Description
This book is based on original findings from an evaluation of restorative justice in prison settings commissioned from the Cabinet Office. Restorative justice was delivered through two UK programmes called “Silence the Violence” and “Milestones”. The evaluation was conducted between 1 November 2013 – 1 July 2015 (20 months).
The evaluation was led by Professor Theo Gavrielides and a team of qualified researchers from the RJ4All International Institute. The evaluation used mixed research methods that were used with a “treatment” and “control group”. The treatment group included 268 offenders in custody or who had recently been released (194 were included in the study). The control group included 194 participants and was accessed with the support of the Prison National Offender Management Information System (p-NOMIS).
The majority of participants were young adults. In particular:
During the research period, the Silence the Violence programme was delivered to 162 offenders in custody in total. In particular:
- Seven cohorts attended the programme in HM Prison Forest Bank in Manchester, a Category B Male prison for adults and young offenders;
- Nine cohorts attended the programme in HMP & YOI Isis in London, a Category C prison, based for male offenders under the age of 25; from which two attended a 1-day intensive programme
- Five cohorts attended the programme in Wormwood Scrubs in London, a local category B prison for male offenders over the age of 21.
During the research period, Milestones was delivered to 61 offenders recently released from HMP & YOI Isis, HMP Winchester and HMP Forest Bank. An additional 45 offenders were mentored by partner organisations under contract to Khulisa. However, useable data was only secured for 40 Milestones participants giving us a total final research sample of 194 participants.
A triangulation of these findings was carried out through:
- Qualitative research that was carried out with financial support from Buckinghamshire New University and resources (in-kind and cash) from the Restorative Justice For All institute
- A review of the Ministry of Justice Data lab
- Control Groups that accessed with the support of the Prison National Offender Management Information System (p-NOMIS).
The results show that the proportion of programme participants (7.6%) that were reconvicted following their release was 23.8% percentage points below that observed in the control group (31.4%). The average number of days between release and first offence was also calculated in terms of reoffending. Participants appear to reoffend on average 87 days after release while non participants appear to reoffend on average 82 days following release. Both Silence the Violence and Milestones scored significantly high providing a 23.8% recidivism reduction.
Moreover, the evaluation found that participation of 194 offenders in the two restorative justice programme improved their well-being by 11.6% (Gavrielides et al., 2015). The study also found that there is correlation between the offence and the level of well-being post intervention. Moreover, participants’ aggression tendencies appear to decrease by 0.15 points after their participation in the programme. The effect is significant at p<0.05. Participation in the programme reduces participants aggression tendencies by 3%. Participants reported that the programme encouraged them to think about making amends as a process which involves certain stages and enables them to understand their specific concerns in relation to each stage and further improves their willingness and ability to apologise.
