U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Restitution as an Atlernative to Incarceration - Experimental Results From Ada County, Idaho

NCJ Number
96622
Author(s)
W R Griffith
Date Published
1983
Length
18 pages
Annotation
A comparative study of juvenile offenders randomly assigned to restitution or incarceration treatments in Boise, Idaho, suggests that incarceration has no greater effect on recidivism than restitution and possibly produces negative consequences.
Abstract
In the project, 83 youths were assigned restitution which involved a monetary or unpaid community service order, while 95 were sentenced to incarceration -- on the average l week in an institution. No significant statistical differences existed between the two groups. Both were predominantly white males with a mean age of 15 who attended school full-time. Data on recidivism were collected from official court records. For youth assigned restitution, 47 percent committed no subsequent offense, while 41 percent of youths assigned to incarceration did not recidivate. When rates were calculated and standardized to reflect the number of offenses per 100 youths per year, annual rates of reoffending were about 14 percent higher for the incarcerated group. Another study of these referrals in Boise showed lower rates of reported self-delinquency among restitution youths. These two sets of findings, coupled with the lower costs of a restitution program and the benefits produced for the victim, the community, and the offender, suggest that the restitution project be continued. Tables and four references are supplied.