You are here: Home → Resources → Restorative Justice around the World → Pacific → Juvenile Justice

Juvenile Justice

Up one level

Alder, Christine and Wundersitz, Joy. Family Conferencing and Juvenile Justice: The Way Forward or Misplaced Optimism?

An anthology of 11 papers assesses the use and dimensions of family group conferencing (FGC) in Australia and New Zealand. FGCs involves a meeting between the offender and his/her extended family, the victim and his/her supporters, and other relevant parties to discuss the offense and to negotiate appropriate responses. The most innovative and potentially positive aspects of family group conferencing are the involvement of the victim and the young offender's family in decision making. The papers address whether punishment without stigmatization is possible, whether reoffending can be prevented, and if family conferencing represents the best alternative.

Alder, Christine and Wundersitz, Joy. New Directions in Juvenile Justice Reform in Australia

Reviews the adaptations of the New Zealand juvenile justice reforms to Australia, especially the use of family group conferences. After reviewing the history of juvenile justice reforms in Australia, the authors discuss the features of family group conferences, the differences between the New Zealand and Australian versions, and the implications for juvenile justice practice

Bates, Brian. A diverse approach to juvenile offending in the Northern Territory

Brian Bates, Commissioner of Police in the Northern Territory, presents a Juvenile Pre-Court Diversion Scheme being used in that territory as an alternative approach to juvenile offending. Specifically, it is an alternative to an adversarial system in response to juvenile offending. This alternative scheme provides a range of interventions to divert juveniles from the criminal justice system. The paper sketches the background to this approach, describes each of the diversionary interventions, and reports on results from the first nine months of the program’s operations.

Becroft, Andrew. Restorative Justice in the Youth Court: A Square Peg in a Round Hole?

New Zealand is known as a leader in the application of restorative justice to youth offending, with over 80% of juvenile offenses being handled through police diversion. The remaining 16-20% results in formal charges in the youth court. This article provides excerpts of a paper that examines the restorative potential of the New Zealand youth court. The full paper, written by Judge Andrew Becroft, Principal Youth Court Judge, New Zealand Youth Court, is attached.

Becroft, Andrew. Youth Justice in New Zealand: Future Challenges

The starting point is to emphasise that the fundamental structure and principles of the New Zealand youth justice system are sound (and have been for 15 years). The outcomes since the passage of the legislation suggest that the system is working. An increase in diversion and decrease in cases coming to the Youth Court, together with decreases in incarceration and institutionalisation, are achievements of which all those working in the New Zealand youth justice sector may justly be proud. (excerpt)

Boshier, Peter. How Family Group Conferencing Influences Decision-Making in New Zealand Courts.

PendingFamily Group Conferences (FGCs) were created by the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989. This Act deals with State intervention into childcare and aims to protect children from abuse and neglect through its care and protection provisions. The Act also established the Youth Court, which deals with young offenders. FGCs are the backbone of both the care and protection and youth justice processes. (excerpt)

Brown, M. J. A. Juvenile Justice in New Zealand

This paper describes New Zealand's Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act of 1989. The terms used in the Youth Justice portion of the legislation are defined, the jurisdiction of the Youth Court and objectives of the legislation are discussed, and the use of family group conferences are explained. Finally, the perceived benefits of this form of diversion are listed.

Carroll, M. Implementation Issues: Considering the Conferencing Options for Victoria

The potential advantages and dangers of family group conferences are discussed in the context of the existing juvenile justice system in Victoria under the Children and Young Persons Act 1989. These approaches have led to fewer young people admitted by courts to supervised programs making the need for more diversion approaches questionable. Concerns about police-based family group conferences include police neutrality, police role as prosecutor and judge, and program costs. Concerns about the New Zealand model include professional involvement in decision making, low victim satisfaction, net-widening, and costs of program implementation.

Chan, Janet B.L.. Reshaping Juvenile Justice. The NSW Young Offenders Act 1997

Reshaping Juvenile Justice examines reforms in New South Wales under the Young Offenders Act 1997. The Act institutionalizes a fresh approach to juvenile justice – one that regulates police discretion at the gate-keeping level, emphasizes diversion as a principle, introduces restorative conferencing as an intermediate intervention, and relegates the use of courts to the last resort. (publisher’s abstract)

Cunneen, Chris and White, Rob. Australia: Control, Containment or Empowerment?

This chapter presents a critical analysis of recent juvenile justice reforms in Australia. The main argument is that while the Australian Government espouses the rhetoric of restorative justice practices, reforms instituted in recent years have further marginalized disadvantaged youth. The authors begin by reviewing recent legislative changes that have enhanced the power of police to control young people in public spaces. These changes have expanded the ability of police to conduct casual “name-checks,” searches for prohibited implements, and to take fingerprints and bodily samples of alleged young offenders. This “zero tolerance” policing have been coupled with other control measures designed to contain young people in public spaces, such as formal youth curfews and restrictive approaches to bail. These legislative changes have accompanied an increased emphasis on the prediction and management of risk for young people in Australia, which has resulted in the expanded use of diversionary sanctions. The problem with such an approach, however, is that in practice this risk management has focused mainly on disadvantaged youth who do not fit the typical middle-class mold. The authors discuss the overrepresentation of Aboriginal youth in the juvenile justice system before turning to an examination of the tensions created between the rhetoric of restorative justice practices and the “net-widening” effect that has occurred as a result of risk management practices that criminalize a greater array of activities. While on the one hand, the Australian Government has expanded the use of so-called restorative sanctioning practices, the focus on risk management has changed the nature of juvenile incarceration. Even as the rate of juvenile incarceration has decreased across the country, it has become increasingly easier to transfer young offenders to adult courts and to hold young offenders in detention facilities administered by the adult correctional system. In closing the authors note that in Australia, the term “juvenile offender” is a code word for “poor and marginalized.” (Abstract courtesy of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, www.ncjrs.gov).

Cunningham, Teresa. Pre-court diversion in the Northern Territory: impact on juvenile reoffending.

A juvenile pre-court diversion scheme was introduced in the Northern Territory in 2000. Administered by police, it uses warnings and conferences to divert selected juveniles from the court process. This paper reports on an analysis of Northern Territory police records on 3,597 apprehended juveniles over a 5 year period. Findings showed that the great majority of juveniles (76%) did not reoffend within the first year after their initial diversion or court appearance. However, there were significant differences between juveniles who attended court and those who were diverted, both in terms of risk of reoffending and time to reoffending. Those who were diverted reoffended less than those who attended court and those who went to court reoffended more quickly. Property offenders who attended court were 30 percent more at risk of reoffending than violent offenders. Further work is required to see if the different effects for court versus diversion remain if prior offending history is taken into account. The significant differences in offending related to age, gender, Indigenous status and location confirm the need for specific responses to particular groups of juveniles. (author's abstract)

Daly, Kathleen and Curtis-Fawley, Sarah and Bouhours, Brigitte and Curtis-Fawley, Sarah. Sexual Offence cases finalised in court, by conference, and by formal caution in South Australian for young offenders, 1995-2001, Final Report.

What drives this research is an interest in the politics of justice and innovation in justice practices. Also motivating this work is a concern with the limits of law and legal reform to effectively address certain kinds of interpersonal crime, especially sexual assault. There are only two jurisdictions in the world, South Australia and New Zealand, which routinely use conferencing to process youth accused of sexual assault. In all other jurisdictions, sexual assault has deliberately been placed off the restorative justice agenda. Sexual violence is widely understood to be ‘too sensitive’ or ‘too risky’ to be handled by conference or to be diverted from court prosecution. (excerpt)

Daly, Kathleen and Curtis-Fawley, Sarah. Restorative Justice for Victims of Sexual Assault

This article analyzes the use of restorative justice (RJ)practices in cases of juvenile sexual assault through the use of two case studies from South Australia. Following the analysis, the authors conclude that the empowering process of RJ for victims of sexual assault may be one way of “redefining the realities” of these crimes. The two cases of sexual assault involved youthful male offenders and youthful female victims and both were finalized by a family conference in South Australia. The first case involved a confident victim who was described as knowing what she wanted from the family conference process. Although she had a positive experience, the victim had two main criticisms of the process. First, she believed the process was procedurally unfair in that she had no influence over what should be included in the agreement. Second, the victim believed the agreement was too lenient on the offender. In the second case study, which involved intrafamilial sexual intercourse, family conflict clouded the conference and the victim reported feeling intimidated by the offender during the process. Each case is followed by a discussion of the problems and benefits of using RJ practices in sexual assault cases in light of the experiences of the victims. One of the main problems cited with the use of RJ for sexual assault cases was the power imbalances that were evident between victims and offenders as well as between victims and offender advocates and youth court staff. Benefits to utilizing an RJ approach included victim empowerment through telling their stories and the requirement that offenders take responsibility for the offense. The case studies presented here were drawn from an in-depth study of 14 sexual and family violence cases finalized by family conference during the last part of 2005 in South Australia. An archival analysis was also performed on 387 juvenile sexual offenses finalized between 1995 and 2001 by formal caution, conference, or in Youth Court.

Goddard, Michael. The Age Of Steam: Constructed Identity and Recalcitrant Youth in a Papua New Guinea Village

Michael Goddard describes the Village Court in Pari Village Port Moresby, Papua New Guine. The institution of the village court, where traditional leaders use informal processes to respond to conflicts and minor crimes, has been described as restorative. Goddard challenges this view by looking at the meanings behind certain practices in the village court at Pari. He states that in this analysis of the Pari Village Court, "I contextualise a judicial process which might be glossed as restorative in issues of comunal identity, the interpretation of tradition and the negotiation of modern sociality. I hope to show here that restorative justice cannot be analytically abstracted from its immediate social context, and that within that context it can founder on the contestability of the cultural meaning to which it is putatively adapted.

Griffiths, Mark. Working with serious violent crime using restorative justice conferencing

In Victoria, Australia, restorative justice conferencing is used as a pre-sentence option in the Childrens Court for offenders who would otherwise receive correctional supervision. Since 1995 when the first pilots were introduced, a trend for more serious violent offences to be referred has occurred. This paper will look at some of the practice issues that workers face when preparing participants, facilitating a conference and following through with agreed plans after court for a conference involving resolution of a serious, violent offence such as armed robbery, affray and serious assault. The paper will explore from practice experience the capacity and limitations of restorative justice conferencing in humanizing the sentencing process, achieving reconciliation and reparation, and providing new sentencing solutions for the existing criminal justice system. The challenge to consolidate the existing Childrens Court program and expand into the adult court for the young adult offender population will be briefly outlined. Abstract courtesy of the Centre for Justice and Peace Development, Massey University, http://justpeace.massey.ac.nz.

Hakaiha, M. "Youth Justice Teams and the Family Meeting in Western Australia: A Trans-Tasman analysis."

This paper describes the juvenile diversion scheme known as Youth Justice Teams established as pilot programs in Western Australia. Each team consists of a youth justice coordinator, a police officer, a Ministry of Education officer and an Aboriginal community worker. YJTs have a mandate to divert juvenile cases deemed too serious for police cautioning and not serious enough to require court disposition. The roles of each team member is described and the case referral process and assessment plan is explained. The primary decision is whether to hold a family meeting based upon the New Zealand version of FGCs. The stages of the family meeting process are described and this process is compared with New Zealand FGCs.

Hassall, I and Maxwell, Gabrielle and Robertson, J. and Maxwell, Gabrielle. A Briefing Paper: An Appraisal of the First Year of the Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989

Three papers describe changes brought about by the New Zealand Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989. The first paper examines the Family Group Conference as an innovative method of involving families in statutory care and protection and youth justice processes. The second paper presents statistical data for 1990 on the disposition of children and youth who came to attention, under either the care and protection or youth justice provisions of the Act. The third article finds that the number of arrests, court appearances, convictions and court orders sharply decreased following passage of the act.

Hayes, Hennessey and Morris, Allison and Maxwell, Gabrielle and Hayes, Hennessey. Conferencing and Restorative Justice

Family group conferences in the New Zealand youth justice system have been the centre of international interest since they were introduced there in 1989, and they have since been imitated by a number of countries. Enabling legislation for juvenile offenders has been passed in New Zealand, Australia, England and Wales, Canada, Ireland, and Singapore. Also in New Zealand, legislation has been passed for adult offenders. Various versions of conferencing for young offenders have been introduced in Belgium, Hong Kong, Japan, the Netherlands, South Africa, Sweden, and the United States. More recently, new initiatives have been taken to introduce restorative conferencing in Brazil and Argentina for both adults and young people. In this chapter, we describe restorative justice conferencing for juveniles with a particular emphasis on New Zealand and Australia and assess the extent to which it can be said to reflect restorative justice processes and to result in restorative justice outcomes using research chiefly drawn from Australasia and North America. In addition, we examine data on the extent to which conferencing can reduce re-offending. But first, we discuss the development of restorative justice conferencing. (excerpt)

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.

Johns, Rowena. Young Offenders and Diversionary Options

This briefing paper is a progress report on diversion options from court for juveniles who commit criminal offenses in New South Wales (Australia), with attention to the system of cautions, warnings, and youth justice conferences available under the Young Offenders Act 1997. Abstract courtesy of National Criminal Justice Reference Service, www.ncjrs.org.