No specific assessment has been made. But research on the Crime Reduction Programme Restorative Justice pilots found, among other things, that victims and offenders who had taken part in the restorative justice conferences were more satisfied than control group participants with how the criminal justice system generally handled their case.
Restorative justice, including reparative measures, is an important way of ensuring victims of crime and society in general has increased confidence in our criminal justice system. Many disposals provide for the delivery of this; for example, through financial compensation and unpaid work in the community. Conditional cautions are a relatively new way of doing this—5,300 have been issued since April 2005. About four in five include some form of reparation from compensation and apologies to repairing criminal damage. The compliance rate is about 6 per cent. It is up to the courts and prosecutors, as appropriate, to determine the most suitable disposal in each particular case.