The findings from the Clayton county, Georgia restitution experiment indicate that youths required to make restitution to their victims either through community service or monetary payments generally had lower recidivism rates than those given the more traditional juvenile court dispositions. Furthermore, the results suggest that restitution works quite well on its own, without being combined with mental health counselling. In contrast with many other types of delinquency programs, the restitution intervention not only had a positive impact when contrasted with traditional dispositions, but slowed the delinquency rate of the group. The overall offense rate of the restitution-only group, for example, dropped from approximately one offense per youth per year to .74 offenses per youth for a 1-year time period. (Author abstract modified)