Dissertation
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE DIALOGUES IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SETTING: A GROUNDED APPROACH TO BUILDING AN EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2022
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000004394
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/124821
Abstract
Restorative justice prioritizes the needs of people with the goals of fostering healing through reconciliation, mutual participation, and agreement. The Restorative Justice Facilitated Dialogue (RJFD) pilot in Thurston County, Washington is a voluntary, facilitated face-to-face conversation for victims and offenders focused on healing harms caused by crime and other behaviors. Dialogues focus on three key questions: what happened; who was impacted and how; and what should be done to repair the harm caused. Most programs, like RJFD, are “homegrown,” and practitioners must develop a manual of operations (Youth Justice, 2018). Scholars have called for research priorities that focus on advancing the theoretical framework to explain how restorative dialogues work, and to support practitioner “manuals” or “field guides” in different settings (Sherman et al., 2015b, p. 532).
This study explores the theoretical and practical underpinnings of RJFD with the goals to (a) develop key program tools to describe the theoretical and operational mechanisms of how RJFD works, (b) assess whether the RJFD model aligns with best practices identified in the research literature, and (c) provide stakeholders with process improvement feedback. Using qualitative methods, this grassroots approach helped to build a theoretical model and logic model of operations for RJFD through interviews with stakeholders, an analysis of program documents, and field observations. RJFD stakeholders identified successes, lessons learned, and areas for program improvements. Stakeholders have a cohesive understanding of the values, assumptions, and principles of restorative justice dialogues, and these operations align with best practices identified in the theoretical and empirical research literature on how restorative justice dialogues work. RJFD operated as intended in terms of its assumptions, principles, values, and dialogue process and format. However, stakeholders have different perspectives about the need/gap or people intended for the program. It was also discovered that factors outside the control of stakeholders affected referrals to RJFD. The two key program tools developed for this study are deliverables that serve as a critical foundational required of any evidence-based program (Drake & Knoth-Peterson, 2022; Miller & Miller, 2015). Findings show that RJFD is a communication mechanism with the potential for micro- and macro-level impacts on outcomes.
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Details
- Title
- RESTORATIVE JUSTICE DIALOGUES IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SETTING
- Creators
- Elizabeth Kathleen Drake
- Contributors
- Faith E Lutze (Advisor)Craig Hemmens (Committee Member)Mary Stohr (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Criminal Justice and Criminology, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 259
- Identifiers
- OCLC#: 1365112305; 99900883136801842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation