Community-Managed Restorative Justice Programmes have become an established service in many district courts and communities throughout New Zealand since the Crime Prevention Unit funded the first three trial programmes in 1996. In 2004, 19 programmes will provide approximately 1000 conferences across the country. Many District Court judges have come to regard the programmes as a valuable service in securing better outcomes in their courts. The programmes have also generated widespread support in their communities.
Two of the pilot programmes (Timaru’s Project Turnaround and Te Whānau Awhina at Waitakere City) were evaluated in 1998 and 1999. Since that time, community-managed restorative justice programmes have continued to expand and evolve in a variety of ways. There have also been significant changes in the context within which these programmes operate. This includes the statutory recognition given to restorative justice processes in New Zealand’s Sentencing Act 2002 and Victims’ Rights Act 2002, and the focus given to best practice in restorative justice as illustrated by the Ministry of Justice’s May 2004 publication Restorative Justice in New Zealand: Best Practice.
Given these developments, it was thought useful to undertake evaluations of two programmes to elicit further information about the effectiveness of current approaches to community-managed restorative justice processes in New Zealand. The evaluations will also inform future development and the implementation of improvement processes. The two programmes selected were the Rotorua Second Chance Restorative Justice Programme and the Wanganui Community-Managed Restorative Justice Programme. The Rotorua programme was selected for re-evaluation so that best practice principles for community based restorative justice programmes utilising tikanga-based practices might be identified.
This report presents the outcomes of the evaluation of the Rotorua Second Chance programme. The report clearly identifies the strengths of the programme and also areas for future improvement.
A key issue that arises from both evaluations is the need to develop strategies to ensure that optimum crime prevention benefits are obtained through securing reductions in re-offending, while also enhancing and maintaining the clear benefits that are being obtained for victims. Securing the best possible results for these two major objectives, which are often not easily reconciled, will be a major challenge for the partnership between policy developers and service providers.
Finally, the Ministry wishes to express its appreciation to Mana Social Services Trust and all the people involved in this evaluation. Without their willing participation this project would not have materialised.
Purpose
The Ministry of Justice, in consultation with Mana Social Services, commissioned this evaluation of the Rotorua Second Chance Restorative Justice Programme in 2003. The programme is funded by central government through the Crime Prevention Unit, Ministry of Justice. The programme was selected for re-evaluation so that best practice principles for community-based restorative justice programmes utilising tikanga-based practices might be identified.
The evaluation objectives were to:
- describe the programme – its history, the context in which it operates, delivery, objectives and resources;
- determine the effectiveness of the programme, in relation to its objectives;
- contribute to the development of best practice principles for community-managed restorative justice programmes utilising tikanga-based practice;
- describe the extent to which this programme has contributed to the further development of the partnership between government and communities.
The extent to which the programme has developed its services to meet the needs of Māori, in particular, was also to be examined.