Source: (1998) In Restorative justice for juveniles: Potentialities, risks and problems for research, ed. Lode Walgrave, 335-350. A selection of papers presented at the International Conference, Leuven, May 12-14, 1997. With a preface by Lode Walgrave. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press.
Guedens maintains that victim-offender mediation and community service are two central pillars of the restorative justice paradigm in criminal justice. Against this background, in this paper she presents results (including statistical charts, research procedures, and interpretive comments) of a research study to ascertain the effects of community service on rates of recidivism for young offenders in Belgium. The study involved a control group and an experimental group. She concludes that, in general, the offenders in the control group, who underwent traditional judicial measures, committed significantly more new offenses than the experimental group who performed community service.
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