WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.940 Good morning and welcome everyone. And isn't it good to have a bit of sun? 2 00:00:07.060 --> 00:00:11.260 So hello, my name's Robin Leighton and I'll be chairing the session today. 3 00:00:11.860 --> 00:00:16.620 And first of all I'd like to acknowledge that we're meeting on the lands of the Kaurna people 4 00:00:16.620 --> 00:00:22.400 and we pay our respects to their culture and heritage which is just as important to them 5 00:00:22.400 --> 00:00:28.460 today as it has always been. And we pay our respects to elders past, present and future 6 00:00:28.460 --> 00:00:36.300 and also recognise other Aboriginal communities within the area generally of Adelaide. 7 00:00:36.960 --> 00:00:41.780 So just before I introduce our wonderful speaker I have to do some housekeeping. 8 00:00:42.340 --> 00:00:48.440 So the housekeeping is of course please make sure your mobile phone is in the off position. 9 00:00:49.500 --> 00:00:53.180 I don't have to announce where the toilets are, that's rather interesting. 10 00:00:53.220 --> 00:00:55.360 Maybe they don't have any, I don't know. 11 00:00:57.540 --> 00:01:03.240 I also, for those of you that want to tweet, hashtag and Instagram, 12 00:01:04.280 --> 00:01:11.000 the tweet handle is capital A-D-L and then F-O-I capitals 13 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:18.800 and the hashtag is hashtag capital A-D capital I-F-O-I 14 00:01:18.800 --> 00:01:24.440 and the Instagram is at A-D-L-F-O-I all lowercase 15 00:01:25.720 --> 00:01:28.980 hashtag A-D-I-F-O-L. Did you get all of that? 16 00:01:29.300 --> 00:01:29.860 Good. 17 00:01:32.200 --> 00:01:35.860 The other thing is not to take any recordings yourselves 18 00:01:35.860 --> 00:01:41.200 because Radio Adelaide is doing a recording of this particular event. 19 00:01:41.860 --> 00:01:44.880 And just to outline what you can expect today, 20 00:01:45.080 --> 00:01:50.620 so after we hear from Rick there will be about ten minutes time for questions and answers 21 00:01:50.620 --> 00:01:53.880 and you can ask your questions at the back of the room. 22 00:01:53.980 --> 00:01:55.280 There's a microphone there. 23 00:01:55.360 --> 00:01:59.460 And if you could please ask questions rather than give statements 24 00:01:59.460 --> 00:02:04.440 and try and keep them short so that we can ensure that everybody has an opportunity. 25 00:02:06.180 --> 00:02:09.860 So now I'd like to introduce our terrific speaker today 26 00:02:09.860 --> 00:02:12.140 who is Professor Rick Saar. 27 00:02:12.400 --> 00:02:18.380 Rick Saar has an enviable reputation in the criminal justice area. 28 00:02:18.500 --> 00:02:21.260 He's a professor at the law school at UniSA 29 00:02:21.260 --> 00:02:24.260 and in fact we are colleagues down there at the moment. 30 00:02:24.460 --> 00:02:25.260 Thank you. 31 00:02:25.360 --> 00:02:28.260 He has been in criminology for more than 30 years 32 00:02:28.260 --> 00:02:31.520 and juvenile justice is one of his areas 33 00:02:31.520 --> 00:02:36.480 and he's taught also in the USA and in Sweden. 34 00:02:36.600 --> 00:02:37.480 Is it? Yes. 35 00:02:38.660 --> 00:02:39.700 Very close, aren't they? 36 00:02:39.780 --> 00:02:41.020 Especially at the moment. 37 00:02:42.040 --> 00:02:45.040 So he has a very good reputation 38 00:02:45.040 --> 00:02:48.800 and he is talking today about restorative justice. 39 00:02:49.260 --> 00:02:52.120 And that's been around for some 20 years now 40 00:02:52.120 --> 00:02:54.900 but some people still don't understand 41 00:02:55.360 --> 00:02:58.280 what it means, how it can be implemented, 42 00:02:58.760 --> 00:03:00.780 whether it's been implemented properly 43 00:03:00.780 --> 00:03:02.280 and what its future might be. 44 00:03:02.760 --> 00:03:07.040 So I hand over now to Rick to talk on this topic 45 00:03:08.260 --> 00:03:10.060 and keep us all informed. 46 00:03:10.240 --> 00:03:11.260 So thank you, Rick. 47 00:03:17.040 --> 00:03:18.220 Thank you, Robin. 48 00:03:18.320 --> 00:03:20.080 And it's a delight to be here this morning. 49 00:03:20.220 --> 00:03:22.560 What a gorgeous morning in terms of the sun shining 50 00:03:22.560 --> 00:03:24.500 and to have such a lovely crowd. 51 00:03:24.580 --> 00:03:25.340 I really appreciate it. 52 00:03:25.360 --> 00:03:27.100 Thanks for getting up on a Saturday morning 53 00:03:27.100 --> 00:03:28.000 and coming into the city. 54 00:03:28.480 --> 00:03:32.520 I've got about 25 minutes to present some ideas for you 55 00:03:32.520 --> 00:03:33.800 on this lovely little slideshow. 56 00:03:33.920 --> 00:03:37.460 The slideshow, in fact, is basically my prompt as well. 57 00:03:37.620 --> 00:03:39.520 So I'll be looking down and reading bits and pieces. 58 00:03:39.960 --> 00:03:43.100 And as Robin said, after that, I'll sit up there with her 59 00:03:43.100 --> 00:03:46.040 and we'll have a little dialogue and take some questions. 60 00:03:46.160 --> 00:03:47.540 I'm keen to evoke those. 61 00:03:47.620 --> 00:03:49.140 So I'm watching the clock up the back there. 62 00:03:49.200 --> 00:03:51.760 I'll be finishing it right on half past 10 63 00:03:51.760 --> 00:03:53.960 and then we can have some discussion 64 00:03:53.960 --> 00:03:55.340 around this really important topic. 65 00:03:55.360 --> 00:03:55.580 OK. 66 00:03:55.780 --> 00:03:57.660 Restorative justice, what's the scorecard? 67 00:03:58.640 --> 00:04:00.380 And I'm going to hit this little button 68 00:04:00.380 --> 00:04:02.660 and I'm sure everything will happen. 69 00:04:02.820 --> 00:04:03.320 There we go. 70 00:04:03.440 --> 00:04:03.600 Right. 71 00:04:03.640 --> 00:04:04.220 Does it work? 72 00:04:05.020 --> 00:04:07.880 In asking that question, there are two key words in that. 73 00:04:07.980 --> 00:04:10.060 What's it and what's work? 74 00:04:10.240 --> 00:04:13.540 So essentially half of my talk is about the it and half 75 00:04:13.540 --> 00:04:15.020 of my talk is about the work. 76 00:04:15.640 --> 00:04:19.240 This is a definition that was, it's probably one 77 00:04:19.240 --> 00:04:21.320 of the most famous definitions from Tony Marshall. 78 00:04:21.400 --> 00:04:22.980 It goes back 17 or 18 years. 79 00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:24.600 A process whereby parties 80 00:04:24.600 --> 00:04:25.340 with a staff of people who are not in the same position as others, 81 00:04:25.340 --> 00:04:27.000 who have a stake in a specific offence, 82 00:04:27.640 --> 00:04:30.440 collectively resolve how to deal with the aftermath 83 00:04:30.440 --> 00:04:33.720 of the offence and its implications for the future. 84 00:04:34.040 --> 00:04:36.380 It's a bit of a mouthful but that gives us some idea 85 00:04:36.380 --> 00:04:39.160 about the topic that we are moving into. 86 00:04:39.440 --> 00:04:42.340 Something has happened and we need to respond to it 87 00:04:42.340 --> 00:04:43.560 in a way which is affirmative. 88 00:04:44.280 --> 00:04:48.380 I gave my own definition in a piece that I wrote some years ago 89 00:04:48.380 --> 00:04:49.860 when I talked about restorative justice 90 00:04:49.860 --> 00:04:51.740 as a paradigm of possibility. 91 00:04:52.400 --> 00:04:54.700 And I said any justice mechanism 92 00:04:55.420 --> 00:04:59.020 that has the aim of repairing the harm caused by crime 93 00:04:59.020 --> 00:05:01.180 so that crime is less likely to happen again. 94 00:05:01.960 --> 00:05:05.660 And that little prompt for me is given example from the high rise. 95 00:05:05.960 --> 00:05:08.120 I borrow this from a chap called John Freeman. 96 00:05:08.180 --> 00:05:10.980 I heard speak on this subject some 20 years ago 97 00:05:10.980 --> 00:05:13.200 when the idea was first being floated around here 98 00:05:13.880 --> 00:05:15.500 about the time the Young Offenders Act 99 00:05:15.500 --> 00:05:18.260 and the Youth Court Act were being amended 20 years ago 100 00:05:18.260 --> 00:05:21.000 to incorporate what's called family conferencing. 101 00:05:21.160 --> 00:05:23.560 John Freeman spoke of a story that he knew in England 102 00:05:23.560 --> 00:05:24.720 in a high rise. 103 00:05:24.720 --> 00:05:27.400 And there were two men and they were both about the same age, 104 00:05:27.440 --> 00:05:29.380 both single, both living in a high rise, 105 00:05:29.520 --> 00:05:32.060 both sort of unemployed and drifting in and out 106 00:05:32.060 --> 00:05:34.440 of casual employment and both antagonistic. 107 00:05:34.440 --> 00:05:38.480 And both sick to death of each other, the music, the rubbish, 108 00:05:38.720 --> 00:05:41.360 the noise, the late night drinking, et cetera. 109 00:05:41.620 --> 00:05:44.120 And one day they both met on the landing 110 00:05:44.120 --> 00:05:46.880 that joined their two flats in a high rise like this. 111 00:05:47.040 --> 00:05:50.740 One of them goaded the other just one second too far 112 00:05:50.740 --> 00:05:54.700 whereupon the goadee picked up something, a block of wood, 113 00:05:54.720 --> 00:05:58.100 or a rubber something or other, or a mallet, and whacked the other guy 114 00:05:58.100 --> 00:06:00.240 over the head causing him a serious injury. 115 00:06:00.540 --> 00:06:01.600 The police were called. 116 00:06:01.700 --> 00:06:05.500 The assailant was arrested because he had a couple of priors. 117 00:06:05.580 --> 00:06:07.600 He spent three months behind bars. 118 00:06:07.940 --> 00:06:10.940 He came out of jail three months later and went back to live 119 00:06:10.940 --> 00:06:15.300 in the same apartment with the same neighbour. 120 00:06:15.820 --> 00:06:19.240 Now what restorative justice is saying, that's just absurd. 121 00:06:19.480 --> 00:06:23.380 That is just a recipe for the same thing to happen again 122 00:06:23.380 --> 00:06:24.120 and potentially. 123 00:06:24.720 --> 00:06:26.240 For it to go in the other direction. 124 00:06:26.340 --> 00:06:28.220 So that's the space we're in. 125 00:06:28.580 --> 00:06:31.200 Let's have a quick look at the one then the other. 126 00:06:31.240 --> 00:06:33.020 The traditional model of justice. 127 00:06:33.080 --> 00:06:35.340 This is the way in which it usually always works. 128 00:06:36.320 --> 00:06:39.240 And as you know, Robin was a judge for many years. 129 00:06:39.360 --> 00:06:41.200 She'd be very familiar sitting in the criminal courts. 130 00:06:41.360 --> 00:06:43.640 This was the way in which it unfolded. 131 00:06:43.660 --> 00:06:45.480 Crime is a violation of the rules. 132 00:06:45.820 --> 00:06:49.640 The state comes along, the DPP or the police depending 133 00:06:49.640 --> 00:06:51.080 on which jurisdiction you're in. 134 00:06:51.120 --> 00:06:51.880 They prosecute. 135 00:06:51.880 --> 00:06:53.200 You blame the perpetrator. 136 00:06:53.300 --> 00:06:54.140 You find. 137 00:06:54.140 --> 00:06:55.240 Or they plead guilty. 138 00:06:55.300 --> 00:06:56.040 They're punished. 139 00:06:56.240 --> 00:06:57.480 They serve their sentence. 140 00:06:57.720 --> 00:06:58.940 And back they come. 141 00:06:59.100 --> 00:07:00.080 Standard fare. 142 00:07:00.200 --> 00:07:01.480 That's the way in which we operate. 143 00:07:01.840 --> 00:07:05.180 Now the idea is that restorative justice comes in and says, 144 00:07:05.320 --> 00:07:07.580 well I wonder whether we can do that a little bit differently. 145 00:07:08.620 --> 00:07:10.720 Look at these four little tabs here. 146 00:07:10.840 --> 00:07:14.440 The offender recognises the consequences of offending 147 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:15.760 and takes responsibility. 148 00:07:16.840 --> 00:07:20.280 There's a chance for the offender to repair the injuries. 149 00:07:21.240 --> 00:07:23.880 There's a chance for the parties to be reconciled. 150 00:07:23.880 --> 00:07:24.560 If that's possible. 151 00:07:24.980 --> 00:07:28.480 And the formal processes tend to take a back seat. 152 00:07:28.680 --> 00:07:30.380 Let me make it abundantly clear. 153 00:07:30.580 --> 00:07:37.740 Restorative justice is not about a revolutionary completely pushing one out and replacing it 154 00:07:37.740 --> 00:07:38.460 with something else. 155 00:07:38.600 --> 00:07:39.840 That would never work. 156 00:07:39.940 --> 00:07:43.200 If it were to work, it would take us probably a hundred years to implement and bring people 157 00:07:43.200 --> 00:07:43.720 on side. 158 00:07:44.120 --> 00:07:49.040 It is simply a way of, in some circumstances, changing the dialogue. 159 00:07:49.380 --> 00:07:52.980 If you look at that first line there, crime is a conflict between individuals. 160 00:07:54.200 --> 00:07:55.720 Secondarily, it's law breaking. 161 00:07:55.940 --> 00:08:01.360 So it's looking to see how better we can come out of a law breaking episode 162 00:08:01.360 --> 00:08:03.840 so that the parties can be reconciled. 163 00:08:03.920 --> 00:08:05.620 The heading there is interesting by the way. 164 00:08:05.640 --> 00:08:07.860 It says, restorative brackets relational. 165 00:08:08.160 --> 00:08:13.320 When I was first in this space in the late 90s, when I was teaching in the US by the way, 166 00:08:13.380 --> 00:08:15.460 I came across restorative justice. 167 00:08:15.660 --> 00:08:17.200 Americans were talking about it. 168 00:08:17.460 --> 00:08:19.640 And the Brits were coming to the conferences. 169 00:08:19.780 --> 00:08:22.020 And the Brits were calling it relational justice. 170 00:08:22.460 --> 00:08:22.960 I had to be a lawyer. 171 00:08:22.960 --> 00:08:27.100 I actually prefer the term relational justice because it's about relationships. 172 00:08:27.520 --> 00:08:33.500 The criticism of restorative justice is it's designed to restore people to the place they 173 00:08:33.500 --> 00:08:35.020 were at before the offending occurred. 174 00:08:35.640 --> 00:08:38.040 Well, a lot of offenders have never been in that place. 175 00:08:38.300 --> 00:08:40.920 They can't be restored back to something they were never in. 176 00:08:41.760 --> 00:08:46.280 With apologies to the Americans in the room, if there are any, there were more Americans 177 00:08:46.280 --> 00:08:47.880 dealing in this space than Brits. 178 00:08:47.940 --> 00:08:49.520 So the Americans won on the terminology. 179 00:08:49.840 --> 00:08:52.940 But if I had my druthers, I'd call it relational justice. 180 00:08:52.940 --> 00:08:54.340 It's the same thing. 181 00:08:55.580 --> 00:09:01.940 In such a mechanism or restorative mechanism, you'd normally have these three things paramount 182 00:09:01.940 --> 00:09:02.760 in your thinking. 183 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:04.520 Direct involvement by victims. 184 00:09:04.700 --> 00:09:05.900 That's the crucial thing. 185 00:09:06.020 --> 00:09:10.480 It's one of the reasons why the more conservative voices in justice rather like it. 186 00:09:10.580 --> 00:09:12.000 That it's victim focused. 187 00:09:15.620 --> 00:09:19.180 And in contact with offenders, we can call that process oriented. 188 00:09:19.420 --> 00:09:21.140 And the second one, compensation. 189 00:09:21.500 --> 00:09:22.660 Either financial. 190 00:09:22.940 --> 00:09:26.680 Or, in some other way, for the emotional and material losses of the victims. 191 00:09:26.680 --> 00:09:28.160 So it's victim orientated. 192 00:09:28.420 --> 00:09:32.180 And then, reintegration of the offender into the community, if that's possible. 193 00:09:32.360 --> 00:09:33.300 So a good outcome. 194 00:09:33.620 --> 00:09:38.680 So there's the three dimensions that typically have to be within any mechanism that we're 195 00:09:38.680 --> 00:09:39.140 exploring. 196 00:09:40.940 --> 00:09:43.920 Now, remember then, it's not a type of justice. 197 00:09:44.040 --> 00:09:47.260 It's not a wholesale revision of the justice process. 198 00:09:47.740 --> 00:09:52.080 It's any number of mechanisms that incorporate that mindset. 199 00:09:52.360 --> 00:09:52.920 And this may just entice you, this may just entice you, this may just entice you, this may 200 00:09:52.920 --> 00:09:56.380 And I'm going to list a bunch of them here to you and then focus on a couple of them. 201 00:09:56.880 --> 00:10:01.900 The police have often said that what they do with cautioning, and you know how cautioning works, 202 00:10:02.040 --> 00:10:05.880 an offence might have been committed, but the police say, well, it was such a minor thing, 203 00:10:05.960 --> 00:10:10.740 it wouldn't be a bad idea if I just spoke to the parents. In those circumstances, we'll just 204 00:10:11.380 --> 00:10:17.120 more or less deal with this one informally. And of course, diversionary tactics, police divert 205 00:10:17.120 --> 00:10:23.860 so many offences, get them out of the justice system. Anyone who's worked in juvenile justice 206 00:10:23.860 --> 00:10:28.840 would know that one of the best predictors of a young person going into the adult courts and 207 00:10:28.840 --> 00:10:33.680 adult life of crime is that whether or not they were drawn deeply into the justice system. So 208 00:10:33.680 --> 00:10:38.340 police often say that what they are doing with cautions and diversions is restorative. 209 00:10:39.480 --> 00:10:43.420 Family conferencing is the big one. That's the one that most people think of. The family 210 00:10:43.420 --> 00:10:46.800 conference I'll talk about a bit later is where instead of a young person, 211 00:10:46.840 --> 00:10:47.100 typically a young person who's been in a family conference for a long time, 212 00:10:47.100 --> 00:10:53.160 but it can apply to older people as well, instead of them going to court, they're taken off to 213 00:10:53.160 --> 00:10:58.880 another conference in a room. I'm told by people who've been monitoring it now for 20 years that 214 00:10:58.880 --> 00:11:04.680 typically victims turn up at about 50% of occasions. And over the next hour or two with a 215 00:11:04.680 --> 00:11:09.580 facilitator, sometimes with police, they go through what it is about the offending. The young offender 216 00:11:09.580 --> 00:11:16.200 takes responsibility for his or her actions. They express their remorse and regrets and apologies, 217 00:11:16.300 --> 00:11:17.080 and then they work through it. And then they go through the offending. And then they go through 218 00:11:17.080 --> 00:11:22.580 what needs to happen thereafter. A very strong emphasis in the Young Offenders Act and the Youth 219 00:11:22.580 --> 00:11:27.260 Court Act from 20 years ago. We're going to focus on that a bit later. Victim offender mediation has 220 00:11:27.260 --> 00:11:32.240 been less successful, although sometimes victims do want to meet with offenders. Sometimes offenders 221 00:11:32.240 --> 00:11:36.280 do want to meet with those victims. And there are mediation services where that occurs. 222 00:11:38.320 --> 00:11:42.560 Circle sentencing is one. It doesn't happen so much here in Australia, but very, very common 223 00:11:42.560 --> 00:11:47.060 in North America and Canada, where typically Indigenous communities will be asked to do 224 00:11:47.060 --> 00:11:50.860 that. And they will be asked to sit around, indeed in a circle, and work out what consequences 225 00:11:50.860 --> 00:11:57.580 particular offending need to lead to. Prison ministries are very strong, typically around here 226 00:11:57.580 --> 00:12:03.200 in South Australia, focused on by Catholics, Uniting Church, and they'll have a lot of type of 227 00:12:03.200 --> 00:12:08.020 forgiveness type ministries in prison. Again, I'm not talking about that today. That's another 228 00:12:08.020 --> 00:12:13.740 subject. But they would claim that their work, and I agree, is restorative. School-based conflict 229 00:12:13.740 --> 00:12:17.040 resolution classes, which people maintain, are very strong. And they're very much focused on the 230 00:12:17.040 --> 00:12:18.680 work that they're doing. And I think that's a very important aspect of the work that they're doing. 231 00:12:18.680 --> 00:12:24.040 But I'm happy to put it into that particular dot point. And the last one, I'm putting parentheses 232 00:12:24.040 --> 00:12:29.280 here and also in italics, because it relates to the work that John Braithwaite does, which is quite 233 00:12:29.280 --> 00:12:34.800 extraordinary, where he uses these techniques of restorative justice to look at conflicts between 234 00:12:34.800 --> 00:12:40.540 countries and conflicts within countries. Again, I won't go down that particular path today. That is 235 00:12:40.540 --> 00:12:46.040 taking a small idea and putting it into the world stage. It's quite astonishing. And if you're 236 00:12:46.040 --> 00:12:47.020 interested at all, you can go to the book, The World Stage, and you can go to the book, The World Stage, 237 00:12:47.020 --> 00:12:50.680 all you've got to do is Google John Braithwaite, international peacemaking, international 238 00:12:50.680 --> 00:12:54.720 restorative justice, and transitional justice, and you'll see lots of resources. 239 00:12:56.320 --> 00:13:00.460 So where did this come from? I'm about halfway, no, about a third of the way through. 240 00:13:02.280 --> 00:13:07.360 If I speed up, I'm halfway through. Where did it come from? It's rather contested. In fact, 241 00:13:07.360 --> 00:13:11.600 a lot of indigenous communities sometimes say, well, we've had thousands of years of 242 00:13:11.600 --> 00:13:16.740 this kind of shaming and reintegration. Go back four or five thousand years to Leviticus, 243 00:13:17.020 --> 00:13:21.660 and you can read about the Jews having Teshua, which means turning around, the Yom Kippur, 244 00:13:21.900 --> 00:13:28.020 the Jubilee principle, etc., saying this idea of redemption, shaming, taking responsibility, 245 00:13:28.020 --> 00:13:34.020 and moving on is not something new. The Christian traditions of forgiveness and repentance 246 00:13:34.020 --> 00:13:39.500 then came in to inform the Mennonites, who formed in the United States the Mennonite Conciliation 247 00:13:39.500 --> 00:13:45.780 Service back in the 1970s, followed shortly thereafter by what was called VORP, the Victim 248 00:13:45.780 --> 00:13:46.800 Offender Reconciliation. 249 00:13:47.020 --> 00:13:53.780 Project in Canada, who are mainly looking at victim offender mediation, as was the Mennonite 250 00:13:53.780 --> 00:13:58.580 Conciliation Service. So I'm not going to pretend that I can tell you the answer about 251 00:13:58.580 --> 00:14:03.620 where it came from. It is multifaceted, and it's contested. It's a debate for another 252 00:14:03.620 --> 00:14:03.960 day. 253 00:14:04.160 --> 00:14:11.220 So that's what it is. The question for us in the next 17 minutes is, does it work? 254 00:14:11.540 --> 00:14:16.900 Okay. Well, research into this sort of field, if you're talking about some sort of social 255 00:14:16.900 --> 00:14:22.680 intervention and a particular outcome, particularly looking at criminal justice matters, is never 256 00:14:22.680 --> 00:14:27.980 easy. There are a lot of desired outcomes. Someone says, well, I'm doing this, and we're 257 00:14:27.980 --> 00:14:32.180 going to do this, and this is the outcome, and this is the outcome. But how do you judge 258 00:14:32.180 --> 00:14:37.020 that success? These are very difficult things to test. Let's have a look at some of the 259 00:14:37.020 --> 00:14:42.700 things that people think we could be testing, and some of the things we think that restorative 260 00:14:42.700 --> 00:14:46.580 justice should be solving. Does it lead to less crime? 261 00:14:47.280 --> 00:14:53.380 What about lower rates of recidivism? Recidivism is reoffending. So does a person stop reoffending 262 00:14:53.380 --> 00:14:58.740 or slow down? Does it lead to greater victim satisfaction? What about greater confidence 263 00:14:58.740 --> 00:15:03.920 in the way in which police are handling matters? What about greater process efficiency, getting 264 00:15:03.920 --> 00:15:08.480 people through the system quickly and dealing with matters? And finally, is there not a 265 00:15:08.480 --> 00:15:13.160 safer correctional environment? The prison ministries people often say that that level 266 00:15:13.160 --> 00:15:16.880 of redemption and forgiveness within prison environments make the problem. 267 00:15:16.900 --> 00:15:22.580 The prisoners, they deal with less agitated. So that's a difficult thing, because restorative 268 00:15:22.580 --> 00:15:27.980 justice is unlikely to change all of the things that we could safely say contribute in some 269 00:15:27.980 --> 00:15:32.320 way to antisocial behaviour, like economic disadvantage, high rates of unemployment, 270 00:15:32.720 --> 00:15:37.760 familial dysfunction, historical and contemporary indigenous disadvantage, poor police relationships, 271 00:15:38.140 --> 00:15:42.560 high rates of mental illness, particularly what we see in police detainees, and drug 272 00:15:42.560 --> 00:15:46.880 and alcohol abuse. You can't take one intervention, restorative justice, and say, well, I'm going 273 00:15:46.900 --> 00:15:53.620 to reduce crime when all these other factors are in that space. It's a very difficult ask. 274 00:15:53.960 --> 00:15:57.820 So anyone trying to test this is going to be giving themselves a very difficult task. 275 00:15:58.880 --> 00:16:03.820 So how do you know, in fact, that the restorative justice intervention that we're talking about, 276 00:16:03.980 --> 00:16:09.980 the family conferencing, the police diversions, the mediation services, how do we know that 277 00:16:09.980 --> 00:16:15.660 that was the intervention if there are fewer offences, if there is less recidivism, how 278 00:16:15.660 --> 00:16:16.760 do we know that was the key? 279 00:16:17.240 --> 00:16:21.800 There's really only one way of doing that, and you do some evaluations. Now, the main 280 00:16:21.800 --> 00:16:27.300 evaluations, as I said, in this particular space are of family conferencing. Family conferencing 281 00:16:27.300 --> 00:16:30.700 typically involving young people. We have them here. We've had them here for more than 282 00:16:30.700 --> 00:16:34.960 20 years in South Australia, where instead of going to court, a young person is directed 283 00:16:35.500 --> 00:16:37.640 to a conference where they sit around. 284 00:16:38.200 --> 00:16:42.960 Now I'm watching the time and recognising that I really only have about 14 minutes, 285 00:16:43.180 --> 00:16:46.500 but I'm going to read you, in fact, I'm going to put it on the screen. Those of you who 286 00:16:46.500 --> 00:16:50.980 don't have very good eyesight over distances can simply close your eyes and listen as 287 00:16:50.980 --> 00:16:51.500 I read it. 288 00:16:51.600 --> 00:16:58.960 This is a lovely piece by John Braithwaite, written back about 20 years ago, in 1996, 289 00:16:59.380 --> 00:17:05.840 that was published in Canada. And it's slightly hypothetical, but based upon a true story. 290 00:17:06.020 --> 00:17:10.160 John was titivating it a little bit to make it a little bit more relevant, about Sam the 291 00:17:10.160 --> 00:17:14.880 Robber. And in this long piece, he's describing the way in which this family group conference 292 00:17:15.500 --> 00:17:16.020 unfolds. 293 00:17:16.500 --> 00:17:20.300 He's got Sam, he's pleaded guilty, he hasn't gone to court. Instead, he's been referred 294 00:17:20.300 --> 00:17:24.240 to a conference. Sitting in the room, he's got his support, he's got his Uncle George, 295 00:17:24.420 --> 00:17:28.760 he's got his sister, there's a police officer, there's a facilitator, there's the victim, 296 00:17:28.840 --> 00:17:32.220 there's the victim's mother and some other support people, all sitting around in a circle, 297 00:17:32.420 --> 00:17:38.620 trying to resolve, from this robbery, some better outcome. These are the last two paragraphs 298 00:17:39.600 --> 00:17:45.060 that John Braithwaite writes. And I think you'll find them rather moving. And not overstated. 299 00:17:45.080 --> 00:17:45.740 Here we go. 300 00:17:47.400 --> 00:17:49.280 So we're near the end of the conference. 301 00:17:49.440 --> 00:17:54.560 It's his sister's love that penetrates Sam's callous exterior. From then on, he's emotionally 302 00:17:54.560 --> 00:17:59.040 engaged with the conference. He says he's sorry about what the victim has lost. He would 303 00:17:59.040 --> 00:18:03.400 like to pay it back but has no money or job. He assures the victim he's not stalking her. 304 00:18:03.620 --> 00:18:08.220 She readily accepts this now. And when questioned by the facilitator, says now she thinks she'll 305 00:18:08.220 --> 00:18:12.340 feel safe walking out alone. She wants her money back but says it'll help her if they 306 00:18:12.340 --> 00:18:16.480 can talk about what to do to help Sam find a job and a home. Sam's still in the process. 307 00:18:16.480 --> 00:18:21.620 sister says he can come and live in her house for a while. The hockey coach says he's got some casual 308 00:18:21.620 --> 00:18:26.620 work that needs to be done, enough to pay Sam's debt to the victim and a bit more. If Sam does 309 00:18:26.620 --> 00:18:30.900 get a job, he'll write him a reference for applications for permanent jobs. When the 310 00:18:30.900 --> 00:18:36.860 conference breaks up, the victim hugs Sam and tearfully wishes him good luck. He apologises 311 00:18:36.860 --> 00:18:43.000 again. Uncle George quietly slips $100 to Sam's sister to defray the extra cost of having Sam in 312 00:18:43.000 --> 00:18:49.560 the house, says he'll be there for both of them if they need him. Sam has a rocky life punctuated 313 00:18:49.560 --> 00:18:54.060 by several periods of unemployment. A year later, he has to go through another conference after he 314 00:18:54.060 --> 00:18:59.660 steals a bicycle. But he finds work when he can, mostly stays out of trouble and lives to mourn at 315 00:18:59.660 --> 00:19:04.280 the funerals of Uncle George and his sister. The victim gets her money back and enjoys taking long 316 00:19:04.280 --> 00:19:08.900 walks alone. Both she and her daughter say they feel enriched as a result of the conference and 317 00:19:08.900 --> 00:19:10.920 have a little more grace in their lives. 318 00:19:12.100 --> 00:19:12.980 So that's the end of the conference. 319 00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:19.000 This is kind of John Braithwaite's summary of a successful conference, more or less successful, 320 00:19:19.080 --> 00:19:24.260 because he didn't stay out of trouble completely. His life was still very rocky, but the victim felt 321 00:19:24.260 --> 00:19:29.700 some degree of satisfaction. Now we're going to look at some evaluations in the next 11 minutes. 322 00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:36.300 These evaluations begin with the one and only randomised trial. Why is a randomised trial 323 00:19:36.300 --> 00:19:41.080 useful? Because it tends to eliminate all the rogue variables. Now this little slide I have up 324 00:19:41.080 --> 00:19:42.780 there calls the left-hand side patients. 325 00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:47.280 I couldn't find one that talked about offenders. But you get the idea. You take a bunch of people, 326 00:19:47.380 --> 00:19:52.000 you randomly put them into a treatment group, you randomly put another half into a control group, 327 00:19:52.100 --> 00:19:57.260 and then test them against the restorative justice or going to court and see what happens at the end. 328 00:19:57.360 --> 00:20:03.100 And they did this, a very highly financed, I should say, this is not easy, and a team that 329 00:20:03.100 --> 00:20:07.660 had to go through ethics. Imagine the ethics of putting one person to court, conference, 330 00:20:07.820 --> 00:20:12.100 court, conference, as they came through the door. So they finally got it organised. It took them 331 00:20:12.100 --> 00:20:12.980 five years to do it. And they did it. And they did it. And they did it. And they did it. And they did it. 332 00:20:12.980 --> 00:20:14.640 And they did it. And they did it. And they did it. And they did it. And they did it. And they did it. 333 00:20:14.640 --> 00:20:18.820 And they called it the reintegrative shaming experiment of Canberra. And so they had placement 334 00:20:18.820 --> 00:20:23.100 and tracking for the following re-offenders over a number of years through a number of juvenile 335 00:20:23.100 --> 00:20:28.880 courts and indeed adult courts involving a large number of offenders. Property theft, 336 00:20:29.080 --> 00:20:34.360 property theft, stores and personal, drink driving for the under 30s, and offences involving violence. 337 00:20:34.720 --> 00:20:42.520 So then they tested it against reducing offending in the first two years after arrest. Now recidivism 338 00:20:42.980 --> 00:20:48.280 definitions vary wildly. This was their recidivism definition. Do they re-offend in the first two 339 00:20:48.280 --> 00:20:54.120 years after arrest? Juvenile property theft from stores, no difference between the two groups. 340 00:20:54.520 --> 00:21:00.700 Juvenile property theft, personal, no difference between the two groups. Drink driving recidivism, 341 00:21:00.780 --> 00:21:05.640 slightly higher for the conference-based ones. So if you didn't go to court, you were more likely 342 00:21:05.640 --> 00:21:09.940 to drink drive again. How bizarre was that? But look at this next one. Here's the crucial one. 343 00:21:10.020 --> 00:21:12.080 Violent offenders who participated in conferences, 344 00:21:12.980 --> 00:21:18.860 about 50% less re-offending than those who went to court. So indeed, you can see in a bit of a 345 00:21:18.860 --> 00:21:24.680 snapshot there that maybe some offences are crucial to this process. This was a randomised 346 00:21:25.180 --> 00:21:29.860 study. It's the only randomised study in Australia that I know of, and I would know of it if I'd 347 00:21:29.860 --> 00:21:38.220 heard of another one because these are very difficult to do, very expensive and ethically 348 00:21:38.220 --> 00:21:42.880 charged. So we can't go to any more randomised scorecard. 349 00:21:42.980 --> 00:21:47.640 We can, however, go to some qualitative and process evaluations. By qualitative, 350 00:21:47.740 --> 00:21:51.600 we interview a whole bunch of people about their experience. Did it work for you? 351 00:21:52.060 --> 00:21:55.980 And I'm going to give you two or three studies that have been done. The first one by Cathy Daly 352 00:21:55.980 --> 00:22:00.700 and Hennessy Hayes here in South Australia going back 15 or so years. The juvenile justice study 353 00:22:00.700 --> 00:22:07.080 concluded there are two variables which, if present, appear to make a difference to recidivism 354 00:22:07.080 --> 00:22:12.740 rates and victim satisfaction. That is genuine remorse of the offender who typically has to 355 00:22:12.740 --> 00:22:18.380 plead guilty and a genuine consensus in a conference in fashioning an appropriate outcome. 356 00:22:18.580 --> 00:22:23.140 If you don't have buy-in, you don't get the outcome. So Cathy and Hennessy were saying 357 00:22:23.140 --> 00:22:27.680 that the conferences they observed, the period of their qualitative study and the people 358 00:22:27.680 --> 00:22:32.980 they interviewed said, yes, on balance, they were good. They were better than not doing 359 00:22:32.980 --> 00:22:38.320 it for the reasons of seeing the remorse of the offender, getting a consensus and perhaps 360 00:22:38.320 --> 00:22:41.120 having a way of reducing recidivism rates as well. 361 00:22:42.160 --> 00:22:42.720 So, we're going to go to the next slide. 362 00:22:42.740 --> 00:22:47.620 Same question in New South Wales, this time the Bureau of Crime Stats and Research in 2002. 363 00:22:48.460 --> 00:22:53.100 They reached three conclusions which I've put up on the screen here. The proportion of juveniles 364 00:22:53.100 --> 00:22:59.180 who re-offend is about 28% lower if you go to a conference than go to court, so a good outcome. 365 00:22:59.780 --> 00:23:06.040 The number of reappearances in court is about 24% lower if you refer to a conference, a good outcome. 366 00:23:06.700 --> 00:23:11.460 And thirdly, there are reductions of 15 to 20% in re-offending across different offence types 367 00:23:11.460 --> 00:23:12.720 regardless of the gender, gender identity, gender identity, gender identity, gender identity, 368 00:23:12.740 --> 00:23:15.260 gender, 369 00:23:41.060 --> 00:23:46.900 an adult conferencing pilot was run here in South Australia back in 2005 that's 10 years ago by 370 00:23:46.900 --> 00:23:52.360 three academics from Flinders Andrew Goldsmith Mark Halsey and David Bamford and it was a pilot 371 00:23:52.360 --> 00:23:58.160 because the court's a little bit nervous about having conferencing for non-juveniles so going 372 00:23:58.160 --> 00:24:02.200 into the adult courts and they ran a pilot there doesn't it doesn't exist anymore it was after all 373 00:24:02.200 --> 00:24:07.920 only a pilot this is what they concluded victims strongly endorsed the process most offenders at 374 00:24:07.920 --> 00:24:12.920 least accepted its value and appropriateness for victims and in many cases its value for them 375 00:24:12.920 --> 00:24:19.120 and the small group of stakeholders who would have been the the support networks around both of those 376 00:24:19.120 --> 00:24:25.840 people were in favor of processes of this kind so that the there was no attempt to suggest recidivism 377 00:24:25.840 --> 00:24:30.920 rates after all it was just simply saying does it work and I don't know whether Robin was in the 378 00:24:30.920 --> 00:24:35.540 courts and ever had any of these conferencing outcomes come back to her court but often 379 00:24:35.540 --> 00:24:37.280 sentences sentences 380 00:24:37.280 --> 00:24:42.360 will say well I'm prepared to accept the fact if someone's prepared to run a conference free of 381 00:24:42.360 --> 00:24:46.560 charge and give me the results I'm happy to incorporate that into my sentencing remarks 382 00:24:46.560 --> 00:24:51.080 and that's occurred from time to time I see Peter Norman here as well from the Supreme Court he might 383 00:24:51.080 --> 00:24:55.880 want to comment on that a bit later so nothing about recidivism nothing about outcomes in 384 00:24:55.880 --> 00:25:01.460 relation to less crime but certainly some good outcomes about the process sentencing circles 385 00:25:01.460 --> 00:25:06.240 have been attempted in New South Wales in indigenous groups but the Boxar report again 386 00:25:06.240 --> 00:25:07.260 not because of the fact that it's not a good outcome but because of the fact that it's not 387 00:25:07.280 --> 00:25:11.620 particularly good no difference was found between Aboriginal circle sentencing and a 388 00:25:11.620 --> 00:25:17.000 matched control group of Aboriginal offenders who weren't so sentenced regarding recidivism or the 389 00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:22.640 seriousness of the next offense however once again process here's what they concluded giving 390 00:25:22.640 --> 00:25:26.860 Aboriginal elders direct involvement in the sentencing of Aboriginal offenders encourages 391 00:25:26.860 --> 00:25:32.440 offenders to critically reflect upon their behavior and be given opportunities to address 392 00:25:32.440 --> 00:25:37.160 the factors that get them involved in crime particularly drug and alcohol abuse so once 393 00:25:37.280 --> 00:25:43.280 again a good process outcome but not a particularly good outcome outcome if what you're looking for 394 00:25:43.280 --> 00:25:48.960 is less crime and lower recidivism rates and here's the final slide I'm going to show you by way of 395 00:25:48.960 --> 00:25:54.260 evaluation I've got five minutes to go this was a meta-analysis those of you not familiar with that 396 00:25:54.260 --> 00:25:59.820 term it simply means someone's gone back and not done their own work but looked at all of the 397 00:25:59.820 --> 00:26:06.220 material that's emerging out of the literature of the hundreds of evaluations now there'd be dozens 398 00:26:06.220 --> 00:26:07.260 of evaluations in the next few days and I think that's what we're going to be looking at in the next five minutes. 399 00:26:07.280 --> 00:26:12.940 Australia there are dozens of evaluations over the last 25 years in New Zealand where this is very 400 00:26:12.940 --> 00:26:20.540 very popular and literally hundreds of evaluations in North America this meta-analysis wasn't 401 00:26:20.540 --> 00:26:25.580