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“A Survey of Assessment Research on Mediation and Restorative Justice,” by International Institute for Restorative Practices director of research Paul McCold, has been published as a chapter in the book Repositioning Restorative Justice: Restorative Justice, Criminal Justice and Social Context. The paper provides an overview of 30 years of evaluation research of restorative justice programs from 1971 to 2001. The survey is limited to program assessments available in English and is representative of mediation and conferencing programs that have conducted and published the results of those assessments.Paul McCold Director of Research, IIRP

Said McCold, “This is one of a series of very informative articles published  as a result of the Fifth Conference of the International Network for Research  on Restorative Justice [held September 2001] and available from Willan Publishing  [in Devon, England].” The book can be ordered through the website  for Willan Publishing: http://www.willanpublishing.co.uk/reposrj.html.

McCold's objective in producing  the paper was, he writes, “to see what evidence we can bring to bear on  the probable truth or falsity of restorative justice as a credible response  to crime and conflicts in society. It is his view that restorative  justice must be measured against existing practice. “ There is a tendency  to compare new programs to perfection and to criticize them when they fail  to reach the ideal. To succeed, restorative justice does not need to be  perfect. To be preferred, it need only demonstrate superiority, on average,  to traditional adjudicatory approaches.”

“...If a justice program is effective,  it should be possible to measure these effects.”

Commented McCold, “I think this paper is especially significant  and really deserves to be highlighted. It brings together in one place and  in a dramatic graphic form the results of research on restorative justice  from all over the world and summarizes what currently can be said that we  know scientifically about restorative practices.” Askedwhat the research  shows overall, McCold said, “that restorative practices are a very popular  and effective alternative form of responding to criminal and civil conflict.” One  reason he wrote the paper, he said, was to provide “the range of outcomes  achieved so programs that are evaluating themselves will know what constitutes  normal results.”Writes McCold: “Primary restorative justice practices bring offenders  and those directly affected by their behavior together to agree mutually  on a plan to repair the harm done. These practices include at least two distinctive  versions of mediation-'community mediation' and 'victim-offender mediation';  two distinctive versions of conferencing- 'family group conferencing' and 'community  group conferencing'; and at least three distinct versions of peace-making  circles.

Writes McCold: “Primary restorative justice practices bring offenders  and those directly affected by their behavior together to agree mutually  on a plan to repair the harm done. These practices include at least two distinctive  versions of mediation-‘community mediation’ and ‘victim-offender mediation’;  two distinctive versions of conferencing- ‘family group conferencing’ and ‘community  group conferencing’; and at least three distinct versions of peace-making  circles.

“A consistent finding, from the initial to the most recent assessment of restorative justice programs, is that when the parties come together, the success rate is high.”

In the paper’s summary, McCold writes, “Results from the 98 restorative  program samples and 21 court samples surveyed provide strong empirical support  for a few generalizations. Disputing parties typically hold positive views  of restorative justice programs; they feel satisfied with the process and  would return if a dispute arose in the future. Studies involving different  settings and types of disputes found disputants perceived the outcomes of  restorative justice to be significantly fairer than those of court proceedings.”

The paper's conclusions include:

• There is no significant public opposition to restorative justice.

• There is a high degree of support among victims of crime and the public for offender  reparation and for victims to have an opportunity to meet with their offender.

• While participation  rates vary widely from program to program, most victims and offenders will  choose to participate, given the opportunity.

• Offenders are  somewhat less likely to participate than victims.

• Participation  rates differ for type of offenses, age of offender, type of victim and the  relationship between victim and offender.

• Many mediation  programs offer the option of indirect mediation (conciliation).

• Victims rate  direct mediation higher than indirect mediation or court, and report being  less fearful when they meet their offender face to face than when they are  not given the opportunity to do so.

• At least one  conferencing program, the New Zealand government's, requires participation  of qualifying juvenile offenders. This program and some other conferencing  programs proceed with or without the attendance of the victim. Victim participation  and satisfaction rating for New Zealand's youth-justice family group conferencing  was lower than for most restorative programs.

• Where victim  and offender participate in restorative programs, the rates of agreement  and compliance with that agreement are very high.

• There is no  consistent relationship between a program's participation rate and either  the agreement or compliance rates.

• There is no intrinsic limitation to the type of dispute or disputants for which restorative  justice can bring a reparative response and no empirical limitation reported  in the evaluation research:
  • Mediation and conferencing have reported successful resolutions in violent and property  cases, adult felony and first-time juvenile cases, and between strangers  or among family members.
  • For everything from consumer complaints to domestic violence, program evaluations  have documented the positive outcomes of restorative justice.
  • Justice does not need to be a trade-off between victims and offenders.
  • Both victims and offenders rate restorative justice as more fair and satisfying  than court. This is especially true for victims, and for models that directly  involve communities of care.
  • Several recent restorative justice programs report fairness and satisfaction ratings  from both offenders and victims above 95 percent.

• Reoffending rates for offenders is no higher for restorative justice than it is for court  adjudication:
  • The effects of the program on reoffending depend upon crime type and are related  to participation rates.
  • While there appears to be a strong self-selection effect for the voluntary programs  (i.e., those offenders less likely to reoffend are more likely to participate),  reoffending following restorative justice processing seems to be reduced  more among offenses against persons than among property offenses or victimless  offenses.

Difficulties arise when one attempts to compare different types  of restorative justice programs to each other, writes McCold. One of the  tools used to compare different programs is the service delivery rate formula,  the estimated average number of cases processed in one year per 10,000 people  in a given geographic area, which is a way to compare programs of varying  durations, serving diverse populations. Explaining the logic behind the service-delivery  rate calculation, McCold writes, “Assessment research varies from single-year  program evaluations to multi-year summaries of programs for a whole country.  To standardize comparison across assessment schemes, an annualized number  of mediations/conferences was estimated for each program sample.”

The paper includes several graphs depicting service delivery  rates for various different sizes of program samples. This is significant,  writes McCold, because even though small programs process relatively few  cases per year, “the impact of the program may be hidden behind the absolute  numbers served. A small program serving a small community or directed towards  a small finite population may have a larger aggregate effect than a small  program serving a large metropolitan area.”

The paper's Figure 4.3 (not shown here) depicts estimated service  delivery rates for small program samples - those processing 100 cases per year  or fewer. The two highest service delivery rates were for the community mediation  center (CMC) scheme in Rotterdam, Netherlands, which provided an intensive  program to the residents of a target housing district “with an astounding  service delivery rate of 135,” and the small town of Sparwood, British Columbia,  Canada, which processed every juvenile arrest using a community group conference  (CGC), and had a service delivery rate of 120.

Estimated service delivery rates for mid-sized program samples,  processing between 100 and 500 cases per year, are depicted in the paper's  Figure 4.4 (not shown here). The two highest service delivery rates in this  category were seen in CMCs in the inner-city neighborhood of Dorchester,  in Boston, Massachusetts, with a rate of 80 per year per 10,000 population,  and the CGC program in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia, with a rate  of 43.

Figure 4.5 (not shown here) depicts restorative justice program  samples with more than 500 mediations or conferences per year, including  city-based CMC samples and state and national CMC, victim-offender mediation  (VOM) and family group conference (FGC) samples. The graph shows that city-based  programs provided more intensive service delivery rates than state or national  programs. Although France provided 8,000 mediations per year, the service  delivery rate was only 1.5. At the other end of the spectrum, the graph shows  that the city of Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A., had a service delivery rate of 68  CMCs per 10,000 population. None of the state or national programs had a  rate higher than 20.Figure A. Estimated annual meetings: state and national program samples.

The actual number of conferences  held can be directly compared to service delivery rates by examining the paper's Figure 4.6 (shown here as Figure A), and the paper's Figure 4.7,  (shown here as Figure B). (All graphics have been reproduced with permission  of Willan Publishing.) Figure A shows that New York State's 28 CMC pro-grams held a total of 16,000 mediations  in one year, and New Zealand held 5,000 FGCs.Figure B. Estimated service delivery rates per 10,000 population: state and national program samples.

Figure B shows the program service rate for these samples, revealing  a different pattern. New York State had a program service delivery rate of  8.7, but “New Zealand, with the highest service delivery rate of 13.7, mandates  a family group conference for nearly 100 percent of their serious juvenile  offenders, or about 20 percent of all young offenders.”

Figure C. Offender perceptions by victim perceptions by program sample.Figure 4.17, (shown here as Figure C) illustrates a collection  of surveys of participants' satisfaction with various justice processes,  including different types of restorative justice programs, as well as the  conventional criminal justice system. McCold writes that there is no accepted  standard for measuring participant satisfaction, but that primary topics  and questions covered in the surveys compared in figure C included variations  on the following:

• Satisfaction  with the way their case was handled.

• Satisfaction  with the outcome of their case.

• Satisfaction  with the facilitator.

• Fairness of  the process.

• Fairness of  the outcome.

• Neutrality  of the facilitator.

• Are they glad  they participated?

• Would they  recommend this program to others?

• Would they  participate again under similar circumstances?

McCold writes that these questions were asked of victims and  offenders in mediation assessments and also of the parents of offenders and  other participants in conferencing programs. In addition, the same type of  questions were asked of two groups of participants in conventional court  programs: (1) those who were referred to a restorative justice program but  did not take part, and (2) those who were not referred to a restorative justice  program - effect, a matched comparison group. The questions asked and measurements  used for these assessments varied widely. To arrive at Figure C, within each  program the question that received the maximum rating from victims was compared  to the question that received the maximum rating from offenders.

“The U.S.A. has the largest, most expensive criminal justice system in the world. In spite of huge government spending on a variety of programs and approaches, the American public remains an unsatisfied customer.”

About the information illustrated in Figure C (see previous page),  McCold writes, “Ideally, restorative justice programs would transform the  relationship between parties and produce equally high ratings from both victims  and offenders. Programs with much higher ratings from offenders than from  victims might be considered offender focused, and vice versa.”

Figure C shows that “all but three of the court samples are offender  focused, in that the process is more preferred by offenders than by victims.  All but one restorative justice program demonstrate a more balanced approach.” McCold  concludes that these findings generally confirm that “disputing parties typically  hold positive views of restorative justice programs; they feel satisfied  with the process and would return under similar circumstances in the future.  Assessments involving different settings and types of disputes found that  disputants perceived the outcomes of mediation hearings to be significantly  fairer than those of court proceedings.”

Among the paper's highlights, said McCold, are data about public  opinion regarding the current justice system's approach to crime and about  attitudes toward restorative approaches to crime. “The U.S.A.,” he writes, “has  the largest, most expensive criminal justice system in the world. In spite  of huge government spending on a variety of programs and approaches, the  American public remains an unsatisfied customer.” He presents results of  a 1998 study by Schulman, Ronca and Bucuvalas, Inc., which surveyed a randomly  selected sample of 4,015 adults in nine northeastern states of the United  States, asking, “A number of states are considering significant changes in  the way the criminal justice system works. Without knowing any specific details,  do you like the idea of totally revamping the way the system works, or do  you feel the present system works well enough the way it is?” The survey  showed that 75 percent of the public, including victims of crime, favored  revamping the system and 16 percent felt the system works well enough as  it is.

Respondents were also asked what they thought about the idea  of victims and offenders getting together to talk about “why the offender  committed the crime and whether the offender accepts the consequences of  what he or she did.” A very large percentage of both crime victims and the  general public expressed high support for the idea of victim-offender encounters.  McCold writes that widespread public support for restorative approaches to  crime has been replicated in surveys conducted in New Zealand, the United  Kingdom and Germany. These surveys concluded that the public at large displays  an intrinsic acceptance of private conflict-solving following an offense,  and that it is a myth that the public demands tough punishment.

About these results, McCold commented, “It all has to do with  how you ask the public how punitive they are. If you ask them about restorative  practices they tend to be very supportive of it. If you also ask them about  punishment, they all want more of it. It's part of the strangeness of the  public. But it explains why there's no strong opposition to restorative justice  anywhere. There's no organized opposition, no people saying that you shouldn't  be doing this. Every time we've asked the public about this in a reasonable way, the support numbers are huge.”

Asked what constitutes a “reasonable way” to ask, McCold said, “Here's  an unreasonable way: 'Should a serial murderer and child molester be allowed  to escape punishment by attending a conference where they are confronted  or confront the victims of their crimes?' Then everybody would say, 'No,  I'm against it!' But a lot of research on public opinion has been done that  way, because it's been done to show how tough the public is. So if we want  to measure how punitive the public is, you start with the wrong framework,  and you shape your question and then determine your outcome.”

The right approach, said McCold, is to ask these questions in “a  neutral way. The way I think they did, for example, in the two questions  from the public survey of the northeastern United States [noted above]. I  think that's a fair way to ask it. Because then what it is, as I see it,  is a service for victims. I think we've just over-focused on the offender  and recidivism rates and all the things offenders get out of restorative  justice - what it could do to offenders and for them. I think those are all  kind of missing the mark.” McCold said that we need to focus instead on “why  we would want to do this for victims. It's a very different question: Which  victim should be eligible for it? It's a better question.”

Continued McCold, “I'm not surprised to find the high support  levels in the public for restorative practices. But it is a surprise to others  and probably is an unknown thing to most politicians. How many elected officials  from those nine northeastern states know this when they're campaigning and  talking about getting tough on crime? I think if the campaign managers knew  these results they might fashion a different statement.”

Another of the paper's highlights, said McCold, is the mediation  study by Mark Umbreit and Warner Roberts comparing direct and indirect mediation,  which sampled 68 victims and 51 offenders among the referrals to VOM programs  in Coventry and Leeds (United Kingdom) who participated in direct mediation,  indirect mediation and court. He explained the difference between direct  and indirect programs: “In the U.K., one of their favorite ways of doing  victim-offender mediation is through a shuttle mediator, so that the victim  and offender actually never meet or talk directly to each other, but a third  party shuttles between them doing negotiations about an agreement. I think  of it as 'shuttle negotiation' more than mediation. Only about one in eight  cases end up in a direct session.”

He writes, “Offenders rated the satisfaction and fairness of  indirect mediation as high or higher than direct mediation, and both higher  than court. Victims rated indirect mediation as fair and as satisfying as  court, but much less fair and satisfying than direct mediation. Both victims  and offenders were more satisfied with the outcomes from direct mediation  than indirect mediation, and both were more likely to rate their participation  as voluntary for face-to-face mediation than third-party conciliation. Most  significantly, victims whose cases were processed by court were more likely  to report fearing revictimization (33 percent) than victims whose cases were  conciliated (21 percent), and were least likely to fear revictimization after  meeting their offender in direct mediation (11 percent).”

In fact, said McCold, one of his objectives for writing the paper  was to put the above results into perspective, because they have been used  by some to devalue restorative justice. In shuttle mediation, he said, victim  participation and satisfaction rates are low because that process doesn't  put people together, and thus does little to restore the emotional or relational  harm. These results, he said, “really make our point that you don't get very  good results [with indirect mediation]. The offender loves the indirect stuff.  Victims don't like it. For them, they might as well go to court. It supports  the argument about our restorative practices typology.” To read an article  about the restorative practices typology, “In Pursuit of Paradigm: A Theory  of Restorative Justice,” by McCold and Ted Wachtel, please go to: iirp.edu/news/in-pursuit-of-paradigm-a-theory-of-restorative-justice.

“The future development of restorative justice should be accompanied by carefully controlled scientific assessments using standardized measures across a variety of settings and practices.”

In conversation, McCold also pointed out the results of the Reintegrative  Shaming Experiment (RISE) in Canberra, Australia. This experiment, he wrote, “was  specifically designed to detect the effect of police-facilitated CGC [community  group conferencing] on offender recidivism for four offense types (juvenile  personal property, juvenile retail theft, young violent offenders and 'drink  driving' - adults driving over the legal limit for alcohol). The Australian  National Police facilitated nearly 1,300 community group conferences over  a five-year period ending July 2000.... Recidivism patterns of both juvenile  personal property and shoplifting offenders revealed that the deterrent effect  of conferencing and court was equivalent. More dramatically, reoffending  rates by violent offenders dropped significantly among the CGC group by 38  percent in the 12 months following the conference (Sherman et al., 2000).  This represents the first scientifically defensible evidence that CGCs can  reduce recidivism, at least among violent offenders.”

Regarding the future of restorative justice research, McCold  commented, “I continue to compile data as it comes out. Each time a new program  releases an evaluation I get a copy and add their numbers into my database.  So I've got a growing database of empirical results, and I always continue  to keep that going.” In his paper, he makes several recommendations for research  in this field, writing, “In spite of many program assessments, research on  restorative justice practice today is a mile wide but only an inch deep.... The  future development of restorative justice should be accompanied by carefully  controlled scientific assessments using standardized measures across a variety  of settings and practices. If research on restorative justice practice is  to evolve, findings need to be comparable across programs. Assessments need  to report conditions for program eligibility, the number of cases referred,  the number of cases participating, reasons for non-participation, number  and nature of agreements reached and the rate of compliance with agreements.  Results need to be disaggregated by offense type and disputant relationship.  Programs providing indirect conciliation and conferences without victim presence  should report these data separately. Referred but nonparticipating cases  need to be included in follow-up surveys and incorporated into the analyses  of program outcomes. Participant satisfaction/fairness findings reported  should allow for computing percentage positive response. Without concerted  governmental guidance, program assessments are likely to continue to reconfirm  already well established findings while contributing little to the cumulative  understanding of the practice of restorative justice.”

McCold recommended two other major surveys of restorative justice  research. International Review of Restorative Justice, by David Miers, was  commissioned by the Crime and Criminal Justice Unit of the Home Office Research,  Development and Statistics Directorate, United Kingdom. This review provides  an overview of restorative justice programs in 12 European jurisdictions:  Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany,  the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, and Spain, together with summaries  and examples of programs in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United  States. Other European jurisdictions included in the study were Ireland,  Italy, Russia and Sweden. The review, reads its introduction, “draws some  lessons about good practice in restorative justice provision. [It] places  the work currently being undertaken within wider theoretical debates about  the nature and scope of restorative justice, and highlights some of the strengths  and weaknesses of evaluative research into its impact.” This report may be  downloaded at: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/prgpdfs/crrs10.pdf, or ordered by emailing: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Victim-Offender Mediation In Europe: Making Restorative Justice  Work, edited by Tony Peters, Leuven University Press, is an initiative of  the European Forum for Victim-Offender Mediation and Restorative Justice  and draws from presentations at its first conference, in Leuven, Belgium,  1999.

The first part of this collection considers victim-offender mediation  and restorative justice from a theoretical point of view, with essays by  leading scholars in the field. The second consists of overviews of victim-offender  mediation in the eight European countries in which it was currently most  developed (Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Poland and  the United Kingdom). The book can be ordered at: http://www.kuleuven.ac.be/upers/of.htm.

Graphics and citations from “A Survey of Assessment Research  on Mediation and Restorative Justice,” by Paul McCold, used by permission  of Willan Publishing, Culmcott House, Mill Street, Uffculme, Cullompton,  Devon EX15 3AT, UK. Tel: 44 (0)1884 840337. Fax: 44 (0)1884 840251. Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

References

Schulman, Ronca and Bucuvalas, Inc. (1999, August). What  Do we Want (and What are we Getting) from the Criminal Justice System? Comparing  the General Public's Expectations and Perceptions with Crime Victims' Experiences.  Conducted for Council of State Governments Eastern Regional Conference, New  York, NY.

Sherman, L., Strang, H. and Woods, D. (2000). Recidivism  Patterns in the Canberra Reintegrative Shaming Experiments (RISE). Centre  for Restorative Justice, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National  University, (http://www.aic.gov.au/criminal_justice_system/rjustice/rise/recidivism.aspx).

Umbreit, M. and Warner Roberts, A. (1996). Mediation of  Criminal Conflict in England: An Assessment of Services In Coventry and Leeds.  Minneapolis, MN: Center for Restorative Justice and Mediation, School of  Social Work, University of Minnesota.