Restorative Justice and Conferencing

Source: Forthcoming in Adam Graycar and Peter Grabosky (eds.) Handbook of Australian Criminology, chapter 14 (2002). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Griffith University. 18 October 2002

According to Daly and Hayes, Australia and New Zealand in the last decade have become world leaders in one form of restorative justice – diversionary conferencing. In this essay, the authors review diversionary conferencing in the two countries. They compare the development and implementation of this form of conferencing in the New Zealand and the Australian states; examine research on the views of offenders and victims on conferencing; and discuss whether conferencing can play a role in reducing re-offending. In their discussion of the role of conferencing in relation to re-offending, they survey research from New Zealand, the Re-Integrative Shaming Experiments (RISE) in the Australian Capital Territory; and the South Australia Juvenile Justice (SAJJ) Research on Conferencing project.