ABSTRACT
Restorative justice conferencing (also known as family group conferencing) differs from other forms of restorative justice in terms of both its practical operation and its theoretical underpinnings. Developed in New Zealand and Australia during the 1980s, conferencing has rapidly grown in popularity internationally, and an increasing number of jurisdictions now prioritise it as the primary response to juvenile offending. This chapter critically evaluates what constitutes ‘successful’ restorative conferencing. The existing evidence base relating to common measures of success, such as, participation, engagement, satisfaction, restoration and recidivism are reconsidered. It is contended that there is no one single measure of ‘success’ in relation to restorative conferencing; indeed the use of such labels can serve to simplify highly complex and nuanced processes which are difficult to measure in terms of traditional social science methodology. Instead, we contend that it is more useful to evaluate restorative conferencing through a framework of values, calibrated to determine success or otherwise of conferencing interventions.
