Reintegrative Shaming Experiments (RISE)

Experiments in restorative policing: a progress report on the Canberra Reintegrative Shaming Experiments (RISE)

Lawrence W Sherman, Heather Strang, Geoffrey C Barnes, John Braithwaite, Nova Inkpen and Min-Mee Teh
Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University
June 1998

• Download full report (PDF 412kB)

Contents

• Executive Summary (PDF 12kB)
• Chapter 1: Introduction (PDF 12kB)
• Chapter 2: Research design and methods (PDF 12kB)
• Chapter 3: The four experiments: offenders and victims (PDF 12kB)
• Chapter 4: What happened in court and conference: observation and records (PDF 12kB)
• Chapter 5: Offender reactions to court and conference (PDF 12kB)
• Chapter 6: Victim perspectives on court and conference (PDF 12kB)
• Chapter 7: Conclusion (PDF 12kB)
• Appendix 1: Police attitudes towards conferencing (PDF 12kB)

Abstract

This is a report on a project partially funded by the Criminology Research Council. The original title of the project, in the name of John Braithwaite and Lawrence W Sherman, was "Reintegrative shaming of violence, drink driving and property crime: a randomised controlled trial". This report describes the results of the first three years' research conducted under the Canberra Reintegrative Shaming Experiments, which compared the effects of standard court processing with the effects of a diversionary conference for four kinds of cases: drink driving at any age; juvenile property offending with personal victims; juvenile shoplifting offences detected by store security officers; and youth violent crimes. The experiment has found, among other things, that victims whose cases were heard at conference received apologies in most cases, whereas victims whose cases were heard at court received no apologies from offenders; offenders found conferences more stressful than court; most victims said conferences were fairer than court; and offenders said conferences were fairer than court.