Yes, but in an entirely different area. The debate on restorative justice in prisons in Ireland has not yet commenced but I will look. I will outline the findings of the evaluation we conducted of the Garda programme. I began as a neutral researcher, even as a sceptic, of restorative justice but all the work I did domestically and internationally has made me an advocate or allowed me to at least recognise the potential and dangers of this system.
Previous contributors referred to the benefits for offenders, victims and the community which are looked on as the three main groups involved. The benefits for the offender, highlighted in the Garda evaluation, include the opportunity to make amends and be reintegrated into the community. Offenders are often short-changed by their experience of the court-based system and sidelined with somebody speaking on their behalf. Benefits for the victim include the opportunity to be heard and secure reparation for the harm caused. One of the greatest gripes victims have with the criminal justice system is they feel sidelined, despite recent changes to bring them into the foreground and involve them. Benefits for the community include involvement in the resolution of conflicts through volunteer work, the ability to support one group or the other or facilitate meetings, reduced reoffending, community harmony and improved safety.
Restorative justice relies for effectiveness and moral authority on the upholding of key restorative principles and values such as voluntary participation by offender and victim, impartial facilitation, balanced participation and respect for participants. Some of the key advocates of restorative justice emphasise the respect for participants inherent in the process, as space is provided for people to express their views and be heard. These are easy to sign up to. They are motherhood statements in many respects but the challenge is to make sure they are adhered to on a regular basis and that systems are in place to support facilitators and supervise their performance.
Restorative justice is not above criticism. Many do not support it, envisage great dangers and express concerns and uncertainty about aspects of the process, including the protection of the rights and well-being of offenders. This includes police-led programmes. The right to due process which is important in court is ignored by this system in the critics' eyes. They refer to the nature and proportionality of sanctions and ask whether there is a danger that, without due process and the safeguards provided by a court, disproportionate sanctions could be imposed on a weak offender or advantage taken of a weak victim. Issues such as the definition and role of the community have been raised. Who is "the community" that should be represented? How representative are the people involved? Many believe restorative justice should be community-based and that the State should stay on the sideline but they express concern about the role of professionals.
Restorative justice complements the criminal justice system; it is not an alternative but that view is not universal. Some commentators believe it should go back to its community roots. The role of police officers as facilitators has been a source of contention regarding perceptions of their ability to be neutral. Very little in the research I conducted or encountered elsewhere persuades me to rule any group inappropriate. It depends very much on the level of training, support and supervision provided. If I have time, I will refer to the strengths of the Garda model and the fact that gardaí work in a continuum of supervision with young people.
Restorative justice internationally is considered appropriate for juvenile offenders and less serious offences but, increasingly, is being used for adult offenders. Commentators argue that such offenders know enough about life to understand the concepts inherent in restorative justice and that it is more suitable for older persons. The system is increasingly being used to deal with more serious offences, including in prisons with the families of murder victims. Interventions can also take place at various stages in the criminal process — pre-court in the diversion programme, pre-sentence and post-sentence, including in prison. The principles underpinning juvenile justice systems, including the right of young people to be recognised and heard and to have matters discussed in a language they understand, overlap significantly with restorative justice. Given the 21,000 referrals and that 25% of cautions are formal cautions, there is potentially a significant pool of offenders who might benefit from restorative justice programmes. Victims should equally be a priority for us. One of the fundamental concepts of restorative justice is that crime is seen as a harm caused to a person. It is incumbent on us, first and foremost, to be concerned with repairing that harm.
Within the diversion programme close to one third of children reoffend. The new offence will often be relatively minor and subsequently they will often not reoffend. These form another potential group of offenders who could come under the ambit of and benefit from the restorative justice programme.
The Garda research findings on the offender perspective were consistent with international findings of police-led programmes and restorative justice programmes generally. One dimension examined was the process values. We found the majority of offenders participated actively and did not just sit there without taking part. They were involved in decision making, understood what was going on, agreed with decisions and accepted responsibility. The acceptance of responsibility was a key feature as participants finished with a better understanding of what their actions entailed, showed they were sorry and apologised. Not all apologised, but the majority did.
As part of the research, we interviewed a significant number of offenders and they confirmed they felt free to say what they wanted, felt treated fairly and that their participation was voluntary. Of those interviewed and whose parents were interviewed, 94% said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the programme. Supporters of offenders, mainly parents, felt the programme had a positive impact on their child.
We expected participants to say it was difficult, but there was a median score on level of difficulty. This may have been because they compared it in their minds with what they might have expected in court. Initially, some found it difficult, but when they met the victim and got over the intimidation of being in a room primarily dominated by adults, they found it easier. Factors that made restorative justice more beneficial for the offender included the direct participation of the victim. An affirmation of the offender was often a turning point. Offenders feel shame, blame and feel wrong. It is important to ensure that is not the sole after effect.
One of the unique features of the programme internationally is the extent to which participation is voluntary. A decision has already been taken to deal with an offence by diversion, so no extra sanction is imposed if the young person fails to comply or participate and walks away. This has proved to be a strength rather than a weakness. The key process value, supported by international evidence, is that offender satisfaction is related to the respect and opportunity to speak and the fairness of process and outcome.
We had a participation rate of victims of 76%. This is high by international standards, but there are some programmes with a higher participation rate. The rate indicates that no pressure was put on the victims. Involvement of victims was a significant learning point for gardaí. It was recognised early on that the Garda did not necessarily have the language or culture skills to deal with this in a programme that was primarily oriented towards offenders. However, because of a natural empathy with victims it was easy to put that right.
Victims participated for diverse reasons, including a desire to get answers to their questions. Many also desired to support the offender. This is not an opportunity provided in court, by and large. Victim satisfaction rates were high at 93%. We found little evidence of revictimisation. All victims felt they were treated with respect and fairness. Whatever about satisfaction with the offender, satisfaction with the process was often enough to help the victim feel satisfied overall. Agreements were reached in most cases or there was an understanding that no formal agreement was necessary. Common elements of interest to victims included an apology and, where relevant, reparation by means of compensation, community work or a charitable donation. Restorative events often helped achieve reconciliation in communities, small groups and between families. This would generally not be possible under a court based system.
The overall conclusion was that while restorative justice is no panacea, it can deliver important benefits to victims, not least by providing a voice in the resolution of their case. International experience is that victims can benefit where adequate account is taken of their needs. They cannot be taken for granted and there is a need to take time in approaching, understanding and supporting them. One encounters in international literature areas where participation and satisfaction rates were often low, but this was often due to clumsy approaches or the oversight of sometimes not inviting their participation. Where victims' needs are considered in terms of venue and time, they often take the opportunity to participate.
In terms of outcomes, the level of ambition of agreements varied significantly, but was a result of consensus among participants. Decisions were almost invariably by consensus, but there were one or two instances where individuals said they felt under some kind of pressure, normally from their supporters. None of the agreements appeared disproportionate to the harm caused or the needs of the offender. Restorative justice defines proportionality in a different way perhaps, but there was no evidence that there was anything that would be considered disproportionate by either definition.
Offenders complied with the agreements in 89% of cases. This is high, but not the highest by international standards. There was non-compliance in 12 cases out of 147 and of those 12 only two involved elements of commitments to victims that were not honoured. Reoffending occurred in one third of cases, but we cannot draw any conclusions from that because the speculation is that difficult cases were targeted. This is one of the difficulties. The rapporteur mentioned that in getting international evidence it is difficult to get hard evidence that derives from experiments that compare like with like. Cases going to court are, typically, more serious and cases going to diversion less so. We did not have a matched, controlled experiment in our research and merely record that 33% reoffended. Some 84% overall did not reoffend or committed only one new offence, often of a minor nature.
While I was listening earlier, I picked out some findings on the effectiveness of restorative justice in terms of reoffending. I looked at one case where there was a matched, controlled pair experiment in a police-led programme in Canberra, the RISE project. It had four groups of offenders. For one group of juvenile offenders involved in violent crime, it recorded a decrease in reoffending of 38% compared with a matched group who had gone to court for similar offences. Interestingly, there were no net reductions for juveniles who were involved in shop-lifting offences or juveniles or young adults involved in property crime. Paradoxically, they looked at re-offending by a group who were on charges for drunk driving and there was an increase of 6% in those who went the restorative justice route. This appears a little bizarre but the explanation offered is that the person's licence was often suspended by the court and this effectively took them off the road so that they could not re-offend.
Another study looked at re-offending after two years by 590 first-time offenders in New South Wales. This recorded reductions in re-offending of 15% to 20%. It is very difficult to find reliable data but the burden of the evidence is that it does at least have a modest impact on re-offending which is reduced if the conditions and the implementation are right.
One critical learning point in the Garda experience and which crops up all the time is that careful preparation is seen as crucial to the success. However, there is a recognition that this is time-consuming. The average evaluation time ran for 20 months and the average preparation time was ten and a half hours, in the case of both the Garda evaluation time and ours. On the extent to which restorative justice involves participants other than the offender and the victim, the average number of participants was 5.1 in the Garda cases, excluding JLOs and just under five when excluding all gardaí. The average number of supporters per offender was only 1.35, one and a third. One would normally expect both parents at the very least to be there, although maybe not so in the case of a big group. The impact of participation will require further research. The extended family were involved in just over 3% of cases. Supporters other than parents or guardians were involved in only 15 out of 147 cases. This would not be unusual in some cases at an international level. In order to help a young person and to focus on the future rather than the past, it seems desirable to explore the potential for involving more support people for the young person.
The range of meeting duration went from 20 minutes — which is a bit short — to two hours. The shorter events were considered to be less restorative and there is some tentative evidence that re-offending rates tended to be a little higher. Our conclusion is that restorativeness is a continuum. Even at the shorter events and with smaller numbers, restorative justice and restorative values are at play, with benefits to be had compared with the court system.
I stress the importance of the process and of the dialogue which occurs neither too often nor too well in the court-based system. The allowing of story telling and allowing people to personalise the experience and to make a human connection is vitally important and this comes across in the international evidence also.
Deputy S. Ó Fearghaíl took the Chair.