Victim Participation in Victim-Offender Conference Program and Its Effect on Juvenile Offender Recidivism

• In Event: Juveniles, Restorative Justice, and Family Involvement

Abstract

This study was designed to examine victim participation in the victim-offender conference program and determine its effect on juvenile offender recidivism. Its focus is an official restorative justice juvenile intervention program called the Community Justice Conferencing program in Fresno County, California, which has been operating in conjunction with Fresno County Juvenile Hall since 2009. This study analyzed the secondary data that consist of 783 referrals from July 1, 2009 to August 31, 2012 including 777 juvenile offenders and 799 victims. This study compared recidivism patterns of the program participants and non-participants to ascertain whether or not the victim-offender conference, in which victims directly participate, had an effect on referred offenders’ recidivism. Three sets of statistical analysis concluded that the most influential predictor of referred offenders’ recidivism was whether they participated in the direct victim-offender conference and the survival graph exhibited that the offenders who were referred but never participated re-offended in a shorter time than offenders who had the direct victim-offender conference in the program. The result of this study underlined crucial indications with regards to understand the importance of victims’ role and to lead the Community Justice Conferencing program to succeed in terms of offender rehabilitation.

Author

• Yongseol Jang, California State University, Fresno