Effectiveness of Restorative Justice Principles in Juvenile Justice: A Meta-Analysis (2017)

The objective of this study was to systematically review and statistically synthesize all available research that, at a minimum, compared participants in a restorative justice program to participants processed in a more traditional way using meta-analytic methods. Ideally, these studies would include research designs with random assignment to condition groups, as this provides the most credible evidence of program effectiveness … Overall, the results evaluating restorative justice programs and practices showed a moderate reduction in future delinquent behavior relative to more traditional juvenile court processing … Promising findings in terms of delinquency outcomes for the youth were seen for victim-offender conferencing, family group conferencing, arbitration/mediation programs, and circle sentencing programs. However, in all cases the evidence is equivocal with lower effects for random assignment studies and high variability in findings across studies. The effects for restitution, teen courts, impact panels, and reparative boards are less encouraging, suggesting that these may not be effective programs. In contrast, cautioning and diversion programs had the largest reductions in delinquency, suggesting that this approach may be effective for low-risk and first-time youthful offenders (2-3).