Erin DuMond

Date of Award

2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Gorup, Michael

Area of Concentration

Political Science

Abstract

In this thesis I ran a statistical analysis of various state and local programs that used restorative justice principles—typically victim-offender mediation and its variations—as a diversion tactic for juvenile offenders. I wanted to see if those restorative principles, which focus on the victim and the offender discussing the offense and coming to an agreement about how to handle the offense, had a significant effect on the recidivism rate (recidivism being defined as the tendency of a criminal to re-offend and measured by a new contact with the criminal justice system within a defined period of time, usually one to three years) of the juveniles who participated in those programs as compared to those who did not. I found that restorative justice-based programs had a significant effects on recidivism rates, reducing them by an average of 25.8%. This is consistent with the theory in the field and practical understanding from those who work to promote restorative justice. My hope for my thesis is that this verification of the theory will encourage states to consider implementing these principles into their own justice system and work to help juveniles in contact with the criminal justice system rather than default to punishment.

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