conferencing, and their individual discretionary policing style. In addition, the impact of these factors on officers’ attitudes towards conferencing and their reported likelihood of referring to conference were examined. Of the 600 questionnaires mailed out to randomly selected operational police officers in the Metropolitan North, Metropolitan South, Southeastern, and Southern regions, 184 questionnaires were available for analyses. Of the 184 police officers, 28 reported that they had never heard of conferencing. Of those officers who had heard of conferencing, the majority had received no training in relation to conferencing. Overall, surveyed officers who had heard of conferencing considered it to be a positive process. Those who had received training were more likely to endorse conferencing as a positive process. In addition, exposure to conferencing increased officers’ beliefs in the effectiveness of conferencing and ensured they were familiar with the procedures involved in conferencing. Study limitations are presented and briefly discussed. Abstract courtesy of National Criminal Justice Reference Service, www.ncjrs.org.

Shaw, Margaret and Jané, Frederick. Restorative Justice And Policing In Canada: Bringing The Community Into Focus

A widespread movement to develop alternative ways of delivering justice in society is taking place across a broad range of countries. Most commonly referred to as Restorative Justice, or Community Justice, the movement has recently become the subject of increasing interest from governments and sectors of the justice system, including the police. Canada has been well represented in the development of restorative justice in terms of past practice and recent innovation. As part of the re-orientation of policing to community policing, the RCMP and the OPP as well as other police forces and components of the Canadian justice system have recently begun to embrace a much more active role in restorative justice. As key components of the justice system, the police have a central gate-keeping role through their exercise of discretionary decision-making. For many the current justice system is seen as failing to reduce crime and to attend to the needs of victims, offenders or the community, but while many claims have been made about the ability of restorative justice to address these issues, there has also been criticism about its limitations, and concern about the wholesale adoption of restorative practices particularly by the police. The purpose of this report is to set these initiatives in the context of the development of restorative justice practices in Canada and elsewhere. It considers the historical development of restorative justice ideas, the underlying philosophy and goals of the movement and the characteristics of the main practices; the development of restorative practices in Canada and current initiatives; the benefits and limitations of restorative justice; and some of the wider issues concerning the role of the police in the use of restorative justice, particularly at the pre-charge stage. (excerpt)

Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Winship, Peter. Thames Valley Police: Primary Inspection - September 1998

The Thames Valley Police are noted for their leading efforts at exploring the integration of restorative justice and policing. Hence, this inspection of the work of the Thames Valley Police is particularly relevant to those interested in restorative justice. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary conducted this inspection between September 14 and 18, 1998. The aim was to examine the formulation and implementation of strategy planning arrangements and certain other issues. As reported in this document, the inspection covered the following topics with respect to the Thames Valley Police: strategy and planning; analysis of performance in areas such as crime management, public order management, police and community relations, and restorative justice; and additional issues such as surveillance, information technology, and complaints.

McCold, Paul and Stahr, J.. Bethlehem Police Family Group Conferencing Project

This paper reports on an ongoing experimental research program to evaluate the implementation, operation and effects of police-based Family Group Conferences(FGCs) on participants and the police in a mid-sized American city. Both violent and property offending juveniles are being randomly assigned to conferencing or traditional court referral. Early results demonstrate a 97% victim and 94% offender satisfaction ratings of the FGCs. Research protocol and program description is provided. Finally, critical questions are raised which this project will help to address.

Heslop, J. Diverting Young Offenders from the Formal Justice System

Two alternatives to institutionalization for juvenile offenders, police cautioning and the juvenile and mediation reparation programs, in New South Wales are described. A caution is a formal procedure in which the offender admits to the commission of a less serious offense and agrees to participate with a parent or guardian in the caution process at a police station. In the mediation/reparation program, young offenders are encouraged to make direct amends to the victims of the crime. Any agreement between the two parties is monitored by the Community Justice Center. Benefits are incurred in this type of program for the victim, the young offender, the community, and the police.

Association of Chief Police Officers. ACPO Response to Restorative Justice: The Government's Strategy

ACPO share the vision articulated in the consultation document on the potential of restorative justice as an integral part of the criminal justice system. We also acknowledge and share the hope that the use of restorative practices may expand beyond the criminal justice arena into the much wider setting of schools, the care and protection of children, and into other problems that affect people’s lives directly enough for them to want to participate. (excerpt)

Goold, Benjamin. Restorative Cautioning, Theories of Reintegration, and the Influence of Japanese Notions of Shame

Certainly one of the most significant developments in the treatment of young offenders in Britain over the past decade has been the move away from punitive forms of cautioning towards a new type of informal disposal known as "restorative cautioning". Although there is now a considerable body of academic and professional literature that examines the theory and practice of restorative cautioning, recently little has been written about the intellectual and cultural origins of this new approach to punishment and dispute resolution. This article explains some of the central notions of restorative justice, drawing particular attention to the influence of Japanese notions of shame and community on cautioning practices in Britain and elsewhere. (excerpt)

Wilcox, Aidan and Young, Richard and Hoyle, Carolyn and Young, Richard. Two-year resanctioning study: a comparison of restorative and traditional cautions

This study reports the results of a 24-month resanctioning study of restorative and traditional cautions. The work follows on from a previous study of restorative cautions in Thames Valley (Hoyle et al., 2002) which found that around one-quarter of offenders reported that they had either desisted from crime or reduced their offending at least in part because of the restorative caution. The aim of the current study was to investigate this finding further through a large-scale resanctioning study. The first part of the analysis compared the resanctioning rates of over 29,000 offenders in Thames Valley and the two comparison forces controlling for relevant offender characteristics. The second analysis compared the different types of caution within Thames Valley, again controlling for offender characteristics. The impact of restorative cautioning on various subgroups of offenders was also considered, as well as the frequency and seriousness of subsequent offending. Taking the results of the analyses together, there was no evidence to suggest that restorative cautioning had resulted in a statistically significant reduction in either the overall resanctioning rate or the frequency or seriousness of offending. Importantly, there was also no evidence that restorative justice had increased resanctioning rates. Although reliable cost data were not available, the cost per caution in Thames Valley is likely to have been less than in comparable schemes. It is also important to note that Hoyle et al. had demonstrated the many other benefits of the initiative for both victims and offenders. Authors' abstract.

Hines, David. Conferencing and Law Enforcement: Woodbury Community Justice Program

A suburb of Saint Paul, Minnesota, Woodbury is a rapidly growing city of 50,000 people. In recent years it has experienced a significant increase in juvenile offending. The Woodbury Police Department decided it was necessary to try a new approach to the problem of juvenile crime. Thus was born the Woodbury Community Justice Program. It is a police-based program which employs restorative practices to deal primarily with juvenile crime and delinquency. David Hines, a police officer with the Woodbury Public Safety Department, describes this community restorative justice program, including providing statistics on violations dealt with over nearly eight years, as well as guidelines for officer training.

Editor. Interchange: New York State trains State Police in restorative justice and places them in schools

This article surveys a program to train New York State Police in restorative justice ideas and practices. Thirty five State Police were being assigned as School Resource Officers (SROs) in 63 school districts across New York State as part of the Governor’s Safe Schools Initiative. In view of this, Janelle Cleary, Project Director for the New York State Community Justice Training Initiative of the New York State Council on Children and Families, helped to develop the training program and provide actual training. She describes difficulties in introducing restorative justice into New York State, yet she also notes the positive response to the training among police and school personnel. The article also contains an overview of the training program itself.

Oxfordshire Youth Offending Team. Oxfordshire Youth Offending Team Policy on Work with Victims

The Oxfordshire Youth Offending Team (United Kingdom) was established in the late 1990s to put victims at the center of the criminal justice process. The approach in contacting and supporting victims of youth crime is to work with victims sensitively, taking account of their needs, rights, and wishes. This paper spells out in detail the policies on its work with victims. These stated policies cover the following: Youth Offending Team strategy; victims awareness; reparation and mediation; guidelines for practice; the youth court; interagency implications; and monitoring and evaluation.

Macaulay, Lawrence. Strengthening the Capacity of the RCMP

Solicitor General of Canada, Lawrence Macaulay discusses in this presentation the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s initiative in applying restorative justice. This initiative builds upon the RCMP’s leadership in implementing a community policing model. This is seen particularly in the RCMP’s Community Justice Forums. A concrete means to involve the community in restorative justice solutions, a community justice forum is a safe, controlled environment where an offender, victim, and their families or supporters are brought together under the guidance of a facilitator. Macaulay highlights the forward-looking vision and practice of the RCMP with respect to restorative justice, and he details ways in which the federal government in Canada is strengthening the capacity of the RCMP to fulfill its policing role at local, provincial, and national levels in Canada.

O'Mahony, David and Doak, Jonathan. Restorative Justice -- Is More Better?: The Experience of Police-Led Restorative Cautioning Pilots in Northern Ireland

Under the two programs, juveniles (under 17 years old) who committed an offense were diverted from formal prosecution through a formal caution under a restorative justice approach. Evaluation researchers conducted fieldwork from September 2000 to April 2001. All case files (n=1,861) handled by the juvenile liaison officers in the 2 areas over the duration of the project were reviewed. Attention was given to the types of cases that came to the attention of the liaison officers and how the cases were resolved, categorized as "no further police action," "advice and warning," "caution," or "prosecution." The conferences typically consisted of the officer inviting the juvenile to state in his/her own words what they had done to warrant police action. This was usually followed with a question about the youth's motivation for committing the offense. The facilitator would then inquire about the actual and potential consequences of the act for the victim (not present), the juvenile's family, and the juvenile himself/herself. The conference would result in a cautioning agreement that might include expression of remorse, agreement to pay for damage, a written apology to the victim, and agreement to perform certain duties or engage in prescribed behaviors. Evaluators conducted interviews with 29 participants, their parents, and their victims. All participants valued the philosophy underlying the programs and viewed their implementation as appropriate and effective; however, there were two major areas of concern identified by evaluators, i.e., the risk of "net-widening" (drawing offenders into police processing who would have previously received only a verbal caution or warning from police) and the lack of significant victim participation in the programs. Abstract courtesy of National Criminal Justice Reference Service, www.ncjrs.org.

McCold, Paul. An Experiment in Police-Based Restorative Justice: The Bethlehem (PA) Project.

In 1991, writes Paul McCold, police-based family group conferencing as a community policing technique was pioneered in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia. Prior to his own study, McCold states that empirical evaluation of restorative policing has been based on a “before/after� design. That evaluation indicated a reduction in referrals to court following the introduction of conferencing in Wagga Wagga. Qualitative studies of restorative policing have suggested significant, positive changes in the attitude of the police toward their own role and work. McCold builds on previous research with a study of restorative policing in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Specifically, he examines the effects of restorative policing practice on police, victims, offenders, and the community. He also compares his results with equivalent data on formal adjudication and with other restorative approaches (e.g., victim-offender mediation).

Young, Richard and Cooper, Karen and Hoyle, Carolyn and Cooper, Karen and Hill, Roderick and Hoyle, Carolyn. Informal Resolution of Complaints Against the Police: A Quasi-Experimental Test of Restorative Justice

In many jurisdictions it is increasingly recognized that police complaints systems should contain a mixture of formal and less formal procedures, as well as allow for a variety of outcomes including remedial and punitive ones. Recent changes to the system for handling complaints against the police in England and Wales envisage an expanded role for local (informal) resolution, with a new range of options including restorative justice conferences. Yet little is known about whether complainants would welcome the option of a restorative justice conference or whether restorative processes would constitute an improvement on conventional practices. This article presents the results of a Nuffield Foundation funded study of these issues carried out in 2002–3 in two police force areas. The findings suggest that restorative processes can achieve moderately better results than conventional processes. While widespread implementation of this new approach is likely to prove problematic for many police services, a flexible approach to introducing changes, drawing on the experience of restorative practitioners in related areas, is likely to benefit complainants without creating dissatisfaction among police officers. (authors' abstract)

Munro, Randy. Nanaimo Restorative Justice Program.

The Community Justice Forum pre-charge model of Restorative Justice sanctioned by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) operates under three basic process in British Columbia: 1) The first is police-based, where police officers refer, coordinate, and facilitate. This is a simple, quick, and economical process, often preferred by smaller communities where referrals would be manageable.; 2) In a mid-sized community the program can be community-based, where police refer cases; a community volunteer coordinates the program; and, trained community volunteers facilitate the forums. In this structure, a registered society is usually established to oversee the program; and 3) A third structure, adapted by the Nanaimo Royal Canadian Mounted Police Detachment, is the forming of a partnership with an existing non-profit organization, Nanaimo Region John Howard Society. Trained community volunteers facilitate the forums, monitored by a paid coordinator of the Society. The volume of cases referred in a larger urban area of 85,000 people, such as Nanaimo, required innovative strategies. (excerpt)

Wilcox, Aidan and Young, Richard. How Green was Thames Valley?: Policing the Image of Restorative Justice Cautions.

In 1994, Thames Valley Police (in the UK) began experimenting with restorative justice cautioning, in the Milton Keynes area. Other pilot programmes (most notably in Aylesbury) soon followed. The initiative was enthusiastically promoted by the then Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, Sir Charles Pollard. One of his central claims was that re-offending rates had declined from 30% to 4% in Aylesbury as a result of restorative cautioning. This remarkable claim was instrumental in persuading key individuals, both within and outside Thames Valley Police, that greater use should be made of restorative methods within criminal justice. This paper subjects that claim to empirical scrutiny (and finds it baseless) as well as exploring what this episode reveals about the nature of relations between the police and the media. (author's abstract).

Bong, Peter. Vanuatu Law, The Police, and Restorative Justice

Peter Bong describes the steps that the Vanuatu police have taken towards community policing. He outlines the processes used to involve the local community in the process. This includes consultation with traditional leaders and allowing them to work through informal settlements with parties in conflict.

Bowes, David. The Real Kindergarten Cop

In 1990, Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in the movie "Kindergarten Cop" as a policeman working undercover as a substitute teacher in a school. David Bowes, a research officer with the Thames Valley Police Restorative Justice Consultancy, describes in this article an entirely different but successful approach to policing in schools and the local community. This approach has been pioneered by the Thames Valley Police in Bretch Hill, a housing estate in the Oxfordshire town of Banbury. The approach includes police in partnership with community individuals and organizations, crime prevention through various early interventions with school children, and restorative conferencing in schools.