“The Hon Simon Power’s decision to support pre-sentence restorative justice programmes will be a great boost for those who have supported restorative justice over many years”, said Kim Workman, Director of Rethinking Crime and Punishment, and joint recipient with Jackie Katounas, of the 2005 International Prize for Restorative Justice.

A newly published report by the Ministry of Justice shows that offenders who took part in restorative justice conferences in 2009 had a re-offending rate 20 per cent lower than similar offenders who did not take part. A separate report shows a high degree of victim satisfaction with the process.

“Hopefully, this announcement will put paid to the Sensible Sentencing Trust’s base-less claims that restorative justice doesn’t work. We have always known that most victims who take part in a restorative justice conference are highly satisfied with the outcome – now it’s official.”

“Rethinking Crime and Punishment will be urging the Ministry of Justice to do similar research in relation to post-sentence restorative justice. Prison Fellowship has been conducting in-prison conferences since 2004, and last year conducted 20 conferences in prison. What is noticeable is the increase in requests for these conferences from victims. We believe that research will show an even greater reduction in reoffending.”

Internationally, the evidence shows that the more serious the offence, the greater the reduction in re-offending.

ENDS

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