This article provides an empirical synthesis of the existing literature on the effectiveness of restorative justice practices using meta-analytic techniques. The data were aggregated from studies that compared restorative justice programs to traditional nonrestorative approaches to criminal behavior. Victim and offender satisfaction, restitution compliance, and recidivism were selected as appropriate outcomes to adequately measure effectiveness. Although restorative programs were found to be significantly more effective, these positive findings are tempered by an important self-selection bias inherent in restorative justice research. A possible method of addressing this problem, as well as directions for future research, are provided.

Several meta-analyses have rendered strong support for the clinically relevant and psychologically informed principles of human service, risk, need, and general responsivity. However, each of these reviews has focused on specific program components and not on the characteristics of the staff or the specific techniques used to deliver the program. This meta-analytic review examines the role of core correctional practices in reducing recidivism and provides strong preliminary evidence regarding their effectiveness. Staff characteristics and training in core skills must be addressed to ensure the maximum therapeutic impact of correctional treatment programs.

Although the question of what works for general offender populations has received considerable attention within the rehabilitation literature, very little research has examined female offenders. The present investigation examined the principles of effective correctional treatment for female offenders through a meta-analytic review. The results indicated that the clinically relevant and psychologically informed principles of human service, risk, need, and responsivity identified in past meta-analytic reviews were associated with enhanced reductions in reoffending.

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Recent meta-analyses have documented considerable evidence demonstrating that correctional treatment programs are indeed effective for reducing recidivism in offender populations. The effect of client risk, an issue that has received extensive coverage in the extant literature from an assessment perspective, has been relatively ignored in these efforts. The present study marks the first exhaustive meta-analytic investigation of the risk principle and its effects on correctional treatment program effectiveness. The results reveal moderate support for its utility, although the magnitude of the findings are affected by the reporting practices used in the primary studies. Finally, the evidence supporting the risk principle is much stronger for female offenders and young offenders and within programs that are deemed appropriate according to the principles of need and responsivity. It should be noted that justice interventions that did not include elements of human service (e.g., increased sanctions) yielded negative results regardless of level of client risk.

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The general personality and social psychology underlying the Risk–Need–Responsivity (RNR) model of rehabilitation recognizes the importance of the personal, interpersonal, and relatively automatic sources of control over human behaviour as well as the power of cognitive-social-learning approaches to interpersonal influence in many social settings. In terms of both prediction and intervention, the RNR model has impressive but limited research support and is widely implemented, albeit with mixed support in routine correctional practice. This article suggests that RNR and the psychology that underlies it may also assist justice agencies and the courts through crime-prevention jurisprudence (CPJ). Always in the context of ethical, legal, just, and otherwise normative interventions, the first task is to help keep low-risk cases low risk and not interfere with existing strengths. The second task is to identify moderate and higher-risk cases and arrange crime-prevention activities consistent with ethical, legal, and just applications of the principles of RNR. Not the least of the benefits is the provision of an evidence-based set of crime-prevention practices as well as a language system that will facilitate inter-agency and intra-agency communication both within and outside of the justice, court, and correctional systems.

Purpose. Although issues surrounding programme integrity and implementation seem intuitively appealing as important contributors to effective correctional programming, they have been relatively ignored within the extant literature. The present meta‐analysis provided the first systematic examination of these issues by exploring their impact on recidivism reduction in correctional treatment programmes. Methods. A meta‐analysis was conducted on 273 tests of the effectiveness of correctional treatment programmes that were extracted from various human service programmes. Indicators of programme integrity reviewed included several management variables (i.e. selection, training and clinical supervision of service deliverers), evaluator involvement, presence of training manuals, monitoring of treatment delivery, and using a small sample of clients. Results. Overall, the meta‐analyses revealed that programme integrity provided an independent source of enhanced programme effectiveness, even when controls were introduced for other variables (e.g. involved evaluator and sample size). Conclusions. Consistent with previous research, the present study demonstrated that the positive contributions of programme integrity were limited to the enhancement of the effects of human service programmes consistent with the principles of risk, need, and general responsivity. However, the relatively poor reporting of programme integrity indicators within primary studies necessitates that evaluators and programme deliverers alike ensure that this information is included in future evaluations to provide an even greater understanding of the influences of integrity.