Restorative Justice for Reducing Crime Rates

Research Study Article Analysis

The study by Johnson et al. (2015) focuses on restorative justice hubs and their ability to reduce recidivism among young offenders. The study is qualitative in design, as it does not provide statistical analysis or proceed with a hypothesis that is tested. The goal of the study is to explore the restorative justice hubs concept by assessing on the following criteria: site readiness and capacity, implementation fidelity, program outputs, youth outcomes, and site collaboration outcomes. The study is also supported by a literature review that provides additional data to help provide a deeper understanding of how well restorative justice hubs work to reduce recidivism rates when compared to punitive justice sentencing.

The study was designed to explore the concept of Restorative Justice hubs, what their purpose is (mission and vision), what they actually achieve, the quality of these hubs, the values that support their mission, the background to the program, what a model restorative justice hub should look like, and how they are understood from a trauma informed theoretical approach. The study also explores the training program involved and an evaluation of a hub conducted by The Adler School’s Institute on Public Safety and Social Justice (IPSSJ). The evaluation consists of an evaluation component, an assessment measure/tool, and a data collection timeframe. The evaluation components have already been described above. The assessment tools used included site checklists, implementation checklists, number of referred cases, number of successfully resolved cases, and number of type of outcomes, a collaboration survey, and a one-year-re-offense rate. Data collection consisted of a baseline and a follow-up of at least six months. This data was not actually collected for the study but the methodology was described in order to show how the IPSSJ conducts its evaluations of restorative justice hubs. Thus the study was qualitative because it just describes the subject and explores it in detail to provide a deeper understanding of the concept.

The methodology of the study was not described or defined but the study proceeded first with an explanation of the topic and background information on it. Then it focused on explaining the mission and vision of restorative justice hubs and proceeded on to how they are evaluated. There was no sample population or participants involved, but the focus was on restorative justice hubs in Chicago and Cook County. No sampling method was used.

The study findings showed that restorative justice hubs are effective at reducing recidivism rates, better so than punitive justice sentencing, by 26% (Johnson et al., 2015). They found that restorative justice hubs that adhere to the mission, vision, values and quality of a model restorative justice hub are successful at helping juvenile offenders take steps towards rehabilitation so that they do not return to criminality once they leave the program. Additionally, the study shows that restorative justice programs are far less costly than incarceration: restorative justice hubs cost only $444 to $8,000 per person per year, whereas incarceration costs on average $88,000 per person per year (Johnson et al., 2015). Thus, the authors conclude that it stands to reason that since restorative justice hubs are effective at rehabilitation and reducing recidivism rates (more so than incarceration) and are far less costly than incarceration, more restorative justice programs should be implemented nationwide to support the justice system and more favorable outcomes, such as reducing crime.

The researchers also noted that restorative justice benefits both victims and offenders. Victims of crime are more satisfied that justice has been done when they see the offender enter into and emerge from a restorative justice program, according to the findings (Johnson et al., 2015). Offenders also benefit and show more satisfaction with the program, based on survey results from the IPSSJ (Johnson et al., 2015). They feel more empowered and better able to understand how crime hurts others. They feel that they are more a part of the community and this makes them less willing to want to commit crimes in the future. They gain a sense of what it means to make restitution for crime and why it is important to do so—and they typically do not gain this from incarceration, where they are simply removed from society for a time and never have the opportunity to understand how they and their deeds affect society.

The study also shows that when restorative justice programs are instituted on a nationwide scale, court cases fall dramatically because crime drops significantly: for instance, “a New Zealand study found a reduction in court trials from 13,000 trials prior to the implementation of restorative programming, to 2,587 trials – a reduction of more than 80%” (Johnson et al., 2015, p. 9). This indicates that restorative justice hubs are effective at curbing crime when they are implemented on a large scale.