Implementing Restorative Justice in Rhode Island Schools, 2015-2018

Since 2008, the Youth Restoration Project (YRP) and the Central Falls School District (CFSD) in Rhode Island have collaborated to implement a multi-level restorative justice intervention focused on building partnerships among police, schools, social services, families, and communities through training and dialogue. Restorative justice (RJ) encompasses a broad framework of practices aimed at repairing harm and achieving accountability rather than imposing punishment. In criminal justice contexts, RJ models include victim-offender mediation, peer courts, and RJ conferences. The current project undertaken by the Urban Institute focused on evaluating the impact of restorative justice conferences conducted by the YRP in partnership with Family Services of Rhode Island. A restorative justice conference (RJC) is a highly structured, facilitated meeting that allows affected parties (e.g., offending student, victim, teacher) and their allies (e.g., parents/guardians, peers) to arrive at the best possible solution for all parties following a negative event or behavior. Three different types of student misbehavior were considered for referral to restorative conferencing as an alternative to more formal processes: (1) arrestable offenses (with or without victims), (2) chronic unexcused absenteeism (truancy), or (3) chronic disruptive behavior. The Urban Institute began implementing a conference observation pilot in a CFSD middle school and high school in fall 2014; the 2015-2016 school year was the first full year of implementation. Starting in 2016-2017, a middle school and high school in Providence also participated; conference observations were also conducted in a charter high school in the area. At these 5 schools between 2015-2016 and 2017-2018, 786 cases were referred for RJ conferencing; conferences were held in about half of these cases (379). A total of 105 conferences were observed by trained field staff. Post-conference interviews were conducted in the months following RJCs and allowed adult conference participants to share feedback regarding their experience and satisfaction with the conference process. Additionally, an outcome evaluation was conducted using student administrative data to assess the impact of conferences on student behavior. Finally, teacher surveys and focus groups were conducted in 4 participating schools to assess teacher perceptions of overall school climate as well as attitudes toward restorative practices and RJCs. This collection includes data from restorative justice conference observation (DS1) and teacher surveys (DS2). Administrative data from the outcome evaluation and qualitative data from post-conference interviews and teacher focus groups were not deposited and are not included in the ICPSR release.