Restorative Justice Conferencing in Queensland

The QFCC’s issues paper Designing a Better Response to Youth Offending in Queensland: Raising the age of criminal responsibility suggested Queensland implement a restorative justice approach to enable the minimum age of criminal responsibility to be increased to 14 years of age. The QFCC now intends on examining the state of Restorative Justice Conferencing in Queensland to determine what our state is doing well and what we can be doing better so that Restorative Justice Conferencing effectively diverts children and young people from the youth justice system.

The Restorative Justice Conferencing in Queensland report:

• compares Restorative Justice Conferencing legislation and practice in Queensland with other jurisdictions in Australia and New Zealand to identify the strengths in Queensland’s model and future opportunities
• combines the findings of previous evaluations of Restorative Justice Conferencing in Queensland with more recent public data to create a statistical picture of the cohort of children and young people being referred to and participating in the program
• outlines the outcomes of Restorative Justice Conferencing for the children and young people who participate.