Twenty years of restorative justice in New Zealand: Reflections of a judicial participant

• A real attempt was made to divert offenders away from the court system altogether. This was achieved by making diversionary conferences the default option – i.e. charges could not be laid in court unless certain criteria were met. As a result, almost half of all family group conferences have not been court-directed and the matter has been handled without any court appearance whatsoever....
• Related to this, specialist police officers called youth aid officers handle all cases involving children or young people, and specialist lawyers called youth advocates are provided for all alleged offenders in youth courts....
• The family group conference model has only been truly restorative when it has involved victims, and treated them as of equal importance to offenders. Unfortunately victim involvement in conferences – which of course is entirely voluntary – has been variable, ranging from 80 per cent of family group conferences down to around 40 per cent, and currently around 50 per cent....
• Young offenders retained the right to elect trial by jury on offences carrying more than three months‟ imprisonment (s.274), but hardly ever exercised that right....
• The family group conference model is receptive to different cultural influences, and can accommodate indigenous, European and immigrant cultures with little difficulty....
• Monitoring of family group conference outcomes, to ensure they are implemented, is important for the parties, and for the credibility of the system....
• Finally, the 1989 Act avoided the formalities of “pleading” to charges, something inherently linked to the adversary model.... The use of this language (“denied” or “admitted”), rather than the pleader‟s equivalents (“Not Guilty” or “Guilty”), has helped change the focus from legal technicalities to accountability and taking responsibility for harm done to victims and the wider community; and this has been achieved while preserving a defendant‟s right to defend the charges in court in the usual way. 

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