The use of restorative justice can save money by diverting people away from prosecution and by reducing reoffending

Analysis by the Restorative Justice Council and Victim Support demonstrated that providing restorative justice in 70,000 cases involving adult offenders would deliver £185 million in cashable cost savings to the criminal justice system over two years, through reductions in reoffending alone. The report is available here.

An independent expert analysis of the economic benefits of restorative justice, carried out by Matrix, found that diverting young offenders from community orders to a pre-court restorative justice conferencing scheme would produce a life time saving to society of almost £275 million (£7,050 per offender). The cost of implementing the scheme would be paid back in the first year and during the course of two parliaments society would benefit by over £1 billion. The report is available here.

A business case for the use of restorative justice in policing has been developed by Garry Shewan, National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on restorative justice. It concludes that restorative justice can help to deliver efficiency savings. It is available here.

This was first published on the Restorative Justice Council website.