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National Assessment of Adult Restitution Programs - Executive Summary

NCJ Number
78481
Date Published
1981
Length
78 pages
Annotation
This report summarizes the results of the national assessment of adult restitution programs, a study designed to provide a state-of-the-art summary as well as program models for the use of monetary restitution and community service restitution as sanctions for adult offenders.
Abstract
The study tasks included a review of the restitution literature, identification of currently operating programs, and a telephone survey of current programs. Other tasks included an intensive study of 20 selected projects, development of composite models of a monetary restitution project and a community service restitution project, and a survey of offenders and victims. Results showed that community service projects can be grouped into two basic categories. Programs which primarily serve felons regard community service as less important than the other sanctions, while projects serving mostly misdemeanants impose community service as an alternative to other sanctions. Among program and research needs are clarification of the penal purpose to be served by community service, studies of program costs, clearer definitions of the actual offender population served, and pilot projects to determine if programs being developed for misdemeanants could also be used for felons. Study of 13 projects involving monetary restitution components indicated such needs as systematic data collection on measures of restitution activities and the presumed outputs of each activity in order to develop clear understandings of program operations in relation to conceptual models. Other questions requiring further research include the extent to which victims and offenders perceive sanctions as fair and appropriate and public attitudes toward monetary restitution and community service sanctions. Tables, figures, and a bibliography listing about 400 references are provided.