Variation research on restorative justice conferencing and desistance: an extension of Hayes and Daly (2003)

Alongside comparative research that evaluates the crime prevention effect of restorative justice conferencing (RJC), some scholars have engaged in variation research that examined what elements of RJC are linked with the lack of reoffending. Drawing on the South Australian Juvenile Justice dataset, we aim to advance variation research by shifting the research focus from reoffending to desistance. The findings suggested that reaching a genuine consensus in the conference process was associated with the reduced frequency of post-conference offending during both the 1-year and 5-year follow-up periods, but it did not affect the seriousness of post-conference offending. Our research highlights the importance of deliberative democracy in the restorative dialogue and emphasizes the utilization of various measures to identify desistance through RJC.