Program Profile: Restorative Justice Conferencing in Rhode Island Schools

This is a school program to address student misbehavior and repair harm. The program is rated Ineffective. Middle schoolers in the treatment group had a statistically significant higher likelihood of disciplinary referrals and out-of-school suspensions, compared with comparison group students, which was the opposite of what was intended. There were no statistically significant differences in disciplinary referrals or suspensions between high schoolers in the treatment and the comparison groups.

A Negative Effects rating implies that implementing the program may result in a negative outcome(s).

A Negative Effects rating implies that implementing the program may result in a negative outcome(s).

Program Goals

Restorative justice practices are among the alternatives to exclusionary discipline that can be used in schools to address student misbehavior (Liberman and Katz 2021). Restorative justice centers on repairing harm to victims, rather than retribution for those who offended, with a focus on inclusion, accountability, and the community. It provides an alternative that may improve school safety without creating a punitive culture. Since 2008, the Central Falls School District in Rhode Island has worked with the Youth Restoration Project to implement restorative practices in its middle and high schools, building partnerships among police, schools, social services, families, and communities through training and dialogue.

One restorative justice practice, implemented in the Central Falls School District, is that of restorative justice conferences, which are highly structured, facilitated meetings that provide an opportunity for affected parties (e.g., the student who offended, the victim, and a teacher) and their allies (e.g., parents, peers) to arrive at the best possible solution for all following a negative event or behavior. The conferences are designed to help parties in conflict pursue a common vision for what an end goal would look like. All voices are heard, and participants are empowered (Liberman and Katz 2017). The goal is to repair the harm and relationships and provide the youth who committed the offense with the chance to make restitution and be reintegrated into the school community with a clean slate.

Program Components/Target Population

At the whole-school level, the Youth Restoration Project works with participating schools in the Central Falls School District on changing their approach to responding to misbehavior and more generally to changing the interaction style of teachers and other staff to be restorative rather than punitive. One part of this whole-school effort is implementing restorative justice conferences, which are designed to respond to serious misbehavior, repair harm, and hold students accountable.

The restorative justice conferences are family group conferences that involve students referred for truancy, chronic disruption, and other misbehavior that may involve direct victims (e.g., assault and theft) or without direct victims (e.g., fire alarm pulls and drug use). While district schools take different approaches to their referral processes, all schools have a student issues-and-response team to examine student data and discuss student behavior and overall school climate. At some schools, this team refers cases to conferences; in other schools, the final decision is made by the principal. Once students are referred for conferencing to restorative justice staff (which includes Youth Restoration Project facilitators and school behavior management staff who bridge communication among teachers, administrators, and conference facilitators), their parents are contacted; however, conferences can only be held if parents give consent and if students also agree to participate. Parent participation is encouraged, but conferences can proceed even if parents or guardians are unable or unwilling to participate. For instances involving direct victims, the victims are also contacted for participation, but the conferences can proceed without their participation. Victims’ parents are encouraged to participate as well.

The basic conference protocol begins with an introduction of people and their roles, followed by the facilitator reviewing conference guidelines (we ask questions; we take turns speaking; we use “I” statements, and we stick to the facts). Facilitators tell the participants that strong feelings are fine, normal, and even encouraged, but that aggression is not. The facilitators review the four basic questions discussed during a conference: 1) What happened? 2) Who was affected? 3) What does the community need? and 4) What will the student and community learn [from this experience]? Participants receive laminated copies of the overview of the conference process, of the guidelines, and of the four basic questions. Each question is discussed in a round robin format; any victim participants are given the option of speaking first, followed by the students who offended, and then by the other participants. Ultimately, the conferences work to create a restorative agreement (otherwise referred to as an "action plan") to address the question: How do we make it right? Restorative agreements are intended to contain four elements: 1) behavior change, 2) amends and restitution, 3) a learning experience, and 4) community support.

Key Personnel

Restorative justice conferencing is provided by conference facilitators and implementation managers at the Youth Restoration Project (Liberman and Katz 2017) who work in collaboration with teachers, behavior management staff, administrative staff, and principals at each school. Conference facilitators conduct considerable pre-conference work that includes separate meetings (or phone conversations) with all participants to understand their perspectives and ensure they understand what a restorative justice conference entails and the guidelines for conferences. Facilitators also attempt to work with families to understand whether there were family needs or issues that contributed to the students’ misbehavior. If conference facilitators identify clinical or therapeutic needs, they make referrals to appropriate services.

Program Theory

The general philosophy of restorative justice is that responses to misbehavior should seek to repair the harm from misbehavior; thus, when that misbehavior includes direct victims, repairing the harm generally requires involving the victims (Bazemore and Umbreit 1995; Braithwaite 1989). This approach is based on “reintegrative shaming” (Braithwaite 1989) and focuses on repairing relationships and social and community bonds (Karp and Breslin 2001). A variety of restorative justice models are used in the school context, including mediation between the victim and person committing the offense, peer courts, and restorative justice conferences.

Study

Liberman and Katz (2021) used a quasi-experimental design with propensity-score matching to assess the impact of restorative justice conferences on middle and high school students’ school misbehavior after one year. The project took place in the Central Falls School District in a suburb of Providence, Rhode Island. Participants were middle school and high school students who participated in a conference during three school years (2015–2016, 2016–2017, and 2017–2018) in four participating schools: a middle and high school in Central Falls (Calcutt Middle School and Central Falls High School) and a middle and high school in Providence (Bishop Middle School and Hope High School). The analytic sample included 271 students with full school data and who participated in restorative justice conferences prior to their senior year so that disciplinary responses in the following year could be examined.

Propensity-score matching was used to identify a comparison group of students from the same schools who did not participate in the restorative justice conferences, but whose misbehavior might have led to participation. Conferenced students (the treatment group) were matched with comparison students who had a referral, suspension, or more than five unexcused absences during a potential conference year; therefore, they could have been included but were not (the study did not specify why students in the comparison group did not participate in the conferences). Matching variables were either based on childhood data or data from the two years preceding the conference year, and included demographics (sex, race, ethnicity), English language-learner, Individualized Education Plan, and free or reduced-price lunch. Variables concerning responses to misbehavior were also included both for the year immediately preceding the conference, and for the year before that: any out-of-school suspension, chronic absenteeism (absent 10 percent of school days), any referrals for six types of infractions (violent, property, substance use, interpersonal, attendance, and disaffection), and the variety (a count) among those types of infractions. In-school suspension was also included as a variable for middle school students. Additional matching variables were linked from the Rhode Island Department of Health and included risk variables for the child at birth based on parental demographics, child risk, and maternal risk, as well as mothers’ age (grouped as 18 or under, 19–24, and 25 or over), marital status, education level, and number of prior births. Matching was done within grades, across the three years of conferencing. A separate record was created for each eligible non-conferenced student in each program year, so that up to three records were created for a comparison student, and these were used in within-grade matching. Propensity scores were then estimated separately for middle and high school students, using stepwise logistic regression and nearest neighbor matching with replacement within calipers. The matched students were then combined across grades for analysis. A total of 251 conferenced students were successfully matched, and 20 were unmatched. The demographic characteristics of the students were not provided.

There were statistically significant differences between the treatment group and the comparison group at baseline. For high school students, there were statistically significant differences in the probability of an attendance infraction in the year preceding the conference, and on the probability of a property infraction in the second year preceding the conference. For middle school students, there was a statistically significant difference between groups on mother’s marital status at the time of the child’s birth. These variables were included as covariates in regression models.

The impact of conference participation was examined on out-of-school suspension and disciplinary referral for a variety of infractions over the next year (the next two semesters), following participation in the restorative justice conference. For students conferenced in the fall, the follow-up year began with the spring semester, and for students conferenced in the spring semester, follow-up began in the following fall semester. Outcome data were obtained from the Rhode Island Department of Education during spring 2019. Fall 2018 semester infraction and out-of-school suspension data were obtained directly from the participating school districts. To assess the impact of conference participation on the outcomes, regression models were run on the matched samples (ordinary least squares used on the disciplinary referrals for the variety of infractions outcome, and logit models used on the out-of-school suspension outcome) and included the following covariates: each outcome’s pre-measure for the year before conference participation, the propensity scores, high school or middle school at the time of the conference, whether the conference took place in the fall or spring semesters, binary variables interacting the school district and school year, and variables that remained unbalanced after the propensity score match. No subgroup analysis was conducted.

The Youth Restoration Project provided a nine-hour training in restorative practices in each participating school in the Central Falls (Rhode Island) School District. This training served as the foundation for conference facilitators and school staff involved in the conference process, including teachers and behavior management staff. In addition to the introductory training, conference facilitators learned how to facilitate restorative justice conferences through one-on-one coaching and shadowing more experienced facilitators until they were deemed able to lead a conference (Liberman and Katz 2017; Liberman and Katz 2021).

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

Bazemore, Gordon, and Mark S. Umbreit. 1995. “Rethinking the Sanctioning Function in Juvenile Court: Retributive or Restorative Responses to Youth Crime.” Crime & Delinquency 42:296–316.

Braithwaite, John. 1989. Crime, Shame, and Reintegration. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

Karp, David R., and Beau Breslin. 2001. “Restorative Justice in School Communities.” Youth and Society 33:249–72.

Liberman, Akiva, and Michael Katz. 2017. Implementing Restorative Justice in Rhode Island Schools: First-Year Implementation of Case Conferencing. Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute.

Following are CrimeSolutions-rated programs that are related to this practice:

Restorative Justice Programs for Juveniles

Restorative justice programs aim to repair the harm to the victim, decrease recidivism, and improve perceptions of fairness and satisfaction with the process. The practice is rated Promising for reducing juveniles’ recidivism rates, increasing victims’ perceptions of fairness, and increasing juveniles’ completion of restitution and reparation. It is rated Ineffective for juveniles’ recognition of wrongdoing or remorse, and satisfaction of the victim or young person committing the offense.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

	Crime & Delinquency - Multiple crime/offense types
	Attitudes & Beliefs - Victims perceptions of fairness
	Justice Systems or Processes - Compliance with restitution/fines/payments
	Justice Systems or Processes - Reparations by offending individual
	Attitudes & Beliefs - Offender satisfaction
	Attitudes & Beliefs - Victim satisfaction
	Attitudes & Beliefs - Remorse
	Attitudes & Beliefs - Recognition of wrongdoing

Schoolwide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports

This practice utilizes a multi-tiered system of supports designed to make schools more effective in establishing a school culture and building a behavioral supports system to improve students’ behavioral, social, emotional, and academic outcomes. It involves three tiers of support, including both prevention and intervention efforts. The practice is rated Promising for reducing students’ problem behaviors.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

Juvenile Problem & At-Risk Behaviors - Problem behavior

Why might a practice's outcome ratings differ from the ratings of specific programs encompassed by that practice?