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Restorative justice

Restorative justice : an Australian perspective

Conferencing was introduced into the Australian juvenile and criminal justice systems in the early 1990s. The conferencing idea was borrowed and adapted from New Zealand, but applied to Australia in different ways.

In 1991, police in the city of Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, were the first to try out conferencing. The "Wagga model", as it has come to be called, adopted portions of the New Zealand conferencing idea but in the form of conferences organised and run by police officers. Other police service experimented with the idea, and during 1992-95, police-run conferences were established in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and were tried on a pilot basis in Western Australia, the Northern Territory, Queensland, and Tasmania. Other applications of the conferencing idea have been tried in schools and workplaces in New South Wales and Queensland beginning in 1994, and these continue to operate.

Variations exist in the offences and offenders who are eligible for conferencing, the existence of a legislative basis, and the agency in which it is located. At the present time, in the ACT, conferencing is run by the police; in New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia, and Queensland it is run by justice authorities; and in Victoria it is run by a church body. In some jurisdictions conferencing remains on a small scale, while in others, principally South Australia, Western Australia, and New South Wales, it is becoming an established part of mainstream juvenile justice processing.

The aim of conferencing is to divert offenders from the justice system by offering them the opportunity to attend a conference to discuss and resolve the offence instead of being charged and appearing in court. Conferencing is not offered where offenders wish to contest their guilt. The conference, which normally lasts 1 to 2 hours, is attended by the victims and their supporters, the offenders and their supporters and other relevant parties. The conference coordinator focuses the discussion on condemning the act, without condemning the character of the actor. Offenders are asked to explain what happened, how they have felt about the crime, and what they think should be done. The victims and others are asked to describe the physical, financial and emotional consequences of the crime. This discussion may lead the offenders, their families and friends to experience the shame of the act, prompting an apology to the victim. A plan of action is developed and signed by key participants. The plan may include the offender paying compensation to the victim, doing work for the victim or the community, or any other undertaking the participants may agree upon. It is the responsibility of the conference participants to determine the outcomes that are most appropriate for these particular victims and these particular offenders.

All eight States and Territories have used the conference model, but there are five in which conferencing is active. Of these five jurisdictions, all but one (the ACT) has legislatively established conferencing. South Australia began to use conferences routinely in 1994, Western Australia and the ACT in 1995, and New South Wales in 1998. While Queensland is an active jurisdiction, it is experimenting with several formats of organisational placement and delivery, and conferencing is not available on a state-wide basis. Tasmania passed legislation in 1997, which gave statutory authority to establish conferences, but a conferencing program has not yet started. The State of Victoria, like the ACT, is without a statutory scheme, but a community organisation, working in partnership with State agencies, uses the conference model in selected cases as a pre-sentence option.

Research projects

see also:
Restorative justice programs in Australia / Heather Strang
This report, commissioned by the Criminology Research Council, reviews the various types of restorative justice programs currently operating and also those which have been used within Australia.