Restorative Practice Resources Tagged With: evidence

'The Justice Reform Initiative is an alliance of people who share long-standing professional experience, lived experience and/or expert knowledge of the justice system, who are further supported by a movement of Australians of goodwill from across the country and across the political spectrum.

We believe jailing is failing and that there is an urgent need to reduce the number of people in Australian prisons. We believe that the over-use of prisons is fundamentally harmful to those in prison, their family and friends, and the broader community.

We believe that prisons are ineffective as a deterrent, ineffective at reducing crime, and ineffective at addressing the drivers of criminal justice system involvement.

We believe that the over-use of incarceration is a waste of human potential and a misuse of taxpayer dollars.

The evidence shows that the majority of people entering prison usually arrive there because of an underpinning cycle of disadvantage and that prison both exacerbates and entrenches a broader cycle of disadvantage, which needs to be broken.

We believe the moment has come for change, with a combination of political, economic and social forces coalescing to create an opportunity to genuinely challenge and respond to our overreliance on incarceration – and offer up an alternative vision.'

'Restorative Practices / Community Conferencing Pilot 2002 This report provides an evaluation of a nine month Pilot of Restorative Practices / Community Conferencing in Victorian schools during 2002. The Pilot was designed to support and evaluate the application of restorative practices as a strategy in the management of incidents and in order to reduce the number young people at risk of being alienated from mainstream education. This Pilot provides sufficient evidence to suggest that restorative practices / community conferencing can be a highly effective way to manage incidents in Victorian schools. The experience of the staff, students and parents from 23 government and Catholic schools and from 16 regional support staff involved affirmed results of other reviews in Australia and internationally.'

'CASE STUDIES Introduction This document presents nine case studies that provide in-depth examples of the social, wellbeing and cultural outcomes achieved through restorative justice conferencing. Much of the national evidence about the effectiveness of conferencing is based on the assessment of criminogenic outcomes, such as reductions in reoffending. However, an exclusive focus on reoffending fails to capture other important benefits for victims, young people and families, such as: offenders taking responsibility for their actions; the healing benefits for victims; reductions in fear of crime; material restoration; the reintegration of marginalised young people back into their communities; and conflict resolution (Suzuki, 2017, p. 7; Larsen, 2014; Cunneen & Luke, 2007). The case studies also provide a practitioner account of the conferencing process and include reflections about key elements of effective practice. All cases have been anonymised and prepared with the consent of the young people and participants of the conference. '

'EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Introduction The Restorative Justice Project was established in 2015-16 after an election commitment to reinstate the capacity for courts to refer young offenders to restorative justice conferencing. The 2015-16 State Budget allocated $23.6 million over four years (2015-16 to 2018-19) to reinstate court referrals and enhance the restorative justice model based on contemporary evidence. Amendments to the Youth Justice Act 1992 commenced on 1 July 2016, reinstating courtreferred restorative justice conferencing and introducing additional court referral pathways. Key elements of the enhanced restorative justice model include: • Better targeting of specific cohorts including serious offenders, serious offences and young people from older age groups. • Reintroducing court referral pathways and introducing new sentence-based restorative justice interventions for young people subject to supervised orders (e.g. Restorative Justice Orders) • Enhancing alternative diversion and early intervention options, through the introduction of the Alternative Diversion Program (ADP) and working with Queensland Police to support the increased use of cautions • Improving the cultural relevance of restorative justice processes for Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander young people, their families and communities • Applying restorative justice principles in other areas within Youth Justice, such as Youth Detention Centres and Supervised Bail Accommodation Services.'

'Restorative justice is an internationally recognised evidence-based response to criminal behaviour. It views a criminal offence as more than an act of breaking the law and examines: the impact on society the harm caused to the victim, family relationships and the community. The restorative justice process requires effort and participation from the child, which differs from traditional justice responses.'

'This course introduces students to the main concepts and debates in restorative justice in an evidence-informed way. It explores the multitude of ways restorative justice can and is being used to respond to a variety of societal challenges. This includes the juvenile and adult criminal justice context, as well as areas as diverse as environmental protection, sexual abuse and health. We will also examine how restorative justice is being used within institutions to respond to concerns about harassment, bullying and sexual abuse. The course will also introduce students to relevant methodological tools for assessing the impact of restorative justice based approaches.'

'Restorative justice is an internationally recognised evidence-based response to criminal behaviour. It views a criminal offence as more than an act of breaking the law and examines the impact on society; the harm caused to the victim, family relationships and the community. We are using restorative justice processes to reduce an overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the justice system by diverting children from court to restorative justice conferences.'

'Sally Varnham, professor of law at the University of Technology Sydney, said there was emerging evidence that a “restorative justice” approach to youth crime was more effective than the “short, sharp shock” approach proposed by Senator Hanson. “Schools are introducing restorative practice also in Australia and New Zealand in an attempt to keep young people in schools, as there is such strong evidence of the ‘schoolyard (instead of) jail yard track’,” Dr Varnham said.'

'TRAUMA AND THE LAW: APPLYING TRAUMA-INFORMED PRACTICE TO LEGAL AND JUDICIAL CONTEXTS ABSTRACT The applicability of `trauma-informed practice’ to the practice of law is increasingly recognised. While originating from within the field of mental health, mounting evidence supports the contention that `more effective, fair, intelligent, and just legal responses must work from a perspective which is trauma-informed’ (Randall & Haskell, 2013). By contrast, implementation of trauma informed principles to the contexts of law remains in its infancy. This paper introduces the core principles of trauma-informed practice with reference to the many areas of legal practice to which they relate. The evidence base for widespread application of trauma-informed practice within and across the legal system and judiciary is presented, and the many benefits of implementation of trauma informed principles to legal practice are discussed.'

The applicability of `trauma-informed practice’ to the practice of law is increasinglyrecognised.