A Restorative Justice Intervention in United States Prisons: Implications of Intervention Timing, Age, and Gender on Recidivism

Abstract

Restorative justice seeks to balance the needs of the victim, offender, and community by repairing the harm caused by crime and wrongdoing and improving the prosocial competencies and accountability of the offender in response to an offense. Restorative justice interventions (RJIs) offer an alternative method to reduce harm and short- and long-term recidivism. However, empirical validation of mechanisms and moderating factors warrant additional inquiry within jail and prison settings. Thus, the authors sought to examine RJI delivery timing on recidivism outcomes with age and gender as moderators. A final sample of 1,316 individuals (49.8% female) incarcerated in several United States prisons received an RJI between 2001 and 2017. RJI timing did not relate to binary recidivism. However, women recidivated less than men and older individual recidivated less than younger individuals. For the subsample of reoffenders ( n = 283), RJIs delivered closer to release increased the amount of time before recidivism. Delivering RJIs closer to release from prison may allow for other community programs to intervene and reduce recidivism even further.

A proven reoffending study of individuals managed under the multi-agency public protection arrangements (MAPPA) in England and Wales

“…The relationship between age and recidivism has been supported by a substantial body of evidence (for a meta-analysis, see Piquero et al, 2015 ). Here, higher age has been consistently linked to lower levels of general recidivism (Craig, 2011 ; Olver and Wong, 2015 ; Ambroziak et al, 2021 ; Van Hall, 2023 ), as well as violent (Richner et al, 2023 ) and sexual recidivism (Barbaree et al, 2003 , 2009 ; Thornton, 2006 ; Nicholaichuk et al, 2014 ). This effect remained even when considering confounds, such as individuals' diagnoses of psychopathy (Olver and Wong, 2015 ), sexual arousal to offense-related stimuli (Barbaree et al, 2003 ), and when using brain-age measures, rather than chronological age (Kiehl et al, 2018 ).…”

“…Our findings that females are significantly less likely to reoffend align closely with the results of previous research. A well-established line of work has repeatedly demonstrated that women are less likely than men to reoffend generally (Maden et al, 2006 ; Freeman and Sandler, 2008 ; Huebner and Pleggenkuhle, 2015 ; Richner et al, 2023 ), violently (for meta-analyses, see Cortoni et al, 2010 ; Piquero et al, 2015 ; see also McCarroll et al, 2000 ; Ménard et al, 2009 ), and sexually (for a meta-analysis, see Cortoni et al, 2010 ; see also Sandler and Freeman, 2009 ). Nevertheless, there has yet to be a clear consensus on an underlying mechanism or potential mediators for this gender difference.…”