Skip to start of content

Reintegrative Shaming Experiments (RISE)

Recidivism patterns in the Canberra Reintegrative Shaming Experiments (RISE)

Lawrence W Sherman, Heather Strang and Daniel J Woods
Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University

November 2000

Australian National University

Executive summary

This report presents the evidence available to date from RISE (Reintegrative Shaming Experiments) about the effects of diversionary restorative justice conferences on repeat offending. RISE accepted new cases until July 1 of 2000, which means that most (but not all) cases have had at least a one year followup period in which to measure repeat offending. While some experiments have had much longer, the important question this report must address is the effect of diversionary conferences on different offence types. In order to make such comparisons, a standard one year before-after difference in offending rates is presented. As more time passes, future RISE reports will encompass all cases taken into the experiments, with a minimum of two year followup periods. Thus the findings presented here could well change. For the moment, however, they are the best evidence we have.

Using the standard reporting format, this report presents evidence that when compared to court, the effect of diversionary conferences is to cause a

  • Big drop in offending rates by violent offenders (by 38 crimes per 100 per year)
  • Very small increase in offending by drink drivers (by 6 crimes per 100 offenders per year)
  • Lack of any difference in repeat offending by juvenile property offenders or shoplifters (though after-only analysis shows a drop in reoffending by shoplifters).

The report presents the data in support of these conclusions and then explores the differences in the four experiments that might account for these differences in repeat offending rates. These differences require substantial additional analysis that will be strengthened when data on all randomized cases are available. This report considers the kinds of offenders allocated to each treatment group in each of the four experiments.