Fases y preguntas de investigación:

Reviewing the literature, it seems to have become a standard practice for most studies on restorative justice to include a ‘satisfaction’ component. Umbreit and Bradshaw (2001:0), for example have written about such surveys being crucial because “in developing areas like restorative justice, victim satisfaction is an important indicator of the acceptability of innovative programs.” It is perhaps because of the consideration of the victim that some evaluations of restorative justice only measure satisfaction with victims, (Moore and O'Connell, 1994), which hearkens back to early theories of RJ— such as Christie’s (1977:10) urging for the creation of “victim-oriented court(s).” Miers (2001:82), in a review of RJ programs and practices around the world, identified programs as being either “offender-oriented” or “victim-oriented,” demonstrating that this debate—whom restorative justice is mostly for is still ongoing.

The studies reviewed below, however, tend to interrogate all participants’ ‘satisfaction’ with RJ and usually do so through surveys, although, increasingly, surveys are supplemented with, or replaced by interviews (Maxwell et al., 2004, Daly, 2008, Hoyle et al., 2002, Shapland et al., 2011) which contain both “open- and close-ended items” (Daly, 2008: 114). This information is sometimes further supplemented with

77 observations by researchers who study the interactions between the participants and the work of the facilitator (see O’Mahony and Doak 2004; McCold and Wachtel, 1998; McCold, 2003; Hayes and Daly, 2004; Hayes and Daly, 2003; Daly, 2008; and Hoyle et al, 2002). Participants’ satisfaction is often measured in comparison to the satisfaction of those who received another, more traditional, form of justice (see Chatterjee, 2003; Chatterjee, 2010; McCold and Stahr, 1996; McCold and Wachtel, 1998; McCold, 2003; Hayes, 2005, and others). In smaller studies, satisfaction may be gathered from participants but not compared to participants outside the conferences (see Moore and O’Connell, 1994; O’Mahony and Doak, 2004).

The timing of when participants fill out satisfaction surveys/are interviewed varies between studies—similarly to measurements of recidivism. Some studies ask participants to fill in a survey right after the conference (Hayes and Daly, 2004), while others send surveys to participants around 14 days post conference (McCold and Stahr, 1996). Occasionally, researchers will speak with participants multiple times (Hoyle et al., 2002).

The questions, of course, go deeper than feelings of like or dislike and attempt to tap into emotional and practical aspects related to the experience. For detailed examples of a satisfaction survey, see Strang (2002: 213-242); or the appendices in Hoyle et al (2002: 74-75) and McCold and Wachtel (1998: 115-127). Some examples from these sources include:

 Questions for victims: “How much did you feel the conference/court case respected your rights?” and “How fair did you feel the conference/court case was for you?” (Strang et al, 2002: 229, 230).

 Questions for victims: “Do you feel that Family Group Conferencing should be offered, on a voluntary basis, to all victims?” (McCold and Wachtel, 1998: 120)  Questions for offenders: “Did you feel that your treatment by the police overall since you were caught has been fair or not?” “How did it feel to talk about the offence in front of the people who came to the meeting?” Hoyle et al (2002: 74, 75)

 Questions for offenders: “Do you feel that being in the conference was your own choice?” (McCold and Watchel, 1998: 118).

78 These examples demonstrate the range of questions and the similarities such as questions having to do with “fairness.” Other programs which do not publish their surveys report outcomes with the same language, ie. “treated fairly” (Hoyle et al, 2002: 28; O’Mahony and Doak, 2004: 16); whether participants had been able to “talk” (Maxwell et al, 2004: 13); and what the “outcome fairness” was like (Chatterjee and Elliott, 2003:353). Sometimes satisfaction, however, is just described as general satisfaction without further commentary (Moore and O'Connell, 1994).

This section will cover satisfaction results for offenders, young female offenders, victims, and the “community.” “Community,” here, will be defined as anyone present for the conference who are not victims or offenders. This, therefore, includes supportive participants, police facilitators, since some studies gather their impressions of restorative justice as well, see for example (McCold, 2003, Chatterjee, August 10 2010, O'Mahony and Doak, 2004), and observer-researchers who watch the conference but do not actively participate because their critiques—ie satisfaction or lack of satisfaction—inform our views of how police officers facilitate and offenders and victims interact with each other.

Offenders

Studies generally have found that offenders respond to the process positively (Chatterjee, August 10 2010, Chatterjee and Elliott, 2003, McCold and Stahr, 1996, Hayes, 2005, McCold, 2003, O'Mahony and Doak, 2004, Sherman et al., 2000, Hayes and Daly, 2004, Hoyle et al., 2002, Miers et al., 2001, Shapland et al., 2011, McCold, 2003). Among other things, they have found conferences to be “useful” (Shapland et al, 2011: 163-164); “fair” (Chatterjee and Elliott, 2003: 353, 2010:3; Hayes and Daly, 2004: 185); “voluntary” (McCold and Wachtel, 1998:61; Hayes and Daly, 2004: 185), and “would do it again”/“would recommend” (Hayes and Daly, 2004: 185; McCold and Wachtel, 1998:61: Shapland et al, 2011:163-164). One programme reviewed here, however—the police-conferencing scheme in Bethlehem, PA found that offenders in RJ and offenders in court were overall similarly satisfied with their interventions (Hayes, 2005:95; McCold and Stahr, 1996:9). Another two found that offenders’ age affected satisfaction (older participants preferring RJ) (Shapland et al, 2011; Hoyle et al, 2002). Finally, the meta-analysis by Latimer et al (2005: 136) found that offender

79 satisfaction was not as high as estimated in other studies, with only “moderate to weak positive impact on offender satisfaction.”

One issue, which has been thought to affect offender satisfaction, and which links to the next series of discussions in this chapter, is the way offenders are treated by police facilitators (Hoyle et al., 2002). Hoyle et al (2002: 28), for example, found “facilitators…treating adult offenders with far more respect and friendliness than young offenders,” creating the age differences mentioned above (Hoyle et al, 2002: 28). However, Hoyle et al (2002:58-60) also suggested that in spite of these issues offenders may generally like RJ because “simply creating a safe environment where people can talk, on a roughly equal footing to everyone else, about the harm that has been done, results in very high satisfaction rates, almost regardless of how well the police facilitate these meetings” (Hoyle et al, 2002: 59). Thus, a preferential atmosphere to court may be why offenders continue to rate RJ fairly highly, while such an atmosphere combined with good police facilitation may be what prompts a young offender to also desist after RJ (see discussion regarding Hayes and Daly, 2004 in the recidivism section).

Young female offenders

General satisfaction outcomes, unlike recidivism outcomes, are rarely compared by gender or race, except for vague descriptive outcomes such as the following by Moore and O’Connell (1994: 71), “Koori participants—victims, offenders, and their families—have praised the scheme, indicating thereby that it is ‘culturally sensitive.’” As a result, there is very little written specifically about young female offenders’ satisfaction in police RJ in the articles reviewed here. Since their thoughts are lumped in with general satisfaction, the assumption might be that young women along with young men are adequately satisfied with RJ as an intervention for their offending.

One study in this review, which mentions young women’s opinions of restorative justice in greater detail, however, provides a contrast with this assumption. Maxwell et al (2004) who conducted follow-up interviews with young people up to four years after their restorative justice in New Zealand found that young women offenders had many complaints about the criminal justice process. These young women especially took issue with the police officers they dealt with: “the girls more often than the boys reported that they were not treated fairly by the police” (Maxwell et al, 2004: 20). To

80 accompany this data, Maxwell et al revealed that young women in restorative justice had more (“adverse background factors” and “risk-taking behaviours such as frequent experimentation with alcohol and engaging in unsafe sex”) and that they had been arrested for low-level offences such as shoplifting (Maxwell et al, 2004: 20).

Although this is only a brief mention of young female offenders’ experiences in RJ, it raises some interesting questions having to do with gender and satisfaction, the effects of a “troubled” background on young women’s behaviour in a conference, (as Alder, 2000 also proposes) and whether the type of offence young people are referred to RJ for affects their satisfaction. These issues will explored further in this chapter.

Victims

In contrast to the not quite clear offender satisfaction results, from the US, Australia, the UK, and Canada, including one meta-analysis (Latimer et al, 2005) and one systematic review (Sherman and Strang, 2007), have demonstrated that victims who have experienced restorative justice score the intervention higher than victims whose offenders experienced a more traditional form of justice (Chatterjee, August 10 2010, Chatterjee and Elliott, 2003, McCold and Stahr, 1996, McCold and Wachtel, 1998, McCold, 2003, Sherman and Strang, 2007, Latimer et al., 2005).

Community

The introduction to this section stated that the voices of community members reviewed here would include family members/support persons as well as researcher observers since their satisfaction or lack of satisfaction with the process has the potential to add, new insights to RJ and possibly change the way conferences are conducted.

Similarly to victims, support persons and/or parents of offenders who have participated in police conferencing schemes around the world report that they were satisfied with RJ (Chatterjee and Elliot, 2003; Chatterjee and Elliot, 2010; McCold and Stahr, 1996; McCold and Wachtel, 1998; Hayes, 2005; McCold, 2003; O’Mahony and Doak, 2004; Hoyle et al, 2002). In the Bethlehem study, for example, “parents were more likely to have felt their opinions had been adequately considered in their child’s case than court disposed-parents” (McCold and Wachtel, 1998: 66). The exceptions to this positive

81 reception were some parents in a Northern Irish scheme who felt restorative justice was too much for the type of offence their children had committed (O’Mahony and Doak, 2004: 15), and 32% of all participants (including support persons) in the Thames Valley scheme felt RJ “ma[de] the offender feel like a bad person” (Hoyle et al, 2002: 34). Thus, while their experiences were more than adequate, some support people have been critical of the offenders’ experiences.

A seldom considered group of community members in RJ is the group of researchers present at restorative justice conferences in order to observe. Hoyle et al (2002:10-11) have suggested that “our presences as observers at the process did not appear to have any major effect on participants. When we carried out in-depth interviews with them about their experience of the process, very few participants mentioned that they had been distracted or otherwise affected by our presence at the meeting.” It could be argued, however, that simply by being present researchers do insert themselves into the case and may influence the participants in ways perhaps neither immediately recognise. For example, researchers inadvertently fulfil one of the ‘best practices’ of restorative justice through following up with participants (see Umbreit, 1998; Maxwell et al, 2004). Indeed, in some cases the research team have followed-up with participants when the scheme has not (O’Mahony and Doak, 2004). From the point of view of victims and offenders, observers in RJ might feel like additional professionals in the proceedings, or they might feel like more ‘active’ community members who watch the proceedings and then engage with participants afterwards. It is surprising that none of the studies reviewed here analyse their own input and/or impact on RJ and its participants especially as it is through the observers that qualitative, more ‘neutral’ impressions of victims and offenders’ responses/sincerity/accountability are described as well as reports on the police officers’ facilitation abilities. The remainder of this section—as well as the ‘community’ section of the next, ‘transformation’ outcome—will, therefore, include researcher-observers input as that of community members.

It is observers, for example, who give a fairly low ‘satisfaction’ evaluation to how well police officers facilitate during conference proceedings (Moore and O’Connell, 1994 in Australia; McCold and Wachtel, 1998 in the US; O’Mahony and Doak, 2004 in Northern Ireland; Hoyle et al, 2002 in the UK). Police officers have been observed to be forceful with offenders, berating them in front of the group (McCold and Wachtel,

82 1998); they process young offenders through RJ unnecessarily, thus contributing to “net-widening” (O’Mahony and Doak, 2004: 15, 17) and Hoyle et al (2002:29) even concluded that “some of these practices deviate so sharply from the Thames Valley model as to preclude them being described as restorative in nature.” Such critiques led one project to re-train police officers in order to improve facilitator abilities during the evaluation (McCold and Wachtel, 1998).

Getting police officers’ skills right is crucial to participants getting the most out of restorative justice as has been demonstrated in numerous studies (Maxwell et al, 2004; Hoyle et al, 2002; Hayes and Daly, 2003). Surprisingly, however, participants have said they were happy with the same conferences the observers were critical of (McCold and Wachtel, 1998; Hoyle et al, 2002; O’Mahony and Doak, 2004). Sometimes researchers have noted that this may be due to victims deriving comfort from having conferences proceed in police presence (McCold and Stahr, 1996; O’Mahony and Doak, 2004), while others have suggested that participants simply do not know what good restorative justice is supposed to be like (Hoyle et al, 2002).

This does not, however, mean that observers have concluded that police officers are inappropriate to facilitate restorative justice conferences. When restorative justice happens well, the relationship between offenders and the police can improve as has been demonstrated by Hoyle et al (2002). Other have remarked that in order for restorative justice to succeed, the police have to be on board because “the police act as the traditional gate-keepers to the traditional criminal justice system” (McCold and Stahr, 1996: 12). And finally, the police command a respect others do not, which might be crucial to restorative justice, according to Hoyle et al (2002). The suggestion has been made that, ultimately, if the police get on board then perhaps day-to-day policing will change and improve through “informal…street level application” (Bazemore and Griffiths, 2003: 338).