Rhetoric or restoration? A study into the restorative potential of the conditional cautioning scheme.

Source: (2011) International Journal of Police Science & Management. 13(3):195-210.

In December 2007, the conditional caution
scheme was introduced as a result of the Criminal
Justice Act 2003. The aim of this scheme was to
provide an additional option to the range of ‘out
of court disposals’, which can be imposed on
offenders for minor offences without the necessity
of court appearances. The conditional caution is
an enhanced caution which allows conditions to
be imposed, such as reparation, letters of apology
or drug and alcohol awareness courses, which
must be fulfilled in order for the caution to be
completed. Restorative justice is also an option
with regard to these cautions. After canvassing
stakeholders within this process, it was observed
that the concept of introducing victim–offender
mediation within the cautioning process was not
commonly viewed as a positive step. The majority
of victims were not in favour of this, and other
criminal justice stakeholders were also divided as to whether this would be beneficial. The motivation
behind these responses differed according to
the role played within the process, with victims
being pessimistic regarding the benefits of this
approach, and criminal justice professionals
expressing concern with regard to the timeconsuming
nature of these activities. An additional
flaw in this process centred around
communication with victims. There appeared to be
a disparity between contacts with different victim
types, with corporate victims only contacted if
time allowed. This indicated that time constraints
were a specific deciding factor with regard to the
process. (author’s abstract)