Samenvatting

The authors summarize the empirical findings with regard to restorative justice and crime prevention as presented in the report of the European project on the matter at hand. With regard to the offender, they studied empirical research on the reduction of recidivism. Data refer to characteristics of the offender, the view of the offender with regard to the restorative process, characteristics of the communication processes and the type of offence as influencing factors. Results in general seem to be quite positive, although there are some cases when recidivism is worse in comparison to the traditional justice process. Crawford indicates how preventative effects for the victims can be taken into account – the researchers refer to the different effects depending on the type of crime and characteristics of the victim; satisfaction, re-victimisation and post-traumatic symptoms; and the prevention of revenge. With regard to the societal preventative effects, research on restorative justice seems to be restricted to the theoretical level: empirical research in this regard is lacking.