Evaluating Restorative Justice Interventions in Schools

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract/Description

Across the country, school districts, their stakeholders, and policymakers have become increasingly concerned about suspensions, their detrimental effects including reductions in graduation, and their disproportionate use with ethnic/racial minority students. Restorative practices and restorative justice (RJ) have gained considerable interest as a strategy to reduce suspension rates. By proactively improving relationships among students and staff and by building a sense of community in classrooms and schools, students may be less inclined to misbehave. And by addressing severe misbehavior through a restorative approach, students might realize the impacts of their actions and be less likely to offend again.
This panel reviews evidence from prior research on the effects of RJ interventions, and then presents results from two recently completed RJ studies that were funded through NIJ’s Comprehensive School Safety Initiative. The first paper reviews prior evidence of RJ interventions effects on student misbehavior, discipline, disparities, school climate and safety, absenteeism, and academic outcomes. The second paper presents impact findings from a whole school restorative practices intervention, using school-level random assignment, in Pittsburgh. The third paper presents individual-level findings of the impact of students participation in restorative conferences, using a quasi-experimental propensity score matching design.

Sub Unit

• Area VI. The Criminal Justice System / 48. The Juvenile Justice System

Division of Special Interest

• Division Session of Interest / Division of Experimental Criminology

Individual Presentations

• Restorative Justice in Schools: Reviewing the Evidence - Sean Sean Darling-Hammond, WestEd; Trevor Fronius, WestEd; Anthony Petrosino, WestEd; Hannah Persson, WestEd; Sarah Guckenburg, WestEd

• Implementing Whole School Restorative Practices in Pittsburgh Public Schools: Impact Findings on Climate, Discipline, Disparities, and Achievement - Catherine Augustine, RAND Corporation; John Engberg, RAND Corporation

• Impact of Participation in Restorative Conferences on Discipline, Academics, and Juvenile Justice Involvement: Results from Rhode Island Schools - Akiva Liberman, Urban Institute; Mike Katz, Urban Institute

Chair

• Nadine Frederique, National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, DOJ

Discussant

• David Karp, Skidmore College