Abstract
Objectives
The purpose of the current study is to test the long-term effect of Family Group Conferences (FGCs) on recidivism prevalence and time to first re-offense for first-time youthful offenders.
Methods
The current study builds on an experiment with a reasonably large sample (n = 782) conducted in Marion County (Indianapolis), Indiana, USA. The current study extends this work by following the cases for an additional 10 years. To examine the empirical relationships among the variables, this study employs a two-step approach. The initial analysis, employing logistic regression, measures prevalence of re-offending based on whether the youth ever was re-arrested during the follow-up period. The second step employs Cox Proportional-Hazards Regression to examine time until first re-offense.
Results
The findings revealed that when extended to a 12-year follow-up period, there were no significant differences between the FGC and control groups in re-offending prevalence or time to re-offense.
Conclusions
An earlier study suggests that treatment group youths experienced reduced risk in the short-term and there is no evidence in the present study to suggest that youths participating in FGCs were placed at greater risk for re-offending. Given these findings and the body of research suggesting improved outcomes for victims, continued experimentation with FGCs and related restorative processes seems warranted. Future studies would benefit from blocking procedures in the experimental design in order to examine whether treatment effects are moderated by gender, race, and initial type of offense. The lack of such blocking procedures represents a limitation of the current study.
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Notes
It is important to note that the New South Wales model of family group conferences differs from those developed in New Zealand. One difference is that the police are often present in the New South Wales conference and often serve as the facilitator of the conference. This is not the case in New Zealand where police are not considered “neutral” parties and thus inappropriate for the facilitator role. Another difference is that the New Zealand model includes private family time for the offending youth and her/his family. This may have an impact on the role of family dynamics included in the present study.
We compare the RJ Conference participants to participants in 1 of 23 other diversion programs including, Shoplifting program, Garden Project, VOM, Volunteer Services, Paint It Clean, TNT, Essay, NCTI, Operations Kids Can, Teen Court, and Community Service.
There was a wide range of diversion programs. The most common were a shoplifting course that provided education on the impact of shoplifting on the business community, a victim offender mediation program, teen court, and community service, and then a variety of other programs that involved very few youths. Some of these programs included dimensions similar to Family Group Conferences. The victim offender mediation program included restorative justice principles but involved only the offending youth, the victim, and a mediator. Further, the victim offender mediation program had a low rate of completion (only 29 control youths actually completed the program). Prior analyses excluded the victim offender mediation program from the control group but the results did not change (McGarrell and Hipple 2007). Teen court often included the victim as a testifying witness but this occurred within an adversarial setting. The community service program involved service that was similar to some of the reparation agreements observed in Family Group Conferences. However, in the case of the community service program, the service was not the outcome of a restorative process nor was the service linked to the specific offense. There was occasional parental involvement in some of these programs but such involvement was an exception. Although the diversion programs were not the ideal comparison for testing the efficacy of Family Group Conferences (as would be a juvenile court hearing), there was such a diversity of programs that any similarities of a particular program (like victim offender mediation) and Family Group Conferences were likely diluted in the analyses. The distribution of case assignment and completion rates is reported below.
Complete
Yes
No
Row Totals
n
%
n
%
n
%
RJ Group
322
80.5
78
19.5
400
100.0
Control Group
233
61.0
149
39.0
382
100.0
Shoplifting
66
74.2
23
25.8
89
100.0
VOM
29
34.9
54
65.1
83
100.0
Teen Court
54
60.0
36
40.0
90
100.0
Community Service
46
80.7
11
19.3
57
100.0
Other (Control)
38
60.3
25
39.7
63
100.0
Column Totals
555
71.0
227
29.0
782
100.0
Other Offense includes runaway, curfew violation, violation of probation, and other minor offenses.
Almost all the youths in the sample were either African-American or White. The two percent falling in other racial/ethnic groups were combined with African-Americans as a Non-White category.
Since we dealt with first re-offense only, and since the individuals were randomly assigned, there was no problem of multiple events for the same individual or unobserved relationships between the individuals in the sample.
For interpretation, the estimated coefficients have been transformed into hazard ratios.
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Jeong, S., McGarrell, E.F. & Hipple, N.K. Long-term impact of family group conferences on re-offending: the Indianapolis restorative justice experiment. J Exp Criminol 8, 369–385 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-012-9158-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-012-9158-8