Two studies investigated people’s perceptions of the acceptability of restorative justice procedures for handling crimes that differ in severity. Results from Study 1 supported our hypothesis that as crimes increase in seriousness, people require a restorative justice procedure that also has a possible retributive component (i.e. a prison sentence). Study 1 also demonstrated that individuals assigned lower prison sentences for offenders who successfully completed a restorative procedure as compared to a traditional court procedure. The results from Study 2 replicated those from Study 1, as well as demonstrating that offenders who failed to successfully complete the restorative procedure received no reduction in prison sentence. These findings suggest that in order for citizens to view a restorative justice procedure as an acceptable alternative to the traditional court system for serious crimes, the procedure must allow for the option of some retributive measures.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Eighteen of these participants were run in a control group in order to test our hypothesis about the lowering of prison sentences in the mixed procedure. The control group participants were not given the option to choose one of the alternative procedures; they could only use the traditional court system. These participants were taken from the same subject pool as the participants who were asked to decide among the pure restorative procedure, the mixed procedure, and court.
We asked our respondents which of three judicial procedures they would choose for each case. We did so because this would be the task facing the decision maker who allocates real cases to differing procedures. As an anonymous reviewer pointed out, if we had asked participants to rate the appropriateness or suitableness of sending each case to each of the three procedural options instead, more useful information could be extracted. For instance, for an option that was not chosen, the researcher could tell whether this option was merely less preferred to the selected one, or regarded as a completely unsuitable option.
Some of the experimental materials were adapted from Bilz (2002).
We did not have enough participants sending cases to court among the original 39 participants to answer this question, which made running a control group necessary. In addition, the inclusion of a separate control group allowed us to overcome a potential confound. Participants who chose to send offenders to court rather than to the mixed procedure may have done so because they saw the crime as being more serious. Thus, any differences in punishment between participants choosing to send offenders to court instead of the mixed procedure could be attributed to differential perceptions of crime severity between the groups, rather than to the fact that participants believed in the need for less punishment after a restorative conference. Including a control group that required participants to send the offenders to court eliminated this potential confound.
For this part of the analysis, we did not include the ratings of the control participants, as they were not given the option to choose where to send the offenders. The seriousness ratings of the control participants did not differ from the participants who did get to choose (all p’s > 0.1), except for the oil drum theft (control: M = 3.78, SD = 1.22), F (1, 55) = 4.53, p < 0.04.
A repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) demonstrated that the low, mid, and high-seriousness crimes differed significantly from each other, F(2, 64) = 149.31, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.82. The low-seriousness crimes differed from the mid-seriousness crimes, and the mid-seriousness crimes differed from the high-seriousness crimes, p’s < 0.0001.
For the complete analyses of the seriousness groupings and send decision proportion data for this study and the next, please contact the corresponding author.
We did not include the control group participants in these analyses, as they did not have a choice of where to send the cases.
The degrees of freedom for this correlation is the total number of observations from the 39 participants for each of the 9 cases.
One issue here is that participants were able to select into the mixed procedure, but in the control group, participants were assigned to the court process. However, the participants who selected the mixed procedure also had the option of selecting the pure restorative procedure. Therefore, if there were any differences between these participants, it is likely that those who selected the mixed procedure would be slightly more punitive than those in the control group. This would work against our predictions, which is why we are not concerned about the difference in selecting between these two groups.
As before, these three groups (low, mid, and high) differed from each other F(2, 82) = 238.34, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.85. The low-seriousness crimes differed from the mid-seriousness crimes, and the mid-seriousness crimes differed from the high-seriousness crimes, p’s < 0.0001.
For the analyses of participants’ sentencing and rehabilitation judgments, it is important to note that comparisons including the pure restorative and the traditional court system procedures are not experimentally manipulated (as are the unsuccessful versus unsuccessful conferences within the mixed restorative and retributive procedure). Thus, the results including those two conditions must be interpreted cautiously, as factors that produced the respondents’ initial referral decisions may have “silently” affected people’s final sentencing and rehabilitation judgments.
Of course, punishment reactions are not only determined by the motives of retribution and restoration. Other motives, such as incapacitation of dangerous offenders, are also likely to be involved in punishment decisions.
REFERENCES
Barton C. K. B., (1999). Getting Even: Revenge as a Form of Justice Open Court Publishing Company Peru, IL
Bazemore G., Stinchcomb J., (2004). A civic engagement model of re entry: Involving community through service and restorative justice Fed. Probat. 68: 14–24
Bilz, K. (2002). Restorative justice and Victim Offender Meditation (VOM): A new area for social psychological inquiry. Unpublished master’s thesis, Princeton University
Bowers W. J., (1993). Capital punishment and contemporary values: People’s misgivings and the court’s misperceptions Law Soc. Rev. 27: 157–175
Braithwaite J., (1998). Restorative justice In Tonry M. (ed.), The Handbook of Crime and Punishment Oxford University Press Oxford, UK pp. 113–147
Braithwaite J., (1999). Restorative justice: Assessing optimistic and pessimistic accounts In Tonry M., (ed.), Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, Vol. 25 University of Chicago Press Chicago pp. 1–127
Braithwaite J., (2002). Restorative Justice and Responsive Regulation Oxford University Press Oxford, UK
Braithwaite J., Strang H., (2001). Restorative Justice and Civil Society Cambridge University Press Cambridge, UK
Carlsmith, K. M. (2006). The roles of retribution and utility in determining punishment. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol., 42, 437–451
Carlsmith K. M., Darley J. M., Robinson P. H., (2002). Why do we punish? Deterrence and just deserts as motives for punishment J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 83: 284–299
Daly K., (2002). Restorative justice: The real story Punishment Soc. 4: 55–79
Darley J. M., Carlsmith K. M., Robinson P. H., (2000). Incapacitation and just deserts as motives for punishment Law Human Behav. 24: 659–683
Doble J., Greene J., (2000). Attitudes Towards Crime and Punishment in Vermont: Public Opinion about an Experiment with Restorative Justice John Doble Research Associates Englewood Cliffs, NJ
Duff R. A., (2003). Restorative punishment and punitive restoration In Johnstone G. (ed.), A Restorative Justice Reader: Texts, Sources, and Context, Portland, OR Willan Publishing Portland, OR pp. 382–397
Felson R. B., Ribner S. A., (1981). An attributional approach to accounts and sanctions for criminal violence Soc. Psychol. Quart. 44: 137–142
Gold G. J., Weiner B., (2000). Remorse, confession, group identity, and expectancies about repeating a transgression Basic Appl. Soc. Psych. 22: 291–300
Glaze, L. E. and Palla, S. (2004). Probation and parole in the United States, 2003. Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin, Office of Justice Programs. Available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/ppus03.pdf
Hogan R., Emler N. P., (1981). Retributive justice In Lerner M. J., Lerner S. C. (eds.), The Justice Motive in Social Behavior Plenum Press New York pp. 125–143
Klienke C. L., Wallis R., Stadler K., (1992). Evaluation of a rapist as a function of expressed intent and remorse J. Soc. Psychol. 132: 525–537
Lind E.A, Tyler T. R., (1988). The Social Psychology of Procedural Justice Plenum Press New York
Marshall T. F., (2003). Restorative justice: An overview In Johnstone G. (ed.), A Restorative Justice Reader: Texts, Sources, and Context Willan Publishing Portland, OR pp. 28–45
McGarrell E. F., Sandys M., (1996). The misperception of public opinion toward capital punishment: Examining the spuriousness explanation of death penalty support Am. Behav. Sci. 39: 500–513
Miller D. T., Vidmar N., (1981). The social psychology of punishment reactions In Lerner M., Lerner S., (eds.), The Justice Motive in Social Behavior Academic Press New York pp. 145–172
Nadler J., (2005). Flouting the law Tex. Law Rev. 83: 1399–1441
Pager D., (2003). The mark of a criminal record Am. J. Sociol. 108: 937–975
Roberts, J. V. (2005). Mandatory sentences of imprisonment in common law jurisdictions: Some representative models. Research and Statistics Division, Department of Justice Canada. Available at http://canada.justice.gc.ca/en/ps/rs/rep/2005/rr05-10/index.html
Roberts J. V., Stalans L. J., (2004). Restorative sentencing: Exploring the views of the public Soc. Justice Res. 17: 315–334
Robinson D. T., Smith-Lovin L., Tsoudis O., (1994). Heinous crime or unfortunate accident? The effects of remorse on responses to mock criminal confessions Soc. Forces 73: 175–190
Robinson P. H., (2003). The virtues of restorative processes, the vices of restorative justice Utah Law Rev. 1: 375–388
Robinson P. H., Darley J. M., (1995). Justice, Liability, and Blame: Community Views and the Criminal Law Westview Press Boulder, CO
Rosenmerkel S. P., (2001). Wrongfulness and harmfulness as components of seriousness of white-collar offenses J. Contemp. Crim. Justice 17: 308–327
Rumsey M. G., (1976). Effects of defendant background and remorse on sentencing judgments J. Appl. Soc. Psychol. 6: 64–68
Sherman L. W., (2003). Reason for emotion: Reinventing justice with theories, innovations, and research Criminology 41: 1–37
Shultz T. R., Wright K., Schleifer M., (1986). Assignment of moral responsibility and punishment Child Dev. 57: 177–184
Strang H., (2002). Repair or Revenge: Victims and Restorative Justice Oxford University Press Oxford, UK
Thomas C. W., Petersen D. M., Cage R. J., (1981). A comparative organizational analysis of prisonization Crim. Justice Rev. 6: 36–43
Tyler T. R., (1990). Why People Obey the Law Yale University Press New Haven, CT
Tyler T. R., Boeckmann R. J., (1997). Three strikes and you are out, but why?: The psychology of public support for punishing rule breakers Law Soc. Rev. 31: 237–265
Tyler T. R., Boeckmann R. J., Smith H. J., Huo Y. J., (1997). Social Justice in a Diverse Society Westview Press Boulder, CO
Vidmar N., Miller D. T., (1980). Social psychological processes underlying attitudes toward legal punishment Law Soc. Rev. 14: 401–438
Warr M., (1989). What is the perceived seriousness of crimes? Criminology 27: 795–821
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Natasha Fedetova for her assistance with data collection, and Adam Alter, Joel Cooper, Geoffrey Goodwin, Deborah Prentice, Joseph Simmons, and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. John Darley acknowledges with gratitude the support and companionship provided by the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences during the 2005–2006 academic year, which greatly assisted in the preparation of this manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Appendices
Appendix A: Instructions
This study is about possible alternatives to the currently standard criminal court processes. People who think about our criminal justice process are constantly thinking of ways to improve the current system, so that it will function better and make all those involved in the process feel that justice has been achieved. A major problem with the current system is its reliance on prisons, which are overcrowded and expensive to run. One set of innovations, known broadly as restorative justice, seeks to bring the interests of the victim into the forefront, while still imposing treatments on the offender. Crime victims often feel much better after going through such a process, and this process also provides an opportunity for the offender to understand vividly the consequences that his or her crime had on the victim and the community at large.
Today you will be considering two alternative processes. One of these processes is known as Victim Offender Mediation (VOM) and the other is known as Restorative Justice Mediation (RJM). The following is a description of these two processes. We will begin with the VOM procedure.
After an offender has been arrested for a crime and admitted his guilt, a judge will decide whether or not the case is appropriate for VOM. If the victim agrees to it, the offender will be given the option of attending a VOM instead of a traditional sentencing before a judge. The VOM is a face-to-face meeting between an offender and his victim, with a facilitator (a neutral third party who has prepared both sides for the meeting beforehand) present. Sometimes, there may be multiple victims, or even members of the community or friends/relatives of the parties present.
During this meeting, the victim is allowed to ask the offender any question he or she wishes. During the meeting, the victim and offender may work out an agreement outlining what the offender must do to atone for his wrongs and make the victim whole again. The terms of the agreement may include an apology, monetary compensation, some services that the offender does for the victim, community service, and the like.
During the conference, the offender may come to understand just what anguish the offenses caused for the victim, may feel remorse, and may express that remorse to the victim. Victims have rated these experiences very positively and have reported that these exchanges go a long way toward helping them recover. Victims have reported positive experiences with the VOM procedure for all types of crimes, even ones that may initially seem surprising.
Although there are varieties of possible outcomes of a VOM, imprisonment is not one of the possibilities. As an expert in restorative justice states, “Restorative justice is about healing (restoration) rather than hurting. Responding to the hurt of the crime with the hurt of punishment is rejected, along with its corresponding value of proportionality-punishment that is proportionate to the wrong that has been done.”
If an agreement is reached, it is put into a written contract, which both parties sign. Upon successful completion of the agreement, the process is concluded. The offender does not return to the courts. However, if the parties cannot come to an agreement, or if the offender fails to live up to the terms of the contract, then the offender is routed back into the regular criminal justice system for sentencing before a judge, who will know that the VOM was unsuccessful.
The RJM procedure is similar to that of the VOM, but there are a number of important distinctions that you must keep in mind. The following is a description of the RJM procedure.
As in the VOM procedure, after an offender has been arrested for a crime and admitted his guilt, a judge will decide whether or not the case is appropriate for RJM. If the victim agrees to it, the offender will be given the option of attending RJM. The RJM conference is very similar to the VOM conference. What differs is that in RJM (unlike VOM in which the case does not return to the courts) the judge retains the right to add any of the standard sentencing options after the RJM process, if he or she feels that they are warranted. In RJM, imprisonment remains as one of the options for the punishment of the offender.
Like VOM, victims have rated these experiences very positively and have reported that these exchanges go a long way toward helping them recover. Victims have reported positive experiences with the RJM procedure for all types of crimes, even ones that may initially seem surprising.
The agreement is put into a written contract, which both parties sign. Once the agreement is reached, the offender is then returned to the courts, where he or she will stand before a judge for possible prison sentencing. The judge considers this issue based on the knowledge that the RJM was successful. A successful completion of the conference does not mean that the offender avoids a court sentence; if the judge feels that justice has not been done unless such a sanction is added, he or she will add the sentence. A successful RJM process does not even necessitate a lowering of the sentence that the judge would have given with no RJM process. If the judge believes that the offender should receive the standard prison sentence for the crime (or even a longer sentence), then he or she is still free to assign such a sentence. In sum, the judge may choose to decrease (including not giving any jail time), increase or maintain the standard sentence as he or she believes is called for by the circumstances of the case.
If the parties cannot come to an agreement, or if the offender fails to live up to the terms of the contract, then the offender is routed back into the regular criminal justice system for sentencing before a judge, who will know that the RJM was unsuccessful.
Your task is to read nine scenarios; each of which describes a crime that occurred. While you are reading, we ask that you think about how the offender in each case should be treated. We are interested in your view; we are not looking for one answer in particular. You will be asked to act as the impartial judge for each crime, in which each offender has already admitted their guilt and each victim is willing to participate in the alternative procedures. It will be your first task to decide whether the crime goes through the traditional court process, VOM or RJM. In the traditional court process, the case will remain in the court and the judge alone will make the decision on the punishment for the offender. If you choose either VOM or RJM, then the case will first be routed through a conference. For cases that go through RJM, they will then return to courts for sentencing. When you are considering each case, you should choose the process that you feel will best achieve justice for that particular crime.
If you need to reread the descriptions of either VOM or RJM, you can return to them at any time throughout the study by clicking on the Instructions link.
You will also be asked some general questions about each case. Once you have worked through all of the cases, there will be additional questions for you to answer regarding the handling of the offenders. Again, there is not one correct answer; we want to know your view!
Appendix B: Cases
Vandalism: It was Halloween. Timothy and Rob, both eighteen years old and seniors in high school, dressed up in “ghost” costumes (sheets with holes cut in them for eyes) and headed out at 11:00 p.m. They strung toilet paper on the trees and bushes of several houses on Timothy’s girlfriend’s street, and shoe-polished several windows with the names of their school’s sports team. They went too far in their antics, however, when they scraped their school’s initials in the doors of Jerry’s car, causing Jerry several hundred dollars worth of paint damage. The next day, they were arrested for vandalism and destruction of private property, for the car damage.
Bike Theft: For several weeks, Tina had admired the very expensive bicycle of Julia, a person who lived several blocks away. Julia, who was an avid bike rider, had purchased the bike with money that she had been saving for over a year. Julia left the bike well-locked in the sidewalk bike stand outside her building. One morning, Tina walked over to the bike with a bolt cutter, to steal it. She found that it was pretty easy to ride off on this bike without being detected. Two days later, a police officer appeared at her door and arrested her, as Julia had spied the bike locked up outside Tina’s apartment.
Assault: Dwayne and his college buddies were at a local sports bar, watching the close, final game of the NBA playoffs. Another group of men was watching the same game, but rooting for the opposite team. Dwayne’s team missed a crucial three-pointer, and the other group cheered and began taunting Dwayne’s group. Dwayne asked them to “shut up,” at which point Matt, one of the men from the other group, told Dwayne to “come over here and make me.” They exchanged words and, at this point, Dwayne punched Matt in the face, breaking his nose. Dwayne was pulled away from the man before he could do any more damage. The police were called and Dwayne was arrested for assault.
Mugging: Andrew was walking down a busy street. He passed Jim, who was wearing a business suit and talking on his cell phone. Jim was in the middle of a heated exchange with another member of his firm over the case of one of their most important clients. Figuring that Jim was adequately distracted, Andrew slipped his hand into Jim’s back pocket, removed his wallet, and quickly disappeared into the crowd. Jim did not notice and Andrew escaped undetected. The police were able to apprehend Andrew later that day when he attempted to use the stolen credit cards.
Oil Drum Theft: Rich knew that construction companies will pay significant amounts of money for empty oil drums. He planned to steal several drums and selected one of the few independently owned gas stations in the area, where he knew no one would come around during his theft. Charles, the owner of the gas station, had recently suffered a huge cut in his profits when a competing franchised gas station has opened down the street. Money was tight, and he was concerned about the livelihood of his business. After the gas station was closed and everyone had gone home, Rich stole four oil drums. These oil drums were required to be returned to the manufacturer, and their theft resulted in Charles paying a significant amount of money in fines. Rich was later arrested for the theft while trying to sell the oil drums to a construction company.
Burglary: Lisa had been scouting out an upscale neighborhood and noticed that one family, the Beckers, appeared to leave for a vacation. The Beckers had just moved to the neighborhood over the summer, and they recently had finished redecorating their home. She broke into the house in the middle of the night, armed with a gun. Lisa managed to remove over $100,000 worth of property from the house before a neighbor noticed the burglary and called the police. Lisa was apprehended while driving away from the house in her van, where all of the stolen property was discovered.
Identity Theft: On a trip to the supermarket, Eliza’s wallet fell out of her bag while she was loading groceries into her car. Allison found the lost wallet after Eliza had driven away. The wallet contained many pieces of identification, including Eliza’s social security card. Allison used this information to obtain a driver’s license that had her photograph but Eliza’s information. Allison then used the driver’s license to take out mortgages on Eliza’s property, as well as opening a number of credit cards. The police finally caught Allison when she attempted to obtain a passport with Eliza’s information.
Attempted Murder: Jake had been sitting in traffic for two hours when the road started to clear up. He went to change lanes when he was cut off by another car. Sam, the driver that cut him off, then proceeded to drive well below the posted speed limit. This enraged Jake, who began flashing his high beams and honking his horn at Sam. Sam pulled over and Jake followed him to the side of the road. Both men got out of their cars and started arguing. The argument became more and more heated, and eventually Jake pulled out a knife and stabbed Sam in the chest. A passing motorist saw the stabbing and called the police. Jake was charged with attempted murder as Sam was seriously wounded but survived the attack.
Rape: Pam and Alex worked together at a local restaurant. He is a 28-year-old recently divorced cook; she is a waitress. Pam and Alex had dated for a few months two years before, but Pam had broken up with him because, as she told her friends, he had started to act “creepy.” Pam and Alex had slept together only for the last month they were dating. One day, Alex asked Pam if they could meet for drinks. She agreed. The next evening, after their date, Pam invited Alex to her apartment for coffee. They sat on the sofa and talked about old times. Suddenly, Alex reached out and began kissing her. She protested, but he pressed on. While she cried, he had sexual intercourse with her. After Alex left, Pam called the police, and Alex was arrested for rape.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gromet, D., Darley, J. Restoration and Retribution: How Including Retributive Components Affects the Acceptability of Restorative Justice Procedures. Soc Just Res 19, 395–432 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-006-0023-7
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-006-0023-7