When Christine’s stepfather was released from 12 years in prison, restorative justice helped her to face her fears about meeting the man who’d murdered her mother.

Elyn Mitchell is the clerk of a Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) Meeting. When their Meeting House was damaged in an arson attack, the effects were felt across the local community. Here, she talks about using restorative justice to repair the harm, and build a more positive future. 

Offering restorative justice to victims of serious crime would save £185 million over two years by reducing crime.

In 2010, the Restorative Justice Council (RJC) and Victim Support presented the case for restorative justice to justice minister Crispin Blunt.

The Criminal Justice Alliance has published a report by Rob Allen Reducing the Use of Imprisonment: What can we learn from Europe? which analyses how several European countries, particularly the Netherlands and Germany have seen sharp falls in their prison populations over the last five years.

The Ministry of Justice set out a strategy to build access, capacity and awareness of restorative justice across the criminal justice system in a Restorative Justice Action Plan, published in November 2012.

Restorative justice presents 'rich avenues' for improving the handling of police complaints, a report of the Home Affairs Select Committee into the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) found.

Former RJC Chair, Lawrence Kershen QC, and other experts presented to the Committee about the use of restorative justice and complaints.

In this 2013 response, the Restorative Justice Council (RJC) welcomed Getting it Right for Victims and Witnesses, and the inclusion of restorative justice in one of the nine principles underpinning the new Victims’ Code.

We were pleased to see that Improving the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime, which followed this, ensured that for the first time victims of adult offenders will be entitled to receive information on restorative justice. 

In May 2014, the Centre for Innovative Justice, a department within RMIT University in Australia, published a major report which recommends the use of restorative justice in cases of sexual offending.

The report, Innovative justice responses to sexual offending, recommends that "with comprehensive safeguards and a co-ordinated, properly resourced system, sexual offence restorative justice conferencing has the potential to meet more of the justice needs of those victims who are being failed by the existing system."

In September 2001, the Home Office released two studies on the use of restorative justice. These were An Exploratory Evaluation of Restorative Justice Schemes and An International Review of Restorative Justice. Each report provides cautions and suggestions for implementing restorative justice programmes.

An Exploratory Evaluation of Restorative Justice Schemes relays the findings of a 15-month research study of seven restorative justice schemes across England. Two of these programmes dealt with adult offenders and the rest with juveniles.

The two main goals were to:

By Roderick Hill, Karen Cooper, Carolyn Hoyle and Richard Young. Oxford University Centre for Criminological Research Occasional Paper No. 20. (2003)

This paper presents the findings of a study contrasting informal resolution in a police force operating the existing statutory system in a traditional way, with a force piloting the use of restorative justice conferences.

A summary file can be found below.