Impact Evaluation of the Youth Restorative Intervention
The Surrey Youth Restorative Intervention (YRI) is a diversion programme for young offenders who admit their offending. Based on the principles of restorative justice the intervention seeks to repair wrong doing, reduce re-offending and increase victim satisfaction with the criminal justice system.
As the YRI was a departure from conventional responses to dealing with young offenders, Surrey County Council commissioned GtD to provide objective evidence of the effectiveness of the restorative approach and whether it was cost-effective.
Our impact evaluation found that the implementation of the intervention was sound and it was well resourced. In particular, our analyses of individual offending records provided definitive evidence that the intervention had reduced reoffending. Moreover, we also showed that the intervention was cost-effective and that it also improved victim satisfaction with the criminal justice system.
In addition to providing evidence that the YRI was an effective response to youth offending, our report also showed where the initiative could become more efficient, and prompted further work to establish how outcomes could be improved.
A follow up study was completed in 2017. The study found again that the YRI reduced reoffending. It also found that there were some young people that benefited more than others. From this insight SCC could identified why this group benefited less and therefore design service improvements for these young people to improve their outcomes.
