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AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON THE EFFECT OF RESTORATIVE JUSTICE ON
SCHOOL SUCCESS AND DISCIPLINARY INCIDENTS

By

Alexis Nicole Norris

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirement
for the degree of

MASTER OF SCIENCE
School of Criminal Justice

2008

ABSTRACT

AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON THE EFFECT OF RESTORATIVE JUSTICE ON
SCHOOL SUCCESS AND DISCIPLINARY INCIDENTS

By

Alexis Nicole Norris

This study examines whether a restorative justice (RJ) intervention compared to
the traditional school discipline process, improves the commitment and attachment to
school for middle school students, leading to an increase in academic achievement and a
decrease in antisocial behavior. Previous studies on restorative justice programs in
schools have found a decrease in suspension, expulsion, and behavioral referral rates for
students involved in a RJ intervention and high participant satisfaction rates for both
victims and offenders who went through restorative processes. Findings from this study
show that RJ had no effect on academic achievement, the change in GPA between the RJ
students and non RJ students was not significantly different. However, RJ was found to
be successful in reducing or stopping future offending for certain students. The
predictive attribute analyses (PAA) show that the best predictor for success in RJ was
having minor prior incidents. The PAAs also show that RJ was more effective at stopping
future offending for students in poverty with minor prior offenses than the traditional

discipline process.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my former officemate Nick Corsaro who gave me a lot of
good advice about school and made me laugh every time he came into the office.

I would like to thank Nancy Schertzing and Rev. Greg Lawton who helped me
through the data collection process and were always willing to lend a helping hand.

I would like to thank the three North Carolina boys, in no particular order: Chris
Bridges, Kevin Clarke, and Reggie Wilson who brought me into their group and treated
me like family. You made my time here more enjoyable than it probably would have
been otherwise and I will miss you all when you leave.

I would like to thank my committee: Dr. Edunmd McGarrell, Dr. Vince Hoffman,
and Dr. Carol Zimmermann, for helping me, guiding me, and supporting me through this
process. I would especially like to express my heartfelt appreciation and gratitude to
Carol Zimmermann who was pretty much my mentor and advisor during my time here at
MSU. I have learned so much from you about teaching and different aspects of academic
life, and I know my experiences as a masters student would not have been as fulfilling
without you there the push me out of my box. I hope you know that I am truly thankful
and gratefiil for everything that you have done for me.

Most of all I would like to thank the most important people in my life, my family;
the best brother ever Sean and my parents Janet and Derek Norris. My mom and dad
have always supported me in everything that I have done and I would not be where I am

without them. I hope you all know how much I love you.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables ...................................................................................... vi
List of Figures .................................................................................... vii
Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................... 1
Chapter 2: Theory and Research ................................................................ 4
Restorative Justice ......................................................................... 4
Reinterative Shaming Theory .......................................................... 7
Control Theory ........................................................................... 9
Theory Integration ...................................................................... 11
Restorative Justice in the Juvenile Justice System ................................. 12
Restorative Justice in Schools ......................................................... 14
Chapter 3: Theory Based Model and Hypotheses ........................................... 19
Research Question and Hypotheses ................................................... 21
Chapter 4: Research Methodology ............................................................. 22
Research Setting ......................................................................... 22
Sample and Study Period ............................................................... 23
Limitations ............................................................................... 24
Challenges Created by Small Numbers in the Treatment Group 25
Study Design ............................................................................. 26
Variables and Measures ................................................................. 27
Demographic Variables ....................................................... 27
Independent Variables ........................................................ 27
Outcome Measures ............................................................ 28
Two Samples and Two Analyses ..................................................... 29
Third Semester Sample .......................... ‘. ............................ 29
Fourth Semester Sample ...................................................... 30
Statistical Methods ............................................................ 30
Chapter 5: Analysis and Results ................................................................. 32
Analysis of the Third Semester of the Study Period ................................ 32
Descriptives .................................................................... 32
Bivariate Analysis: GPA ...................................................... 33
Bivariate Analysis: Offending ................................................ 35
Regression Analysis ........................................................... 36
Problems with Using Regression ............................................ 37
Predictive Attribute Analysis ................................................. 37
Discussion of Analysis One .................................................. 40

iv

Analysis of the Fourth Semester of the Study Period .............................. 41

Descriptive Statistics ......................................................... 41

Exploring Factors for PAA ................................................... 43

Predictive Attribute Analysis ................................................ 45

Chapter 6: Integrating Results and Conclusions ............................................. 47
Linking Back to Hypotheses .......................................................... 47
Hypothesis 1 ..................................................................... 47

Hypothesis 2 .................................................................... 48

Hypothesis 3 .................................................................... 48

Discussion ...................................................................... 49

Linking Back to Theory ............................................................... 51

What Can Be Learned? ................................................................. 53
Conclusion .............................................................................. 56
Appendix A ....................................................................................... 58
References ........................................................................................ 59

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Descriptives for Third Semester Students ......................................... 32
Table 2: Measures of Central Tendency and Dispersion ................................... 33
Table 3: Bivariate Analysis of Change in GPA and Incidents ............................ 34
Table 4: T Test Comparing RJ Groups with Change in GPA ............................. 34
Table 5: Bivariate Analysis of RJ and Change in GPA .................................... 35
Table 6: Bivariate Analysis of Future Offending ........................................... 36
Table 7: OLS Regression for Continued Offense ........................................... 37
Table 8: Descriptive Demographic Statistics for Fourth Semester Students ............ 42
Table 9: Descriptive Statistics for GPA ...................................................... 42
Table 10: Descriptive of Future Offending (8th Grade) .................................... 43
Table 11: Correlation Matrix for PAA ....................................................... 44

vi

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Theoretical Model ................................................................... 11
Figure 2: Theoretical Model Applied to Schools ........................................... 19
Figure 3: Predictive Attribute Analysis for Third Semester Students .................... 39
Figure 4: Predictive Attribute Analysis for Fourth Semester Students .................. 46

vii

Chapter 1: Introduction

In recent years restorative justice programs have become increasingly popular,
especially in the juvenile justice arena (Braithwaite, 1999; Hayes & Daly, 2003; Luke &
Lind, 2002; McCold & Wachtel, 1998; Maxwell & Morris, 1994,1996; McGarrell, 2001;
McGarrell & Hippie, 2007; Rodriguez, 2005; Sherman et al., 2000; Strang et al., 1999;
Umbreit, 1998). More and more, restorative justice practices are also being used in
schools as an alternative to the traditional disciplinary process (Ahmed et al., 2001;
Calhoun, 2000; Kane et al., 2006; Karp & Breslin, 2001; Minnesota Department of
Children, 2002; Morrison, 2002, 2003, 2005; Morrison, Blood, & Thorsbome, 2005;
O’Brien, 2005; Stinchcomb, Bazemore, & Riestenberg, 2006; Wachtel, 1997; Youth
Justice Board, 2005). Preliminary studies of the use of the restorative justice paradigm in
schools hold promise, but efforts to date are limited. The impact of the reintegrative
shaming or restorative justice processes, in place of traditional school discipline, have the
potential not only to improve short-term school performance and commitment, but also to
limit the affect of disruptive school behavior and school failure on future delinquency and
criminality. Studies have found that disruptive behavior in children can lead to future
criminality (Farrington, 1994; Haapasalo & Tremblay, 1994; Nagin & Tremblay, 1999;
Stattin & Magnusson, 1989; White et al., 1990). Many of the children with disruptive
behavior are also failing in school, and studies have shown that failure in school leads to
criminal behavior (Arum & Beattie, 1999; Sherman et al., 1997; Snyder & Sickmund,
2006)

This study explores the impact of the adoption of restorative justice in one local

middle school, in a small urban city in the Midwest. More than 60 percent of the students

in this school have been involved in some type of disciplinary incident and more than 26
percent in two or more incidents. These are especially troubling findings when one
considers the age group of these middle school students (11 to 16). According to some
studies, young offenders are at higher risk of becoming serious and repeat offenders. In
one study sixty percent of youth ages 10 to 12 that were referred to court returned and
had a high rate of continued offending (Snyder & Sickmund, 1995). In another study, the
risk of becoming a more serious offender was two to three times higher for child
delinquents ages 7 to 12, than children who started offending at a later age (Lober,
Farrington, & Petechuk, 2000). McGarrell (2001) says that “because such young
offenders have a high likelihood of reoffending, communities should develop and
implement effective early interventions for very young offenders” (p. 1).

Restorative justice is one early intervention program that can be implemented in
the schools to help reduce the number and severity of student incidents before students
escalate to criminal offending. The hope is that this program will help improve the
students’ attachment and commitment to the school which would be reflected in better
academic performance and lower levels of antisocial activity (school incidents). In
practice, restorative justice does this by getting all parties involved in the incident,
directly involved in the disciplinary process too. The offenders are encouraged to assume
responsibility for their actions so they can repair the harm they caused and build or
rebuild prosocial relationships. The victim and school or community involvement
strengthens the community values and helps to bring the offending students back into the

school community (Rodriguez, 2005; Van Ness, 1993).

Integrating concepts fi'om both Reintegrative Shaming Theory (Braithwaite,
1989) and Control Theory (Hirschi, 1969), restorative justice programs should serve to
strengthen bonds between the student and the prosocial institution of the school. The
process of reintegrative shaming, as opposed to shaming, should — according to
Braithwaite — enhance the chances that the student will earn redemption back into the
school community if exposed to RJ practices, but will be labeled by and ostracized from
the school community if traditional discipline is employed. According to Hirschi (1969),
traditional practices, especially suspension and expulsion, limit the physical ability of the
student to participate and bond with peOple and processes in the prosocial institution of
the school. Therefore, both theoretical perspectives support the hypothesis framed in this
exploratory study, that restorative justice practices should lead to greater school success

and lower levels of antisocial behavior.

Chapter 2: Theory and Research

Restorative Justice

In the criminal justice system the question of what is most effective, rehabilitation
or punishment, has been discussed and debated by theorists and practitioners for at least
half a century (Bazemore, 1998). The punishment, or retributive, model in criminal
justice emphasizes offender accountability and, does not emphasize support for the
offender (Morrison, 2003); it promotes punishment, denounces crime, demonstrates
disapproval of the criminal behavior, and provides consequences for the offender
(Bazemore, 1998). In contrast, the treatment or rehabilitative model is less focused on
offender accountability, and emphasizes the provision of programs to deal with
offenders’ deficits that are perceived to be linked to offending (Morrison, 2003).
Juvenile justice theorists, such as Gordon Bazemore believe that this model is not as
popular with the public because it is difficult to convince them that “it provides anything
other than benefits to offenders...” (Bazemore, 1998, p. 769). Since the mid-19708,
when researchers Lipton, Martinson, & Wilks (1974) published a study that pointed to
the ineffectiveness of rehabilitation, the “nothing works” study, and through increased
crime in the 1980s and the framing of juvenile offenders as “juvenile super-predators,”
(DiLulio, 1995), the emphasis has been on punishing the offenders instead of
rehabilitating them. This has led to an increase in incarceration rates in both adult and
juvenile correctional systems (Feld, 1990, 1993). According to proponents of restorative
justice, neither of these approaches addresses the needs of the community, the victim, and
the offender when responding to crime and deciding on punishment (Bazemore, 1998).

In the retributive and rehabilitative model the community and victim are left out

of the process. Van Ness (1993, 1998) says that nearly every facet of the criminal justice
system works to reduce victims, offenders, and communities to passive participants. The
victims have no say in what happens to the offender, and they are not addressed when it
comes to making amends. The community also has limited involvement; often their
contribution is restricted to participation as a witness or on a jury (Van Ness, 1993,
1998). In a different but important way the offender is also left out of the current
criminal justice process. Offenders are not given an opportunity to be reintegrated into
the community by apologizing, making amends, and repairing the harm they caused. The
criminal justice system “excludes from the. . .process those most affected by the offense —
the offenders, victims and their respective communities...” (Wachtel, 1997, p. 124).

Restorative justice (RJ) allows the community, victim, and the offender to be co-
participants in an amends making rather than an adjudicatory or disciplinary process.
Proponents of restorative justice believe that such processes address the needs of the
community and the victims by repairing harm done to them through apology and
reparations from the offenders and requires the offenders to take responsibility for their
behavior, acknowledge the damages caused by their actions, and work to restore and
strengthen informal relationships that may have been damaged; a process that theory
proposes leads to the reintegration of offenders into the community (Bazemore, 1996,
1998; Elis, 2005; McGarrell, 2001; Van Ness, 1993; Zehr, 1990).

Zehr (1990) posits three restorative questions: 1) What harm resulted fi'om the
crime, 2) What needs to be done to repair the harm, and 3) Who is responsible for the
repair? According to Bazemore (1998) the punitive and rehabilitative models fail to

adequately address these questions because the community and the victim are left out of

the process. The restorative justice approach sees crime as banning individuals and their
communities and the only way to achieve justice is to attempt to “heal the wound” crime
causes, not by treating or punishing the offender (Bazemore, 1998; Van Ness et al., 1989;
Zehr, 1990). The goals of restorative justice are to sanction crimes, repair harm done to
the victim, promote public safety, and reintegrate offenders back into the community.
Bazemore (1998) says one way to do this is through earned redemption. This is a
“sanctioning approach that allows offenders to make amends to those they have harmed
to earn their way back into the trust of the community” (p. 770).

There are two general principles that work together to allow stakeholders in the
restorative justice process to work in collaborative relationships and try to achieve
amends for the harm that was caused: restorative decision making or conferencing
modeling and restorative sanctions (Bazemore, 1998; Bazemore & Umbreit, 1995;
Stinchcomb, Bazemore, & Riestenberg, 2006). First, restorative conferencing modeling
is “[d]esigned to enable victims, offenders, their supporters, and affected community
members to have input into a plan to repair harm” (Stinchcomb, Bazemore, &
Riestenberg, 2006, p. 132). This can be done through different conferencing models such
as: family group conferences, victim-offender mediation, neighborhood accountability
boards, and peacemaking circles; which all look to maximize the stakeholders’
involvement in the decision making process (Bazemore & Umbreit, 1995; Stinchcomb,
Bazemore, & Riestenberg, 2006). There many be administrative and procedural
differences between the models but they share common features important to the

restorative process such as: a focus on community-based sanctioning, non-adversarial and

informal processes, and decision-making consequences (Bazemore & Umbreit, 2001;
Bergseth & Bouffard, 2007).

The second principle, restorative sanctions, provides evidence that the offender
has earned redemption through efforts to make amends for the harm they caused by
performing community and victim services, making apologies and restitution, and
through behavioral agreements or any other amends making processes (Bazemore, 1998;
Stinchcomb, Bazemore, & Riestenberg, 2006).

There are different theories associated with restorative justice. These theoretical
perspectives include procedural justice theory (Tyler & Blander, 2000), self
categorization theory (Turner et al., 1987), and defiance theory (Sherman, 1993); but this
study will focus on Braithwaite’s (1989) reintegrative shaming theory and Hirschi’s

(1969) control theory.

Reintegrative Shaming Theory

According to John Braithwaite, the architect of reintegrative shaming theory, the
current criminal justice system handles offenders in a way that makes it difficult for them
to shed the offender label. This leads to stigrnatizing shame, denouncing the offender not
just the criminal act, which makes it hard for the offenders to enter back into society and
potentially pushes them further into criminal subcultures. Braithwaite’s (1989)
reintegrative shaming theory is centered on two principles. First, he says that the method
a society uses to handle shame will determine how much violence and crime the society
has. If shame is used to humiliate and stigmatize then the person being stigmatized will

fail to reintegrate back into society and will seek out criminal subcultures to find positive

self-images. He found that there is a positive relationship between stigrnatizing shame
and crime, violence, and criminal subcultures in society.

Second, instead of asking the traditional criminal justice question of “Why do
criminals do the wrong thing?” he asks, “Why do most people do the right thing most of
the time?” (Wachtel, 1997). Braithwaite (1989) found that most people do the right thing
because they want to avoid disappointing the people they care about. The opinion of
friends and family is a powerful social control, and for most the fear of being shamed by
them is a major deterrent to committing crime, more powerful than a criminal justice
authority (McGarrell, 2001). Reintegrative shaming involves “encouraging wrongdoers
to experience shame for their actions while allowing them to maintain their dignity. This
is accomplished by holding wrongdoers accountable for their actions and providing them
with an opportunity to make things right” (McCold & Wachtel, 1998, p. 9). It also
involves targeting the criminal act not the actor who performs it (Braithwaite, 1989). A
combination of accountability by the offender and respect from the victim and
community helps to keep the offender in that community (Braithwaite, 1993).

Braithwaite (1989) says that societies that use reintegrative shaming have lower
levels of crime and violence. Studies (Leibrich, 1998; Strang et al., 1999) have also
found other positive affects of reintegative shaming. Leibrich (1998) found that shame
was a significant factor in former offenders remaining crime free. The most common
reason mentioned by these re-entering offenders for “going straight” and the most
commonly mentioned cost of offending was personal disgrace (behavior exposed in front
of people they knew) and private remorse (coming to think their offending was wrong).

The Reintegrative Shaming Experiment (RISE) (Strang et al., 1999) which randomly

assigns eligible criminal cases to court or a restorative justice conference, also tested
reintegrative shaming theory, and it found positive changes in the attitudes of offenders
who went through the restorative justice process. For restorative justice an important step
in reintegrating the offender back into the community is a feeling of shame or remorse
and an effort to make amends by holding the offender accountable to the victims and the

community (Bazemore, 1998; Braithwaite & Mugford, 1994).

Control Theory

Control theory assumes that delinquent acts result when an individual’s bond to
society is weak or broken. Hirschi (1969) focused on how an individual’s bond to society
influences their decision to break the law. He found four elements of social bonds to
society which restrain a person from engaging in deviant behavior; 1) attachment to
others, 2) involvement in conventional activities which restricts opportunities for
delinquent behavior, 3) commitment to conventional society and a future career, and 4)
belief in the moral validity of the law; to what extent do they feel they should obey the
rules of society. Bazemore (1998) summarizes this, saying that social control
“emphasizes the importance of the bond individuals have to conventional groups. [These
bonds] can in turn be viewed as culturally and structurally fixed in the roles individuals
assume in the context of socializing institutions (family, work, school), which there by
account for informal constraints on deviant behavior based on affective ties to significant
others (teachers, parents) as well as on a more rational stake in conformity that limits
individual involvement in crime by the risk criminal behavior poses to firture legitimate

opportunities” (p. 785). According to Hirschi (1969) control originates with and is

sustained by a person’s bond to society and its effect depends on that person’s bonds to
family and/or conventional institutions like school.

Crime is seen as the breakdown in the bonds that link people and communities
together and is also seen as the source for the further weakening of those bonds
(Bazemore, 1998; Van Ness et al., 1989). Bazemore et al. (2000) and Elis (2005) see the
relationship between criminal behavior and informal social control as reciprocal;
“[d]isruption in informal social control produces crime and involvement in crime leads to
further disruptions in formal social control...” (Elis, 2005, p. 379). As social bonds are
weakened the power of the community to restrain individuals’ criminal impulses are
reduced. Restorative justice looks to strengthen these weakened bonds and as a result
reintegrate offenders into the community by strengthening informal social control and
rebuilding social and community relationships which should prevent firture criminal
behavior (Bazemore, 1998; Bazemore etal., 2000; Elis, 2005; Van Ness, 1989).

In order to repair damaged relationships and build new ones the response to crime
has to involve the community and its citizens (Bazemore, 1998; Van Ness at e1., 1989).
If crime is a result of weakened bonds, then at the individual level the response should
focus on changing the offenders’ view of the community and? on strengthening the
offenders’ ties or bonds to conventional society. At the community level the focus
should be on “increasing the willingness and capacity of community groups to take
responsibility for integration and reintegration as well as informal sanctioning and social
control...” (Bazemore, 1998, p. 787) of the offender and on changing the citizens’ views

of the offender (Bazemore, 1998; Braithwaite, 1989; Elis, 2005).

10

Theory Integration

The proposed theoretical model for this study integrates Braithwaite’s (1989)
reintegrative shaming theory with Hirschi’s (1969) control theory (Figure 1). This model
suggests that if the response to a criminal act by the criminal justice system is shaming
for the offender, then that individual’s bonds to society are weakened, which could lead
to a loss of commitment to conventional society and involvement in conventional
institutions and activities. If the offender is not committed to society or involved in
conventional institutions or activities they may seek out criminal subcultures to gain a

positive self-image (Braithwite, 1989), leading to antisocial choices for the offender.

Figure 1: Theoretical Model

 

Criminal Justice Response to Crime

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reintegrative Shaming Shaming
1 4
Building Bonds Weaken Bonds
J L
Commitment to Loss of Commitment to
conventional society & conventional society &
Involvement in Involvement in
conventional institutions conventional institutions
i v
Prosocial Antisocial
Choices Choices

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alternatively, if the criminal justice system’s response to a criminal act uses

reintegrative processes it should help build the offenders’ bonds to society, reintegrating

ll

them back into the community and linking them up with prosocial others, leading to

prosocial choices.

Restorative Justice in the Juvenile Justice System

As stated above, the goals of restorative justice are to sanction crimes, repair harm
to the victim, promote public safety, and reintegrate offenders into the community, while
involving the victim, offender, and community in the process. Restorative justice also
allows citizens to represent their neighborhood values and norms while being involved in
this decision-making process (Rodriguez, 2005), and provides offenders with the
opportunity to develop social skills and the chance to learn skills that can help them avoid
future criminal involvement (Bazemore, 1998; Braithwaite, 1989; Elis, 2005; Van Ness,
1993). Studies done on restorative justice programs in the juvenile justice system have
found higher offender and victim satisfaction rates compared to other interventions
(McCold & Wachtel, 1998; McGarrell, 2001; Minnesota Department of Corrections,
2006; Strang et al., 1999) and mixed results on the reduction in offender recidivism
(Bergseth & Bouffard, 2007; Braithwaite, 1999; Hayes & Daly, 2003; Luke & Lind,
2002; McCold & Wachtel, 1998; Maxwell & Morris, 1994,1996; McGarrell, 2001;
McGarrell & Hippie, 2007; Rodriguez, 2005; Roy, 1993; Sherman et al., 2000; Strang et
al., 1999; Umbreit, 1998).

In McCold and Wachtel’s (1998) study on restorative policing, violent offenders
who participated in the program had lower re-arrest rates than those who did not
participate, they were 20 percent less likely to recidivate than those who were not in the

program; however there was no difference in the re-arrest rates for property offenders.

12

The study also reported that participant satisfaction and sense of fairness exceeded 96
percent for those in the program. The Reintagrative Shaming Experiment (RISE) (Strang
et al., 1999) which randomly assigned eligible criminal cases to court or a restorative
justice conference also found high levels of offender satisfaction and positive changes in
the attitudes of offenders who went through the restorative justice process.

In a study done by Bergseth and Bouffard (2007) they found that juveniles
referred to a restorative justice process were less likely to experience later police contact,
and more likely to have fewer later contacts, less serious later behavior, and a longer time
to first re-offense than juveniles referred to the traditional court process. Luke and Lind
(2002) found that restorative justice conferences resulted in a 15 to 20 percent reduction
in re-offending and Rodriguez (2005) found that juveniles who completed the restorative
justice program were less likely to recidivate than those in a comparison group.
Meanwhile, Maxwell and Morris (1994, 1996) found that 48 percent of offenders who
went through a conference re-offended after six months and after four years 65 percent
were reconvicted.

McGarrell’s (2001) study of the Indianapolis restorative justice experiment found
high levels of satisfaction among participants in the restorative justice conference and the
court ordered diversion program (control group), however victims participating in the
conference were more satisfied with how their cases were handled and were more likely
to report that they were involved in the process and that they were able to express their
views. The study also found that during the six months after their initial incident the
youth who attended the conferences were significantly less likely than those who

attended other diversion programs to be rearrested. Consistent with the initial study,

13

McGarrell and Hipple’s (2007) follow-up study of the Indianapolis restorative justice
experiment found that participants in R] conferences had lower rates of offending
particularly in the initial six months after the original offenses. Survival analysis

indicated that the decline in offending persisted over a two-year period.

Restorative Justice in Schools

Studies have found that childhood disruptive or troublesome behavior is one of
the best predictors of adolescent and adult criminality (F anington, 1994; Haapasalo &
Tremblay, 1994; Nagin & Tremblay, 1999; Stattin & Magnusson, 1989; White et al.,
1990), so it follows that students who become involved in incidents in school are more
likely to be involved in criminal behavior. In a traditional school discipline process when
students are involved in disciplinary incidents the punishment may be detention,
suspension, or expulsion depending on the seriousness of the offense. According to
Wachtel (1997) one result of detentions, suspensions, and expulsions is that those
students that receive them see themselves as an outcast or “bad.” Like the criminal
justice system, school disciplinary procedures “provide the students little or no
opportunity for reintegration - for making amends, apologizing, repairing the harm or
shedding the offender label. . .[He says] the primary difference between schools and
courts is that schools start alienating offenders at an earlier age” (p.123-124).

Schools foster the highest levels of violence such as bullying, aggression,
intimidation, and exclusion which feeds a wider circle of violence and alienation
(Morrison, 2003). According to Hirschi (1969) young people lack a sense of belonging

and connectedness and those who cannot clearly see the future which success in school

14

may provide have little to lose by behaving in a delinquent or deviant manner. This
highlights the importance of schools as a social institution. Morrison (2002) says that
schools have both the potential to nurture and integrate individuals into society and the
potential to stigrnatize and exclude them. She also says that “schools may be the most
appropriate institutions to focus on reducing antisocial and criminal behavior patterns in
children, while promoting... resilience, and social responsibility’ ’ (p.1).

By just suspending or expelling the student for their behavior schools may be
solving the immediate problem, but fail to see the potential long term consequences. In
their study Castenbader and Markson (1998) listed some side effects of in-school and out
of school suspension on the students and the community; an increase in maladaptive
behaviors not addressed by the suspension, withdrawal from or avoidance of school staff,
negative impact on self-respect, stigma among peers, driving a school problem into the
streets and community, and disruption of the student’s education. They also found that
suspension has been correlated with drug use, poor academic achievement, and long term
disaffection and alienation; and that “students who had been suspended were more likely
to be involved with the legal system” (p. 59).

Traditional school disciplinary procedures like suspension and expulsion take the
students out of the school learning environment where there are prosocial, positive
influences without giving them a chance to be involved in the process. The student’s
attachment and commitment to the conventional institution (school), involvement in
school activities, and potentially the belief in the legitimacy of school rules may be

weakened by this process. By punishing them and not allowing them to make amends, it

15

makes it harder for the students to be reintegrated back into the school community, which
could lead to disillusionment with school and failing grades.

Disillusionment with school and failing grades could lead to larger problems.
Some studies have shown that negative attitudes toward and failure in school leads to
criminal behavior (Anderson et al., 1999; Arum & Beattie, 1999; Rankin, 1980; Snyder
& Sickmund, 2006). Rankin (1980) found that negative attitudes toward school and poor
school performance are related to increased delinquency among males and females.
Similarly, Anderson et al. (1999) found that a strong attachment to school protects girls
from delinquent involvement, however school attachment was unrelated to delinquent
behavior among boys. The US. Department of Education (1996) says that research
shows a link between suspension/expulsion and dropping out of school, which later
results in personal and social costs. Students who are failing in school, dropout, and are
unable to obtain good jobs or stay unemployed have an increased chance of getting
involved with criminal activity (Sherman et al., 1997; Snyder & Sickmund, 2006). In a
study on the effects of high school educational experience on the risk of incarceration,
Arum and Beattie (1999) found that being enrolled in high school reduced the risk of
future incarceration for men ages 19 to 36. If students are chronically involved in school
incidents and the traditional discipline process is not working, schools should consider
new approaches to handling incidents in school before they lead to larger societal
problems.

Restorative justice provides everyone involved in the school incident the
opportunity to participate in the disciplinary process and allows differences to be worked

through in a constructive manner. It also gives the students an opportunity to learn

16

conflict resolution skills, a way to solve conflicts without resorting to violence, so they
can avoid future incidents (Morrison, 2002). If students are not given a chance to work
out their problems or given an opportunity to learn to modify their behavior they
“generally return to school no better disciplined and no better able to manage their anger
or peaceably resolve disputes” (US. Department of Education, 1996, p. 65). Wachtel
(1997) says that if children’s inappropriate behavior were systematically challenged with
a restorative or reintegrative response early on in school, they could avoid the
stigmatization and alienation that weakens their bonds to the school community and the
larger society.

In primary and secondary schools restorative justice has been used as an
alternative to the traditional disciplinary processes in response to disciplinary violations,
bullying, and crime (Ahmed et al., 2001, Braithwaite, 2002). There have been several
studies done on restorative justice processes which show promise for its effective use in
dealing with school disciplinary issues (Calhoun, 2000; Karp & Breslin, 2001; Kane et
al., 2006; Minnesota Department of Children, 2002; Morrison, 2001; Morrison, 2005;
O’Brien, 2005; Stinchcomb, Bazemore, & Riestenberg, 2006; Youth Justice Board,
2005). However, not all studies have shown success. There have been difficulties in
implementing the programs in schools (Cameron & Thomsbome, 2000; Karp & Breslin,
2001; Stinchcomb, Bazemore, & Riestenberg, 2006) and Morrison, Blood, and
Thorsbome (2005) say that restorative justice is not showing the positive change in
school behavior management and policy that was originally expected.

Even though some of the studies on restorative justice in schools show positive

results most of the findings deal with participant satisfaction (Kane et al., 2006;Youth

17

Justice Board, 2005), or the change in the number of suspension/expulsions fiom year to
year (Kane et al., 2006; Karp & Breslin, 2001; Minnesota Department of Children, 2002;
Stinchcomb, Bazemore, & Riestenberg, 2006; Youth Justice Board, 2005), or the studies
describe how the restorative process works and is implemented in different schools (Kane
et al., 2006; Karp & Breslin, 2001; Youth Justice Board, 2005). The Youth Justice
Boards (2006) evaluation of the Restorative Justice is Schools Programme in London
found that 89 percent of students surveyed were satisfied with the outcome of their
conferences and that 98 percent thought the process was fair. They also found
statistically significant results fiom teacher surveys with teachers reporting that they saw
a significant improvement in student behavior in schools with a RJ program compared to
before the program was implemented (18 to 24 month period). Kane et a1. (2006) found
reductions in exclusions in all but one of the schools in their evaluation of a restorative
practices pilot program in Scotland. In their qualitative analysis they found that school
staff, students, and parents had positive views of the restorative practices that have been
implemented in the schools. Finally, in their review of Minnesota’s school-based
behavioral intervention pilot program which implemented restorative practices in some
elementary, middle, and high schools in Minnesota, Stinchcomb, Bazemore, and
Riestenberg (2006) found that suspension, expulsion, and behavioral referral rates went

down in most of the schools.

18

Chapter 3: Theory Based Model and Hypotheses

The theoretical model used for this study applies the school disciplinary process
to the model in Figure 1. According to this theoretical model (Figure 2), when students
are involved in misconduct in school, it weakens their bonds to school and prosocial
others. If they receive the traditional discipline of suspension or expulsions, which
withdraws support fi'om the school, their social bonds (attachment, commitment,
involvement, and belief) are further weakened or broken. It is hypothesized that this non
reintegrative shaming process inhibits reintegration into the school community, and

separates them from prosocial others (teachers, peers), potentially leading to antisocial

choices and school failure.

Figure 2: Theoretical Model Applied to Schools

 

 

School Incident Reaction

 

 

A

 

 

 

Shaming (Traditional Process)

 

 

Reintegrative Shaming (RJ)
1

 

Building Bonds

I

 

 

 

I

 

Weaken Bonds

 

 

School
Comrrritrnent &
Participation

 

I

 

Loss of School
Commitment &
Participation

 

 

 

+

Prosocial
Choices

 

 

 

 

 

 

1

Antisocial
Choices

 

 

 

 

l9

 

The restorative justice intervention is designed to repair the harm done to the
social bonds during the initial incident by holding the student accountable, allowing them
to understand the harm that they have done and giving them a chance to make amends.
The school community attempts to provide an atmosphere that shows respect and support
for the student, while showing disapproval for the student’s behavior. This process will
hopefully help to strengthen or build social bonds and reintegrate the student back into
the school community linking them back up with prosocial controllers.

In the research setting for this study, a middle school in a small urban city in the
Midwest, school researchers for the restorative justice pilot program found participation
satisfaction ratings and results for suspensions and expulsions similar to those found in
the Scottish (Kane et al., 2006), Minnesota (Stinchcomb, Bazemore, & Riestenberg,
2006), and London (Youth Justice Board, 2005) school studies mentioned above. Across
all schools that implemented a RJ program in this school district, fi'om the 2004 to 2005
to the 2006 to 2007 school years, the school researchers found restorative justice
programs provided alternatives that prevented more than 1,800 suspension days and 15
expulsions over the three-year study period. Through post-conference surveys they also
found that 95 percent of the offenders, 100 percent of the victims, and 88 percent of the
students who were co-disputants in an incident were satisfied with the restorative justice
intervention process (Lansing School District, 2007).

The findings of the school researchers suggest promise for the theoretical model
in Figure 2. Averted suspension days and expulsions kept the students in the school
community and linked to prosocial others and the conventional institution (school).

Participant satisfaction ratings with the RJ process hint at possible strengthening of the

20

bonds between the students and the school by building a sense of belief in the legitimacy

of the school disciplinary process, in turn building belief in school rules.

Research Question and Hypotheses

This exploratory study attempts to address the following research question:

Does a restorative justice intervention, compared to the traditional school
discipline process, improve the commitment and attachment to school of middle school
students, leading to school success?

To begin to answer this research question, three hypotheses are provided:

Hypothesis 1) Students who participate in the restorative justice intervention
compared to those who go through the traditional school discipline
process will have fewer future incidents.

Hypothesis 2) Students who participate in the restorative justice intervention
compared to those who go through the traditional school discipline
process will have less severe future incidents.

Hypothesis 3) Students who participate in the restorative justice intervention are
more likely than those who go through the traditional school

discipline process to have an increase in their GPA.

21

Chapter 4: Research Methodology

Research Setting

The setting for this study is a middle school in a small urban area in the American
Midwest. The school district chose this school to implement a pilot program for a
restorative justice-based process to be used as an alternative to traditional discipline. One
of the missions of the program was to utilize restorative justice processes to settle
disputes and hold students accountable without divorcing the offending student from
school through expulsion or suspension. The program also sought to teach students
alternatives to violence and to help students modify negative behaviors. School
researchers for the restorative justice program report that restorative justice alternatives
for all schools in the school district were used in lieu of an estimated 1,838 suspension
days and averted 15 expulsions and semester ending suspensions from the 2004 to 2005
to the 2006 to 2007 school years (Lansing School District, 2007).

The restorative justice program in this school is staffed by trained facilitators.
When a dispute arises and the student offender, victim or co-disputants, and a facilitator
are available or an RJ intervention can be scheduled, the students participate in one of
two types of interventions. Both involve a structured, facilitated “circle” or discussion.
The simpler form - a peace circle - involves a discussion between the offender and victim
or co-disputants. The more inclusive circles —- transformative conferences - also involve
structured facilitation among these core participants, in addition they include parents and
supporters of the core participants and representatives from the school. These expanded
circles were generally used for the more serious offenses, those that might otherwise

result in suspension, expulsion, or criminal charges.

22

In these restorative circles each participant is given an opportunity to talk about
how the incident affected them. Once everyone has had a chance to speak the
participants decide what the offending student must do to make reparations and repair the
harm done by his or her acts. When an agreement is made, the participants sign an
outcome plan agreement. The offending student is given a certain amount of time
(determined by participants in the circle) to complete the terms in the agreement. If the
student fails to do this, they will go through the traditional school disciplinary process.
Not all circles end in an agreement. If the participants cannot come to a resolution, the
facilitator can recommend another circle at a later date or the offending students go
through the traditional school disciplinary process. However, for the cases used in this

study period, no circle or transformative process failed to reach an agreement.

Sample and Study Period

The sample used in this exploratory study is a full coverage sample from the
student records of all students with disciplinary infractions through the study period. The
study period begins with the 2004 to 2005 school year, the first year in which the RJ
intervention was phased in as an alternative to traditional disciplinary procedures, and
ends with the 2006 to 2007 school year, the last year of the pilot program. Information
available for this study covers three school years, 2004 to 2005, 2005 to 2006, and 2006

to 2007.

23

Limitations

The data for this study only comes from one school and there are very few cases
of RJ in the first year. Since this is a three-year study and the analysis of the intervention
will begin in the second year, it leaves a limited amount of time for follow up analysis.
One limitation of this study is that no random or systematic selection process was used to
determine whether students would be assigned to a restorative justice intervention or to
the traditional school disciplinary process. Assignment to one group or the other is best
described as a convenience sample (Maxfield & Babbie, 2001). Limited availability of
facilitators was largely the determining factor in whether a restorative justice alternative
was offered.

The structure of the school year, the structure of the discipline system, the
discipline data collection system, and the small number of students exposed to RJ
interventions in this pilot study population also pose challenges for and create limitations
for the exploratory study.

The structure of the school year creates limitations because it is discontinuous. It
is difficult to compare the impact of a restorative justice intervention that occurs in
January where the student can be tracked for five continuous school months, to a RJ
intervention that happens in June and the student’s progress is not tracked for nearly three
months until the new school year starts.

Another complicating factor is the. structure of the discipline system. Students
who are initially given a restorative justice intervention and become involved in another

incident, might receive a second “dose” of RJ or they might be handled through the

24

traditional disciplinary process. Students can receive multiple “doses” or both
interventions.

The manner in which the information is kept on disciplined students is
problematic for the study, although researchers are working with school officials to
remedy this problem. The discipline records are held separately from the school records.
From a practical standpoint, for the sample of students used in this exploratory study,
students with no disciplines in year three (eighth grade) are not included in the database
and therefore their grade point averages for that grade are not available. In terms of
judging school success, by using change in grade point, this limits the study’s ability to
test the degree to which RJ influences school success, and the degree to which school

success influences prosocial behavior.

Challenges Created by Small Numbers in the Treatment Group

If the number of students’ receiving restorative justice dosages were much larger,
the issue of doses, cross-overs, and redosing could be handled in a number of ways,
including creating variables for the number of doses and for the various combinations of
treatment. Examples might be RJ only students, RJ followed by traditional discipline
students, traditional discipline followed by RJ, or only traditional discipline. The limited
number of disciplines also influences the power of the analysis (Lipsey, 1999). Power, or
the “probability that the null hypothesis will be rejected when. . .the null hypothesis is, in
fact, false...” (p.28), depends not only on the effect size but also on the degree to which
the numbers of those in the treatment group and the comparison group are of equal size.

Based on the small effect size found in the controlled experiments on RJ (McGarrell,

25

2001), and given the gross differences in group size between treatment and non-treatment
groups, statistical power was expected to be very low and, therefore, limited in
statistically significant findings

There were also a limited number of victim participants, since most of the
disciplinary incidents between students involved co-disputants and traditional
interventions do not involve the victim. While the reaction of the victim to the RJ

protocol is a worthy area for research, there was insufficient information for analysis.

Study Design

Given the limitations noted above, conducting a meaningful, exploratory analysis
presents many challenges. This study will attempt to deal with these limitations by using
a variety of statistical methods. The central method used is Predictive Attribute Analysis
(PAA). For the practitioners attempting to improve services to students, understanding
the ways in which RJ alternatives appear to change the trajectory of students under
varying conditions will inform their work. For scholarship, an exploration of how the
paths of student success or failure follow RJ or traditional processes will begin to produce
patterns of understanding and inform further research questions and methods.

Given this, this study will first provide a description of the students and then will
create data “maps” combining predictive attribute analysis and traditional risk
probabilistic models. Predictive attribute analysis has been shown to provide results as
strong as regression analysis for risk factors (Gottfredson & Synder, 2005). In addition,

the mapping function provides a visual display of results that is potentially more

26

accessible to practitioners eager to put research results into force to improve program

delivery.

Variables and Measures
The variables available for this exploratory study were collected by the school
system for various purposes and merged with records from the restorative justice

interventions.

Demographic Variables

Sex, race, poverty, and age will be included as demographic variables. The
poverty measure is eligibility for reduced or free lunches, under the National School
Lunch Program]. The variable for poverty is a dummy variable with 1 indicating poverty
and 0 indicating above the poverty level required for inclusion in federally subsidized
lunches. Age is recorded in whole years at the beginning of the semester of record. Race
is a categorical variable, with the following categories: white, black, Hispanic, and other.
Given the issues of statistical power, race was collapsed for some analyses into
categories, white and non white. The sex variable is actually male versus female, with

male coded as 1 and female as 0.

Independent Variables
The independent or predictor variable is inclusion in an RJ intervention. For the

purpose of this exploratory analysis, victim participants will not be included. Therefore,

 

’ In the 2005-2006 school year, the federal poverty guidelines for inclusion in the National School Lunch
Program for a family of four was an annual income of $19,350 (Food and Nutrition Services, 2005).

27

the independent variable will be inclusion in an R] intervention, coded as 1, compared to
inclusion in a traditional discipline process, coded as 0.

Other independent variables include school incidents and severity of incidents.
While offenses after the intervention period are used to create outcome (dependent)
variables, incidents for the semesters prior to the intervention period are used to construct
independent or predictor variables, reflecting prior offense records. For the purpose of
this study, these offenses have been categorized as 1) minor incidents or public order
incidents and 2) major incidents or serious threats, fighting, and assault. The
categorization is documented in Appendix A. Minor incidents are coded as 1 and major
incidents are coded as 2. To create a prior offense variable, a weighed, additive scale was
created valuing minors as one and major incidents as two. Given the limitations of the
data, and the need for discrete categories for PAA, this variable was also collapsed into
groups as no offenses, minor, and major offenses. Grade Point Average (GPA) exists as
a continuous measure from 0 to a perfect score of 4. These data points were collected by
the school for all disciplined students by semester. For use as an independent variable,
GPA, for the semesters prior to the intervention period was used as a measure of

academic achievement.

Outcome Measures

There are two separate outcome measures that relate to the two main research
questions. Academic achievement is used as a surrogate measure of commitment to a
prosocial activity and institution. Achievement will be coded as a categorical variable.

Student grade points will be reduced to a change score. As few students in the sample

28

improved from grade six to grade seven, the changes in grade point were divided into
three equal groups; decrease in grade point, minor decrease, and stable to improved.

The outcome measure constructed for prosocial behavior is the number and
gravity of incidents that occur post intervention which are coded as 0 for no continued
incidents, 1 for minor incidents, and 2 for major incidents. In order to help with the
“mapping” portion of the analysis outcome quadrants were constructed using minor and
major incidents, and suspensions for the 8th grade students in the 2006 to 2007 school
year. Quadrant 1 — good outcome — consists of students with no incidents and no
suspensions in the 2006 to 2007 school year. Quadrant 2 — minor outcome — consists of
students who had minor incidents or minor and major incidents but no suspensions in the
2006 to 2007 school year. In this case only one student had a minor and major incident
and no suspensions, because they only had one major incident during that time and it did
not rise to the level of a suspension they were put into the minor outcome quadrant.
Quadrant 3 — moderate outcome — includes students who had minor incidents and a
suspension. Finally, quadrant 4 — major outcome — consists of students who had major
incidents and a suspension or minor and major incidents and a suspension. A continuous
variable was also constructed using a weighted score, following the process outlined in

the description of prior offense.

Two Samples and Two Analyses
Third Semester Sample
Given the limitations of the data, this exploratory study began with an

examination using students receiving discipline in semester three, which was their first

29

semester of seventh grade. This intervention period had the advantage of having
information on prior offending and academic achievement, for the prior academic year
(6th grade) and outcome measures for academic achievement and offending in the
subsequent semester (semester 4, the second semester of 7th grade). The disadvantage of
this sample was that very few students (21) received an RJ intervention during this

semester.

Fourth Semester Sample

The fourth semester sample had a larger number of students receiving RJ
interventions and, therefore, had the potential of greater statistical power. There were,
however, two major limitations with this sample. First, there is a gap between the
intervention period and the period over which outcome measures were calculated. The
study period ended at the end of the semester and the outcome period did not commence
until school resumed in the fall. A second, major limitation is that eighth grade, grade
point averages (GPA) were available for those youth who offended in 8th grade, but were
not recorded for youth with no offense record. This systematic loss of data for youth who
succeeded made it impossible to test for the relationship of RJ to school achievement for

this sample.

Statistical Methods

Given the limitation of the data, several statistical means were used to explore and
analyze the data. First, descriptive measures were calculated to understand the shape of
the data, including measures of central tendency and variation. Bivariate analyses were

conducted, including means tests, to determine if the RJ intervention had significant

30

influences on GPA and prosocial behavior (future offending). Regression models were
created and run, to inform the Predictive Attributive Analysis (PAA). For although
regression is a robust tool, the data used in this study is censored and highly skewed to
the right, as is the case with many offense or recidivism studies where the most likely
outcome is zero (Allen, 1997).

Using PAA, a series of nested Chi Square analyses are run (Gottfredson &
Synder, 2005). To create the PAA map, the sample is divided into groups using the
variable that most influences the outcome, and then by the variable that has the next
highest influence, and continues through variable of significance. The description of the
analyses of each sample will address this in more detail, but due to limitations in the data,
missing data (in the semester 4 sample), and lack of power in the semester 3 sample, only

the analysis of firrther offending could progress to this stage.

31

Chapter 5: Analysis and Results
Analysis of the Third Semester of the Study Period

Descriptives

The first analysis used students with offenses in semester three (the first semester

of 7th grade) as the sample, semester three as the intervention period, and semester four

as the outcome period. There were 131 students with incidents in the first semester of 7th

grade and 21 of these students were involved in an RJ intervention. Table 1 shows the

descriptive statistics for all the students with incidents and the students in RI. Table 1

shows that roughly 60 percent of the students in the sample were male, 80 percent in

poverty, 66.7 percent non white, and 58.8 percent had no prior incidents. The mean GPA

for all students in the sample was 1.86 (Table 2). About 58 percent of students had no

prior offenses, about 14% percent had minor priors, and about one quarter had major

offenses.

Table 1: Descriptives for Third Semester Students

 

 

Sex All Students RJ Non RJ Sig.
Female 40.7% 47.6% 38.5%

Male 59.3% 52.4% 61.5%

Poverty

No 20.0% 28.6% 119.2%

Yes 80.0% 71.4% 80.8%

Race

Non White 66.7% 76.2% 92.3%

White 33.3% 23.8% 7.7%

Priors

None 58.8% 55.0% 65.4%

Minor 13.7% 20.0% 15.4%

Major 27.5% 25.0% 19.2%

Incident

Minor 84.1% 57.1% 88.5% 0.05
Major 15.9% 42.9% 11.5%

N 1 3 l 21 1 10

32

To compare youth who were exposed to RJ interventions to youth exposed only to
traditional interventions, a Chi Square analysis of categorical variables was preformed. It
indicated that the two groups did not differ significantly on sex, poverty, race, or prior
offending. However, the analysis did indicate that RJ youth were more likely to have a

major, rather than minor, offense triggering the use of the intervention (p<.05) (Table 1).

Table 2: Measures of Central Tendency and Dispersion

 

GPA N Mean Min Max SD Sig
All 131 1.86 _ O 4 0.97
RJ 21 2.04 1 3.5 0.82
Non RJ 110 1.84 O 4 0.99

 

To compare GPA, a Student t test was conducted and, although the mean GPA for
RJ students was higher than the GPA for non RJ students, (2.04 for RJ students compared

to 1.84 for non RJ students) this difference did not rise to significance.

Bivariate Analysis: GPA

To begin to test the hypothesis that RJ would enhance school participation and
achievement and would, through such commitment to prosocial institutions, increase
prosocial activity, the relationship between change in GPA and offending was tested.
Bivariate correlations (Table 3) indicated no significant relationship between these two
variables at the standard level of significance (p<.05). However, these variables were
related if the standard were relaxed to p<.10, providing some support for that portion of

the model.

33

Table 3: Bivariate Analysis of Change in GPA and Incidents

 

 

Incidents
Change in GPA
Pearson Correlation -O. 127
Sig. 0.089
N 181

Next, tests were conducted to determine if students experiencing an RJ
intervention had more positive results related to changes in grade point. In this case, no
significant results were found. The non RJ students had a mean change is grade point of -
.20, compared to the RJ grade point of -.14, this difference did not rise to significance
(Table 4). A Chi Square analysis comparing GPA collapsed into three categories
(decline, small decline, and stable to increase) with RJ intervention participation also did

not rise to the level of significance (Table 5).

Table 4: T Test Comparing RJ Groups with Change in GPA

 

Change in GPA
N Mean SD sig.
RJ
No 110 -.20 .35
Yes 21 -.14 .41

 

There were limitations to the analysis of the academic outcome measure. First,
the small number of cases in the RJ group makes it difficult to see significant changes in
academic achievement for theses students. Second, one semester is not enough time to
see a meaningful change in GPA, the post intervention period needs to be at least one full

school year long. Even though GPA was not significant, these findings show promise for

34

RJ practices being effective in improving academic achievement; even with the small
number of cases and the short post intervention period the independent variables are
moving in the right direction. Because of this lack of connection between RJ and
academic success Hypothesis 3 is not supported. Ways to enhance further studies to
explore the relationship proposed in the model will be discussed in the final chapter of

this study.

Table 5: Bivariate Analysis of RI and Change in GPA

 

 

RJ

GPA (continuous)
Pearson Correlation .054
Sig. (2-tailed) .541
N 131
GPA (categorical)

Pearson Correlation .097
Sig. (2-tailed) .269
N 131
**p<.01

*p< .05

Bivariate Analysis: Offending

To explore the relationship between RJ exposure and future offending, a bivarate
analysis was conducted (Table 6). A Student t test was conducted comparing the
offending level of non RJ and RJ students. A weighted offense scale was used.2 RJ and

non RJ students varied significantly on their level of offending during the post

 

2 As noted previously, minor offenses were given a weight of one and major offenses were given a weight
of two.

35

intervention period (p<.05). The mean offending score for RJ youth was 6, compared to
10 for non RJ youth. This result, combined with the failure to find significant differences
for GPA outcomes, focused the remaining analyses on investigating the relationship of

RJ to offending.

Table 6: Bivariate Analysis of Future Offending

 

Outcomes Stufilrints Non RJ RJ
Mean 9 10 6*
Minimum 0 0 0
Maximum 34 34 27
SD 9 9 7

 

* p<.05

Regression Analysis

The results of an OLS regression analysis are displayed in Table 7. Race,
poverty, academic achievement, and prior offense level were all found to be statistically
significant and explained about one fourth (R2=.26) of the variation in the outcome.
According to the regression, students who are non white, in poverty, with low academic
achievement, and a high prior offense level are more likely to continue offending; with
academic achievement being the best predictor of continued offending. RJ was not a
significant factor in stopping students from offending however the regression model
shows that RJ is moving in the right direction; as students participate in R] the incidents

go down. Sex and the offense leading to discipline were not statistically significant.

36

Problems with Using Regression

Although running an OLS regression was useful for exploring the data and
looking at the direction of the variables, as outlined in the previous section on limitations,
there were too many issues with the data set to meaningfully use the results. There were
unequal groups (21 students in the RJ group and 110 in the non RJ group) and there were
not enough students in the RJ group to get sufficient power for the model. One way to
explore risk factors in groups with a small number of cases is to use a predictive attribute

analysis (PAA).

Table 7: OLS Regression for Continued Offense

 

Std. Beta Sig.
Error
Sex 1.49 0.04 0.64
Race (White) 1.52 -0.16 0.05 *
Poverty 1.77 0.19 0.02 **
Academic Achievement 0.89 -0.34 0.00 **
Prior Offense Level 0.78 0.19 0.02 *
Offense leading to discipline 2.08 -0.11 0.24
RJ 2.35 -0.02 0.80

 

R2 =. 26

Predictive Attribute Analysis

As described in the methods section, to perform a predictive attribute analysis a
series of imbedded Chi Square tests are conducted to find the best predictor of the
outcome variable. Once the variable is found the sample is divided into subgroups based
on that variable. Then the process continues taking the next best predictor within the

subgroups and further dividing the sample into additional subgroups. This process is

37

repeated until dividing the sample no longer yields useful results. One advantage to
using PAA is that you may be able to find interactions between variables that might
affect the outcome measure that were not readily apparent, given small sample sizes.
Using the regression model to choose the best risk indicators for a successful
outcome, a predictive attribute analysis (Figure 3) was preformed to map outcomes for
the RJ and non RJ groups”. The PAA shows that a majority of the students with incidents
were in poverty. From there the next predictive factor was prior offense, with 71 percent
of the students in poverty having minor prior offenses. For the students in poverty with
minor prior incidents the predictive attribute analysis shows that RJ (64% success rate)
was more effective than the traditional discipline (29% success rate) in reducing or
stopping further offending. However R1 is not shown to be successful for students in
poverty with major prior incidents. Figure 3 also shows that for students not in poverty
with minor priors, R1 was not as effective (50% success rate) compared to the traditional
discipline (71% success rate), although students with major priors in the RJ group (50%)
were slightly more successful than the non RJ group (33%). Findings from the predictive
attribute analysis suggests that RJ can be helpfirl for students in poverty with minor prior
offenses, but have a limited impact on those with major prior offenses and those not in

poverty.

 

3 Academic Achievement was tested, but as indicated by the bivariate analysis, did not show any
differences between the intervention and non intervention groups. So the PAA focuses on prior offenses
and poverty.

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39

Discussion of Analysis One

Results of the exploratory analysis on students in the third semester of the study
period show that 80 percent of the students who committed incidents were in poverty and
over 70 percent of the students in the RJ group were in poverty. This finding is
consistant with studies that have shown that children in poverty are disciplined and
excluded from schools at a higher rate than their counterparts (Bowditch, 1993; Casella,
2003; Fenning & Rose, 2007). According to Casella (2003) this is because school
personnel perceive these students as not fitting into the “norm” of the school. Students
are often disciplined for nonviolent acts because teachers see them as troublemakers and
do not know how to handle them. This may account for the majority of students in
poverty committing minor offenses (Figure 3). F enning and Rose (2007) say that
children who are seen as “troublemakers” or “dangerous” are primarily poor ethnic
minority students and those with academic problems and “. . .are primarily removed [from
school] for nonviolent infractions found in the school discipline policy” (p. 532).

The results of the means test (Table 6) show a significant difference in the mean
number of offenses for RJ students and non RJ students post intervention. Looking at the
PAA (Figure 3) this difference may be due to the success of students in poverty with
minor prior offenses in the RJ group. The success of students in poverty with minor
priors could be attributed to the type of minor offenses the students commit and the
teacher’s perception of the students who commit these offenSes. If, as Fenning and Rose
(2007) stated, teachers are marking certain students as dangerous or troublemakers for
nonviolent school policy violations like; tardiness, disrupting class, ect.; then RJ may be a

better way of addressing these nonviolent issues than detention or suspension. Students

40

in poverty may have other issues causing them to act out in school in a nonviolent
manner (Casella, 2003), and RJ may be helping the student by allowing them to talk
through the issues leading to the disruptive behavior or minor incident. According to a
study by the Department of Education (1996) if students are not given a chance work out
their problems and learn to change their behavior they come back to school with the
issues that lead to the incident unresolved.

Another issue that might contribute to the success of RJ for students with minor
prior offenses that should be looked at in the future is the type of incidents they are
committing. For this study the data on incidents was collected by the school (Appendix
A). As shown in Appendix A, offenses like insubordination, disorderly conduct, and
persistent misconduct were not explained in any further detail. Actions by students that
rise to the level of these classifications may be left up to the discretion of the teacher or
school administrator who disciplines them. Future studies should focus on specific
richer, descriptions of offenses and circumstances allowing researchers to better
understand and classify offending. The findings from this study informed the study done

using semester four as the treatment period.

Analysis of the Fourth Semester of the Study Period
Descriptive Statistics

This analysis used the fourth semester of the study period to measure the RJ
intervention, and the 2006 to 2007 school year as the outcome measure. There were 227
students with incidents in the second semester of seventh grade and 49 of those students

were involved in an R] intervention. Table 8 and Table 9 shows the descriptive statistics

41

for all the students with incidents and the students in RJ. The process of describing and

exploring the data for this sample mirrors that described in the previous analysis. This

sample does not differ significantly from the sample of semester 3 offending students,

except in the level of prior offending (Table 8). More than half of the sample of students

with offenses in semester three had no prior offenses, as students moved into their fourth

semester, the percentage of students with no prior offenses dropped to about one-third.

Table 8: Descriptive Demographic Statistics for Fourth Semester Students

sis—

 

 

Sex All Students RJ Non RJ
Female 47.1% 51% 455%
Male 52.9% 49% 544%
Poverty

N0 23.3% 26.5% 233%
Yes 76.7% 73.5% 762%
Race

NonWhite 64.8% 65.3% 63.9%
White 35.2% 34.7% 36.1%
Priors

None 33.1% 23.3% 352%
Minor 32% 32.6% 333%
Major 34.9% 44.2% 31%
N 227 49 178

Table 9: Descriptive Statistics for GPA

 

GPA Mean SD
All 2.4 1
R] 2.3 0.9
Non R] 2.4 l

 

42

Table 10 shows the measures of central tendency for the outcome measure for all
students with incidents, RJ students, and non RJ students. The mean score for students in
all the groups were the same. This finding differs from the findings from the third
semester which found that the RJ group offended at a statistically significantly lower

mean rate than the non RJ group.

Table 10: Descriptive of Future Offending (8th Grade)

 

 

Outcomes All Non RJ RJ
Mean 5 4 5
Minimum 0 O 0

. Maximum 26 26 22
SD 6 6 7
*p<.05

Exploring F actors for PAA

Unlike the analysis of the sample using offending students in their first semester
of seventh grade relating to an outcome in the following semester, the analysis of
students offending in the second semester of seventh grade relating to an outcome after a
summer break, the regression model was not predictive of future offending. In order to
examine the relationships among variables to inform the PAA, a correlation matrix was
constructed (Table 11). The correlations are consistent with the relationships found in the
first analysis in terms of academic achievement Qirior GPA), prior offending, and instant
offenses. However, contrary to both the relationships seen in analysis one and in general
research findings on juvenile offending, neither poverty nor race significantly correlate

with offending. This lack of association was so striking that care was taken to go back to

43

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the original files to assure that cases were not miscoded. Checks across the original files
assured data integrity, but did not offer any other clues as to explain the anomalous

findings. This issue will be discussed further in the closing chapter.

Predictive Attribute Analysis

A predictive attribute analysis was preformed for the students who committed
incidents in the forth semester of the study period in order to map the outcomes for RJ
and non RJ students. The PAA (Figure 4) shows that most offending students were in
poverty (76%) and most of those students had minor prior incidents (63.8%). Similar to
semester 3 students (Figure 3), RJ looks to have been more effective for students in
poverty with minor priors (71% success rate) than the traditional discipline process (58 %

These findings seem to confirm the results from analysis one. Although most
students who committed incidents were in poverty, it was not a predictor of success in R1
for this sample. The best predictor for success in R] was prior offense level. Students
with minor prior incidents who participated in an R1 intervention were more successful
than students who went through the traditional discipline process. The distribution of
students in the PAA for semester 4 (Figure 4) and the PAA for semester 3 (Figure 3) are
about equal. The only difference between the two models is that poverty was not found
to have an effect on the success of R] for students in semester 4. This finding is curious
and further testing needs to be done to find out why poverty dropped of the map after one

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46

Chapter 6: Integrating Results and Conclusions

In this exploratory study, the two samples had different strengths and limitations
for analysis. While there were differences in overall predictors of future offending,
results relating R] to academic success and further offending showed some consistent
patterns. In both analyses, Predictive Attribute Analyses showed that R] was more
effective than the traditional discipline process at reducing or stopping offending for
students with minor patterns of prior offending. Only the PAA for the third semester
(Figure 3) showed poverty to be a predictive factor, with students in poverty with minor
prior offenses having the best success in reducing or stopping their offending. Students
with major patterns of prior offending involved in RJ did not do worse, they just did not

produce statistically significant results.

Linking Back to Hypotheses
Hypothesis 1
Students who participate in the restorative justice intervention compared to those
who go through the traditional school discipline process will have fewer future incidents.
The results for this hypothesis were mixed. The means tests for the offense
outcome measure (Table 6) in the third semester analysis showed a statistically
significant difference in the mean weighted incident score for RJ students and non RJ
students. RJ students had a lower incident score post intervention than the non RJ
students. The fourth semester analysis showed no such difference. The regression
analysis preformed in analysis one, showed that RJ was not a significant factor in

reducing offending when controlling for other factors (Table 7), though this was not

47

unexpected given the limitations of the sample. Looking at the predictive attribute
analyses, the third semester analysis (Figure 3) showed that students in poverty with
minor prior offenses who participated in R] did have fewer incidents post intervention
than those who went through the traditional process. In the fourth semester analysis
(Figure 4), both students in poverty and those not in poverty with minor prior offenses

who went through a RJ intervention had fewer incidents than the non RJ students.

Hypothesis 2

Students who participate in the restorative justice intervention compared to those
who go through the traditional school discipline process will have less sever future
incidents.

The results for this hypothesis were mixed. As with the results for Hypothesis 1,
the severity of further offending for R] youth appears to be associated with their prior
offense history and, in the results from analysis one, poverty. The PAAs in both cases
indicated that serious offending was reduced for RJ intervention students, but only for

those students with a limited offense history.

Hypothesis 3

Students who participate in the restorative justice intervention are
more likely than those who go through the traditional school discipline process to have an
increase in their GPA.

This hypothesis was not supported, nor could it be adequately tested. Lack of

cases in the first analysis and lack of data in the second analysis created broad limitations.

48

Discussion

Perhaps the most interesting finding in both of these exploratory studies is the
relationship between prior offending and the success of an RJ intervention. The success
of students with minor prior incidents in RJ suggests that it may be more effective for
dealing with nonviolent students. Most of the minor incidents recorded for this study
were public order type offenses. In general, these were nonviolent, verbal offenses
(Appendix A). If these students were simply engaging in verbal arguments or disrupting
class, a process that allows them to talk about the incident and resolve the issues
surrounding the incident may equip them with skills needed to resolve these conflicts,
and be a more effective alternative than detention or suspension. The traditional
discipline process does not allow the parties involved in the incident an opportunity or a
process to resolve the problems. According to the Department of Education (1996) if
students are not given a chance to work out their problems and learn to change their
behavior they come back to school with the issues that led to the incident being
unresolved. A restorative justice intervention allows the students to talk about their
problems and come up with solutions to fix them without taking the students away from
school.

The success of RJ for students with minor priors may also be due to the fact that
students with minor priors are more open to learning new skills. Restorative justice is not
only a process that allows students to constructively work out their problems it is also an
opportunity for them to develop skills that can help them avoid future incidents
(Bazemore, 1998; Briathwaite, 1989; Elis, 2005; VanNess, 1993). According to the

school researchers for this restorative justice program 90% of the students surveyed said

49

they learned a new skill and 89% used the skills they learned to “avert or resolve
subsequent conflicts” (Lansing School District, 2007). It would be interesting to study
the characteristics of these students and determine if they are the same as the students
who reduced their offending.

The limited success of students with major prior incidents suggests that R] might
not work as well for more violent students. It could be harder for students to change their
behavior once they reach a certain level of offending. Students with major priors may be
resistant to learning new skills, or if they do learn new skills it may be harder for them to
put them into practice.

Another reason why this analysis may not have shown R] to be effective for
students with major priors could be because the post intervention measurement period
was short. According to Braithwaite and Mugford (1994) and Stinchcomb, Bazemore,
and Riestenberg (2006), RJ is not necessarily a speedy solution, problems will not always
be fixed on the first try and the offender will not be quickly cured. It may take several
interventions before the problem is resolved or the offender gets the message. Ifthis is
the case, to get meaningful results on the effectiveness of RJ on reducing future incidents,
RJ processes may need to be repeated and a longer study period is needed. In framing
additional studies, a longer period of time and the ability to analyze the impact of
additional doses of RJ would be valuable in attempting to disentangle these issues.

The results of the bivariate correlation in the analysis of the third semester (Table
5) shows that R] was not correlated with a change in GPA, however the model also
shows that the correlation between RJ and GPA is going in the right direction.

Involvement in a restorative justice intervention is associated with an increase in GPA.

50

Although not statistically significant this finding is promising and it suggest that some
features of RJ could potentially impact students’ academic achievement. One of these
features is keeping students in the school. If the students go through a restorative justice
intervention instead of being suspended for an incident then it keeps that student in
school and in class. If the student is suspended then they are not in class to do their work
and when they come back they are behind. Just by keeping the student in the classroom
RJ could be helping to improve their GPA. As explained earlier in order to better test this
hypothesis and get meaningful results larger samples and a longer study period is needed.
While these two analyses could not adequately test the relationships among RJ,
academic success, and prosocial outcomes, there are still limited findings that suggest

that this relationship may be worthy of firrther investigation.

Linking Back to Theory

Through surveys of students who participated in the restorative justice
intervention, school researchers for the RJ program found that 95 percent of the
offenders, 100 percent of the victims, and 88 percent of the students who were co-
disputants in an incident were satisfied with the restorative justice intervention process.
They also found that 90 percent of students who took the surveys said they learned a new
skill and 89 percent said they used that skill to avoid future incidents (Lansing School
District, 2007). The findings from this study (RJ’s success at reducing or stopping future
offending for some students and potential for improving students’ academic

achievement), in light of the survey results, suggest that R] could be a useful tool for

51

improving students’ prosocial behavior and commitment to school through building
bonds, as suggested in the theoretical model in Figure 2.

Participant satisfaction ratings with the RJ process hint at possible strengthening
of the bonds between the students and the school by building a sense of belief in the
legitimacy of the school disciplinary process, in turn building belief in school rules. If
students believe in the school rules they are more likely to obey them, leading to less
incidents (Tyler & Blader, 2000). The reduction in the number of firture incidents and
the seriousness of future incidents by students who participated in a R] intervention helps
to keep them in the school community by preventing or reducing suspensions days. Just
being in the school community keeps the students involved and linked to prosocial others
and the conventional institution (school), which would lead to more prosocial behavior.
Saving suspension days and staying in the school community also keeps the students out
of the streets and away from antisocial people and choices.

The role of the family may also play a part in the success of RJ for some students.
According the facilitators of the restorative justice interventions at the school, some
parents are often a poor influence for their children. Facilitators report that parents often
cause more problems during the intervention than the students who were involved in the
incident. The actions of the parents at home may be shaping the student’s behavior in
school. Despite these reports on difficulties posed by parents and adult supporters, these
same adults indicate that the process appears to be a positive experience for this group.
By the end of the interventions, surveys given to the adult supporters of the students
found that 98 percent of them reported they were satisfied with the RJ process (Lansing

School District, 2007). It would be interesting to see if the parents were also able to learn

52

new skills during this process. If parents are learning better ways to handle conflicts, it
could help to improve the student’s bonds to their parents. If students feel a stronger
bond with their parents, it could keep the students fiom acting out in the future so they do
not damage those bonds. The link between an individual’s bonds to their family and
bonds to the conventional institution (school) in conjunction with the potential role
between family participation and success in R1 holds promise and is worthy of future

investigation (see Braithwaite, 2002).

What Can Be Learned?

Results from this study found that RJ seems to have the most effect on students
with minor prior incidents. This could be for a number of reasons; the incidents they
have are nonviolent or verbal, the incidents are better suited for an amends making
process, the students with minors are more amenable to change than students with major
incidents, or students with minor priors are better at applying the skills they learn in RJ to
avoid future incidents. In order to better understand how and why students with minor
incidents seem to do better in RJ, the types of minor incidents need to be better defined.
Categories like, insubordination, disorderly conduct, and persistent misconduct are not
clearly defined (Appendix A). What are the specific offenses being committed by the
student? Is it disrupting class, being tardy, or disobeying teaChers’ orders? These are
important question to help gain an understanding of what students are being disciplined
for and the specific offenses for which the RJ process may work best.

School researchers for the restorative justice program found that 90% of the

students surveyed said they learned a new skill in the RJ intervention. Another way to

53

test the effectiveness of the restorative justice program and one of its components, skill
building, would be to analyze the relationships between prior offending, perceptions of
the disciplinary process (RJ and traditional), and outcomes. Are the students reporting
that they learned a new skill staying out of trouble and if so how are they applying the
skill they learned? If they are the ones still getting into trouble, is there a better approach
that could be used? It would also be helpful to expand the survey to include additional
indicators of the potential outcomes of restorative processes (e. g. understanding the harm
they caused, feeling respected and included in the process).

In this study the measure for commitment and attachment to school was academic
achievement. As mentioned in the limitations there were many issues with using that
variable in this study. In the fiiture, commitment and attachment to school should be
measured using a variety of variables. For example, unexcused absences fi'om school. If
students are committed and attached to school they are less likely to skip school.
Similarly, participation in extracurricular activities could be used. Ifstudents are
involved in school government or are on a sports team they have more of an attachment
to school and are less likely to be involved in antisocial behavior. The student’s effort in
the classroom could also be measured. Sometimes grades do not reflex the effort that a
student is putting into their studies. Many of the students who are involved in incidents
are special needs students, and they may work hard in the classroom but it just does not
show in their GPA. Additionally, the survey could be expanded to include measures of
commitment and attachment.

In order to address the limitations encountered in this exploratory study, (e. g.

insufficient amount of follow-up time), longitudinal studies should be conducted to

54

follow students throughout their school career or at least for two to three years. It may
take time for the effects of the RJ intervention to work on some students, it is not a quick
fix (Braithwaite & Mugford, 1994). A longitudinal study would also help in addressing a
sustainability issue. If restorative justice does help to reduce future offending and
seriousness of future incidents, how long does it last? If there is a point when the effects
fade how long does it take and what can be done about it? Would it be helpful to have
follow-up sessions for students who were involved in a RJ intervention and how long
afterward? These are questions that a longitudinal study could help answer.

Surveys could also be issued to the students and the teachers to examine if they
see any effects of the restorative justices process. Teachers can assess students’ attitudes
and behavior in class and the effort of students in the classroom. Surveys can be given to
both students who participate in the RJ intervention and those who do not. Surveys for
the non-participants can asked questions about changes in attitudes of students in the
school. They can also be given to students involved in incidents (victims and offenders)
who did not go through the RJ process to see what they thought about the outcome and
fairness of the traditional process and compare that to the surveys of the RJ participants.
While the surveys currently taken by the school researchers provide some interesting
results, these surveys are anonymous and are not linked to any outcome measures. This
limits the ability to link attitudes and attitude change to behaviors and behavioral

changes.

55

Conclusion

Does a restorative justice intervention, compared to a traditional school discipline
process, improve commitment and attachment to school, leading to school success for
middle school students? Although this study did find that restorative justice helped to
reduce or stop firture offending for certain students (students in poverty with minor priors
in the third semester and students with minor priors in the fourth semester), it did not find
a link to school success. There are a number of reasons, listed in the limitations section,
that could have produced this result; sample size, missing data, or length of the study; all
which can be solved with more data and more time.

There is, however, another reason RJ may not be reaching its full potential and
affecting more students in the school; implementation and quantity. According to
Morrison, Blood, and Thorsbome (2005) successful outcomes of restorative justice
practices seem to be linked to broader school reform. Having a restorative justice
program as an alternative to the traditional disciplinary process is good but there needs to
be more of a comprehensive presence. A cultural change needs to occur within the
school so restorative practices are used in the classrooms not just as a way to help resolve
conflicts. If restorative processes are used throughout the school, students will have more
exposure to them and more chances to develop new skills to avoid conflicts and use those
skills in supported and routinized processes.

Such a cultural change could also help to decrease reported incidents in school
and detention or suspensions because teachers will be able to use these restorative
practices in the classroom and incidents that might have led to a disciplinary action could

be solved within the class. With student incidents being resolved in the classes or

56

between each other the chances of suspension should go down, keeping students in
school and giving them a better chance of doing well academically. A change in school
culture could also lead to the student feeling a stronger commitment and attachment to

school also providing an opportunity for increased academic success.

57

Appendix A

Seriousness of incident was coded as O for no incident 1 for public order offenses and 2
for serious offenses.

Public order offenses include:
Insubordination

Disorderly Conduct

Persistent Misconduct
Disrespect for Safety Patrols
Possession/Use of Tobacco
Abusive Language

Verbal Assault

Malicious Destruction

Obscene and/or Lewd Behavior
Tresspassing/Loitering/Unauth
Possession of Beepers, Pagers, ect.
Possession of Games or Toys

Serious offenses include:
Bullying

Sexual Harassment or Intimidation
Ethnic/Racial Harassment/Intimidation
Intimidation/Stalking/Threat
Possession/Use of Other drug
Sale/Use/Distribution of Drugs
Sale/Possession/Use of Explosives
Thefl

Fighting

Physical Assault (Student)
Physical Assault (Teacher)
Extortion/Robbery

58

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